Category Archives: sgm

9 miles

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This is what I looked like after the nine miles…see, still smiling!

Warning: this is an extremely long and self-indulgent post…more for myself and my future running than anything else. It’s not particularly funny, so if you aren’t actually interested in running, you may just want to skip the read. (See, I try to be considerate.)

According to my training schedule, today my long run should have been five miles. Yes, should have been. However, because I will be in Las Vegas next weekend, I decided that, after the wonderful experiences I had running in Arizona, nine miles (what I should have done next Saturday) did not sound like a good time. So, I flip-flopped my two long runs and did the nine miler today. And I’m still alive to tell about it.

Preparations began yesterday, when I went to Runner’s Corner to purchase the hydration belt I’ve been eying, along with some BodyGlide and some GU Energy Gel. They were out of the first two and I decided that I didn’t really want GU. I have never tried it, but I couldn’t manage to imagine GU being anything but disgusting. I mean, it’s called GU. While I was disappointed about the belt and the Body Glide, the one high point was the discovery of these fabulous little gummy things called Shot Block Energy Chews. Apparently, three blocks give you the same energy/fuel/whatever as one thing of GU. I still wasn’t sure I would like them, but gummy beats gooey any day of the week in my book, so I purchased two little packs of those.

I got home last night at about 10:30 pm. I needed to get to bed, but I also needed to put a new playlist on my iPod for my run. I have this thing about long runs and new playlists. So, I sat down and started to prepare the list. I put on enough songs to cover the length of the run, plus a few extra at the end, just in case. The songs at the end were not songs I necessarily like while running, however, I thought that would be motivation for not getting to them, i.e. running faster.

And now, to this morning. First of all, after running with Dianne and shuttling cars, I have decided that one-way runs are the only way to go. But Dianne was not available for running this weekend, so I had to find another alternative. Thankfully, I have a great dad who was happy to drive me up the canyon at 6:30 am. I drove my car to the mouth of the canyon and parked it (my dad was shocked to see just how full the little parking lot was at 6:30 am on a Saturday – he thinks we’re all crazy). And then Nev (aka “my dad”) drove me up the canyon, clocking nine miles on his odometer, all the while chatting about how runners never look happy. Thanks, Nev. Just what I need to hear before setting out to run nine miles.

I watched my dad drive away, holding my iPod, water bottle and little ziplock bag containing six energy chews, feeling a little nervous about the run ahead of me and wondering, once again, what the hell I was thinking when I signed up for the St. George Marathon. I stretched a little and then set out on my run.

The running was FANTASTIC! Yes, I know I put that in all caps and ended with an exclamation point, but it’s true. And I attribute the sheer joy of my run (okay, it wasn’t all joy, but it was really, really good), to the planning I did ahead of time and a couple of little changes I made in my routine.


First, I did not put my goal into my iPod like I usually do, thereby eliminating the little voice that normally tells me when I’ve completed one mile, then two miles, etc. which also made it so I had absolutely no idea how fast (or slow, as it were) I was running. Running is definitely as much a mental thing as it is a physical one and I thought that perhaps by not waiting and longing to hear that voice every mile and not worrying about how not fast I run, the run might not feel so tedious. I was right.

The next thing; I incorporated walk breaks. When doing long runs, especially for the novice runner like myself, there are several different schools of thought, but one tip that seems to be pretty common is to take walk breaks every so many minutes. Well, I didn’t want to look at my iPod (my only source of time) at all for all of the previously mentioned reasons, so I decided, rather than timing my breaks, I would just walk every fifth song (four minutes walking for every 16 running).

And, while we’re on the music subject, I also made sure to mix the playlist up a bit, both the songs and the order, without paying much attention to where I was putting different songs. This way I didn’t know which songs were coming when or where the songs fell (which would also give me an indication of how far I’d gone). This kept things interesting, especially since, as you will see in the list below, I put some pretty random stuff on there.

Energy chews were a new thing for me. I have run farther than nine miles three other times in my life, never using any type of energy booster. Once again, reading came in handy here. The advice that seemed most logical to me was a little bit of fuel regularly throughout my run, rather than a lot in the middle (which is how some people do it). Not wanting time to be involved in any aspect of my run, as stated previously, I decided that every time I took a walking break, I would consume one block. I estimated that I would take about five walking breaks, so I would have one extra block. That block I ate just before starting my run, at which point I was happy to discover that I am a fan of that particular flavor (Cran Razz) and the texture didn’t make me gag at all.

The last thing I decided to do was a little more spontaneous. After my dad’s comments about runners being angry, I decided to make a conscious effort to smile and say “Good Morning” to every person I saw along the way, whether walking, running or biking. I was not going to be one of those runners who was angry she had to run nine miles. I have to admit that, even with all of the “power of positive thinking” stuff I’ve read over the last ten years of my life, I was surprised at how much this seemingly small and insignificant act affected my attitude.

All of those little things combined made for a very enjoyable run! So enjoyable, in fact, that I ran 9.4 miles before checking my iPod for stats. I was still half a mile away from my car. It turns out nine miles on the road is almost ten on the trail. And, upon completing, Lance Armstrong informed that I had set a new PR for my one mile time. How great is that! And I wasn’t even trying.

Here’s the playlist. Copying Anne’s idea, I’m going to put some little notes by the songs so that I can refer to them later.

1. Freedom 90 / George Michael 6:30 – good as a starter song because of the length and tempo.
2. i wanna have your babies / Natasha Bedingfield 3:34 – as this song always makes me laugh, i love running to it. It may have been better a little later in the run.
3. Dance Dance / Fall Out Boy 5:02 – great song, good tempo.
4. Forever / Vertical Horizon 4:27 – I associate happy running memories with this song, so it worked well.
5. the doorbell encore / White stripes vs. jay-z vs. queen 4:16 – this was a perfect walk break song…a little on the slower side.
6. Here (In Your Arms) – remix / Hellogoodbye 3:54 – I like the remix much better than the original.
7. SexyBack / Justin Timberlake 4:02 – this was a great place for the first of the SexyBack installments. I was settling into, what felt like, a slower pace and this helped me pick it up.
8. Simply Being Loved / BT 4:21 – would have been a good walk break song…a little mellow for running.
9. Porcelain / Moby 3:58 – I just love this song. That’s all there is to it.
10. Too Much Heaven / Eiffel 65 5:19 – not a good walking song at all, so I didn’t walk to it. This was right just before I got to Vivian Park.
11. Open Your Heart / Madonna 4:13 – I really wanted to run to this song, so I only took a partial walk break. I should always have at least one old school Madonna song in the mix.
12. Hot ‘n’ Cold Pussycat / Basement Jaxx vs. The Pussycat Dolls 4:11 – Such a great song! Slow, but the words were totally inspirational. Ha ha ha!
13. Makes Me Wonder / Maroon 5 3:31 – I didn’t enjoy this song on the long run nearly as much as I liked it on my short runs earlier in the week, but it’s still good.
14. Twilight Back / Justin Timberlake vs. 2 Unlimited 4:00 – 2 unlimited and JT…fantastic and totally distracting, in a good way.
15. Can I Kick It Like That? / Pharrell vs. A Tribe Called Quest 4:08 – would have been a great walking song, but I wasn’t on schedule anymore, so I ran to it. A little slow, but definitely happy. 16. Standing Outside A Broken Phone Booth With Money In My Hand … 5:39 – another personal favorite and while slower, I prefer running to this one.
17. My Console / Eiffel 65 4:17 – Great song. It played somewhere between Bridal Veil and Nunns.
18. Living in a Bubble / Eiffel 65 5:05 – while I love me some Eiffel 65 (a mission discovery as Blue played in every Metro station regularly), two in a row of any artist is not my favorite thing. Also, I think I’m sick of this song.
19. No Apagues la Luz / Enrique Iglesias 3:49 – guilty pleasure. Enrique should always be in the mix, as well. And the Spanish version of this song was definitely the way to go.
20. Rush (New York City Club Version) / Big Audio Dynamite II 3:55 – Oldie but goody! Happy memories that definitely got me through a little lack of energy.
21. The Call / Backstreet Boys 3:26 – another guilty pleasure…absolutely fabulous!
22. Escape / Enrique Iglesias 3:30 – Should have been a little farther away from the other Enrique. Good walk length at the end. Had it been longer, it might have been too much. “You can run, you can hide…but you can’t escape my love.”
23. When You Were a Starlight / Team9 vs. The Killers vs. Muse 4:11 – Totally got my energy back up after walking and the mash-up was fantastic.
24. When You Cry / Vertical Horizon 3:30 – I like the song, but not towards the end of a run.
25. SexyBack / Justin Timberlake 4:02 – perfect timing for a second play. Right at the end, when I needed a little more.
26. The Sweet Escape (Konvict Remix) / Gwen Stefani featuring Akon 4:01 – I was still about half a mile from my car and I didn’t know where this song feel, but I finally decided to look at my iPod in the middle of it. 9.41 miles! Done.

insanity

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I’ve heard of heat exhaustion and lack of judgment from dehydration…I’ve just never experienced it before…here’s my story.

So, I decided that I would run to my friend’s house yesterday morning. I have been to AZ a few times since I moved away last summer and had yet to see her new home or her new baby (who will be a year old in a few weeks). I suppose I could have driven over, but I thought, why not run? Why not run? That right there should have been indication enough that something was seriously wrong chez moi.

When I told Vicky I would be running, she offered to come pick me up, but I turned her down. The run would be good for me. She gave me directions Monday night so that I could find it. I calculated the distance and knew that it was a little under eight miles away. I thought, as long as I got up early enough, this would be no big deal. I got up, got dressed and headed out the door with my water bottle. Now, from my run on Saturday, I knew I should have taken two bottles, but that seemed a little cumbersome, so I didn’t. Bad idea.

I had run about 3.5 miles when I realized exactly where Vicky’s house was. I mean, she had given me directions and I knew the distance, but I hadn’t thought too hard about them…and then, suddenly, I could picture her neighborhood and it just seemed so far. That, and by this point it was about 90 degrees outside and I was out of water. I wasn’t sure what to do. I had no cell phone on me, or money with which to use a pay phone. Turning around and going back to my sister’s would have taken almost as long. I had quite the conundrum.

Thankfully, there was a Circle K on the corner, so I headed over. There were pay phones on the outside, but I had no money, so they didn’t help me at all. I thought I would go inside and ask to use their phone, but then I figured if I asked one of the clerks to use the phone inside, he would just tell me to use the pay phone. This caused me to hesitate (I can’t handle rejection…in any form). I loitered for a bit in the nice air conditioning of the store, went back outside and debated what to do, went back into the store, then back outside again. I’m sure these clerks were looking at me thinking, “Wow, if she thinks she’s being sly about shoplifting, she really needs to rethink her strategy.” After leaving the Circle K for the second time, I decided to just suck it up and run. Yes, I would rather run 4.5 miles than ask to use a phone and get rejected. I am pathetic.

I was going to be much later than I had told Vicky and she was on a schedule, but I didn’t know what else to do. I got about a quarter of a mile down the road (did I mention that I have little rocks in my shoe at this point and I can feel new blisters forming…along with the fact that my water is now gone?) and decided there was no way I could finish. The sun was beating down on me. I was exhausted from the heat. I was out of water. I just started picturing myself passed out, on the side of the road, my skin crisping in the sun, dust blowing over me. Well, you get the picture.

I headed back to the Circle K (yeah, that’s not suspicious) and finally found enough courage to ask to use the phone. Surprisingly, the clerk just said “sure” and found the phone for me. I called Vicky and she just started laughing. I hadn’t said two words and she knew. I told her where I was at Queen Creek and Chandler Heights and that I would be heading north on Queen Creek (at which point, Vicky kindly told me I couldn’t head north on Queen Creek because it ran east/west…yep, I couldn’t even get the road right) and she headed out to pick me up. At this point, I knew she was coming and I suddenly had a burst of energy. I started running up the road with all the energy of someone who really does love running. I managed to get in almost a mile before she pulled up, laughing.

Lessons learned:

1. I have awesome friends who don’t hesitate to laugh at me when laughing is deserved.

2. The clerks at the Circle K on Power and Chandler Heights are really nice and probably didn’t assume that this girl in running get up with an iPod was going to shoplift.

3. Running without enough water is just stupid.

4. Running farther than three miles in Arizona in June is just stupid.

5. Running without a cell phone or money to use a pay phone is just stupid.

6. When a ride is offered and you don’t have to run 8 miles for training, not taking the ride is just stupid.

training tidbits

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1. Seven mile run in Arizona in June = bad idea. It doesn’t matter that I was up at 6:30 or that most of the run was in the shade, or that I had a water bottle with me. At 6:30, it was already 95 degrees, I don’t care how shady it was, it was still 95 and one water bottle was not enough. Not when it’s gone by mile four because I drank half and poured the other half on my head and the last mile and a half were not in the shade and the temperature had gone up by five degrees in the hour I was running.

2. New shoes are a bad idea for a seven mile run. Granted, I had done a six miler in them, but that was in Utah, where it wasn’t 95. I have my first blisters of the training season…and I was even wearing my lined socks, the ones that have two layers, the ones that are never supposed to give you blisters. Well, I came home with four…two on each foot.

3. I loved the running skirt…for the first two miles. I just need to purchase some anti-chafage stuff and then it will be fantastic (I would love any recommendations). I highly recommend trying one out! I was surprised by how much I loved it, even if it isn’t the cutest thing on me…which brings me to number four.

4. I love that, when I’m running, the last thing I think about is what I look like. I may think about it while I’m getting dressed, but once I’m running, I just don’t care…well, not beyond wanting to make sure I’m not flashing someone.

5. If you are going to run with a dog, make sure it’s one who is used to running as far as you are going. I took my brother-in-law’s dog, Nevica, with me the other day (it was only three miles). He laid down after about two and a half miles. Just stopped cold and laid down. So I dragged him the last little bit (not literally, he got back on his feet) and then he threw up promptly upon arrival back at my sister’s house, the poor thing. And just so you know, my brother-in-law was the one who told me he’d be fine. I never would have taken him had I thought it would cause him to vomit…and yet I have a feeling puking after running is very likely in my future and I keep doing it. Hmm, what does that say about me?

6. I am going to really miss being at my sister’s. She has a pool that I can jump into as soon as I get done running. It’s fantastic! That’s all I thought about during that last mile of the seven.

7. Music really does make a huge difference when running. A few of my recent favorites:
Sexy Back – Justin Timberlake
Find A New Way – Young Love
Hyperlink – Eiffel 65
Don’t Matter – Akon
Freedom 90 – George Michael
Give it to Me – Timbaland feat. Nelly Furtado and JT
Feel Good Inc. – Gorillaz
The Sweet Escape (Konvict Remix) – Gwen Stefani
Where Does the Good Go? – Tegan and Sara
Too Young to Fight – Young Love
Say it Right – Nelly Furtado
Living in a Bubble – Eiffel 65
Irreplaceable – Beyonce

8. And, on the whole music thing, I am once again going to advertise for Nike and Apple. Seriously, the Nike+ with the iPod nano is the best purchase I have made for this whole marathon thing. It’s so nice that I don’t ever have to look at my watch (or the clock on my iPod) because, at every mile, a lovely voice comes on and says, “one mile completed”, or “halfway point”, or “two miles to go”. I love it!

9. If you are a female nonrunner who is thinking about running a marathon, you need to get this book. Anne sent it to me (she’s also training for St. George) and I am loving it! It is informative and hilarious.

today’s run

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I am extremely lucky to live where I do right now with the running that I’m doing. It is not only a beautiful place to run, but I have met people with whom I can run on Saturday mornings. Dianne (she kind of got me into this whole race thing) and I hit the road at about 8:00 this morning. The nice thing when you run with someone is that you can shuttle. We park one car at the end of our run and drive the other one to the beginning, that way we don’t have to do an “out and back” run. This alleviates the halfway breakdown I regularly experience when I have to turn around knowing I am only halfway through. Not only that, but I love running with Dianne, specifically, because she pushes me (she runs just a bit faster than I do) and she keeps me going with all of the great conversation. I never thought I would be one for chatting while running, but it sure makes the time go by a little faster. It helps that she is a very interesting person (although I do have one headphone in my outside ear…I have to have music).

We had a great run. We did about 4.5 miles today at a good pace, and because Dianne has done St. George nine times, she knows great training routes which means that I will be well prepared. And after we finished our run (which seriously flew by), I went back to take pictures of the beautiful things I saw along the way…I’m a little photo-obsessed lately. Can you blame me?




Next Saturday…6 miles. It’s a good thing I have such beautiful things to look at and such great company or I’d never make it all the way to the marathon. I can’t imagine running being much better than this (well, okay, so running next to the ocean would win, but I won’t be living next to an ocean any time soon, so this is a close second).

st. george, here i come

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So, I found out that I made it into the St. George Marathon. It’s a lottery and I kind of entered it on a whim. When I wasn’t able to run the Canyon Lands Half-Marathon, I was kind of bummed, so I thought I’d sign up for the full in St. George…probably hoping, somewhere deep inside of me (or perhaps on the surface), that I wouldn’t get in.

After I registered for the lottery, I mentioned to a friend that I had done it and he asked, “Is this your first time?”

“Yes,” I replied.

“Then you’ll get in for sure. They always let first-timers in.”

Well, that would have been helpful to know about a minute before I registered. I might have thought about it a little bit more.

Not only did I get in, but it was one of the counselors at work who told me that I had. He came up to me and said, “I saw your name on a list. Looks like you’ve got some work ahead of you.”

My response: “What? I have no idea what you are talking about. What list?” I was truely at a loss, and this particular counselor likes to ‘banter’, so it took a few minutes to finally get him to tell me what the heck he was talking about.

This is my first year of running in races, and so far, I have been emailed whenever I have gotten in to a lottery, but there was no email this time, so I was grateful someone else was watching out for me. I am excited and nervous all at once. Running a marathon is on the list, and now I will get to do it before I turn 30 (yep…the big day is this year). I’m also glad that most training programs run about four months, so I have a month to get back into running daily.

And in true Andersen form, as soon as I found out, I decided it was time to purchase a running skirt. (This is a great blog post with lots of comments about the pros and cons). My voice instructor told me about them…so I did a little online searching and found these ones that have two pockets (how convenient! I can stick my iPod, gels, etc. right there in my skirt) and have received lots of positive reviews. I can’t wait for it to arrive!

Any words of wisdom or advice? Yes, I’m actually soliciting advice, so take advantage, as this rarely happens.