Rich foods, running, & the Police

*Note to self*

Don't go to The Melting Pot & gorge yourself on yummy, uber rich foods & fancy Cosmopolitans the night before you're going to do sprints.

Oy.

It's all my friend, Lori's fault for having a birthday & wanting to celebrate it by having a special "Girl's Night". I'll have to admit, it was good times. But this morning & pretty much all of today, my tummy wasn't very pleased. I was hoping I'd feel better by track practice, but no such luck. But I sucked it up & did the 1/2 mile sprints with the rest of the gang, and you know what? I actually did really good! In fact, I'd run almost as fast as I'd done 2 weeks previously when we did 1/4 mile sprints. I was only about 5 seconds slower. I was really surprised! Imagine how good I could've done if I didn't feel like total crap. This is encouraging. :)

The real test will be this Saturday because Friday night is the Police concert so I already know I'm going to go into that long run (8 miles this week) on VERY little sleep. But there's absolutely no way I'm gonna miss the Police. It's the Police! Nuff said! :)

Background info

I realized with that last post I mentioned Meredith & Emily having cancer & Kelly's dad dying & you (the whole 2 of you that read this) probably have no idea what I'm talking about. Here's the background info on that.

Meredith: She is the sister of one of my best friends (& former roomate), Evan. A little over 3 weeks ago, she was diagnosed with stage IV Hodgkin's Lymphoma. Oddly enough, that diagnosis was wonderful news, as they originally thought she had liver cancer (the 1st tumor they found was on her liver), which would have been an absolute death sentence for her. However, since it's "only Lymphoma", she has about a 65% chance. We're very optimistic. It helps that she is one hell of a fighter. She just started chemo @ MD Anderson about a week or so ago. I am running the Nike Women's Marathon in her honor.

Kelly's dad: Kelly has been my best friend since we were 14 (over 20 years!). I spent pretty much all of my free time from the age of 15-18 & any time I was home from college w/ her at her dad's house, where she lived. Well, the same day Meredith was diagnosed w/ Lymphoma, Kelly's dad was diagnosed with end-stage lung cancer. By the time it was discovered, it was too late. The doctors gave him 2 weeks to 6 months to live. He lasted 3 weeks. :(

Emily: My Team in Training coach & the team's second Mom. A little while back she'd been having hip pains. It kept getting worse so she went to the dr. for an MRI. They found lesions on the bone. Eventually, after many tests, the final diagnosis was bone cancer. Quite a kick in the pants, especially since she had already survived breast cancer at least 15 years ago. Even though she's going thru chemo & needs crutches to walk, she still shows up every single Saturday to coach the team. She is quite possibly the toughest lady I know. She's still signed up for the Nike Women's Marathon & is supposed to train with us, but until she's healthy & can run again, each & every one of us on the team are running for her.

Speaking of Nike... if you would like to help me out with my fundraising for this event, please visit my TNT website & make a donation. THANK YOU!!!!

Keeping it up

I'm almost afraid to say this, but things are still looking good. These last few runs I've done have been really consistant. I seem to have my pace per mile down to about 15:10 to 15:15 which is a big improvement from when I started a few months ago. Before I could barely keep it under 16 mins/mile. If I continue to get stronger & lose more weight (I think I've dropped about 8-10 lbs now), I'm hoping I can get my time down to about 14:30. That would be fantastic for me.

As much as I absolutely DESPISE the heat, it seems to kinda be working for me. Maybe all that heat is keeping my muscles looser. Who knows? It could be a whole different story when it's late August/early September & I'm running double-digit miles in 100º temps. But at least I'm pretty much guaranteed temps that are at least 20 degrees cooler in San Francisco on race day.

Speaking of San Fran... I must say that I'm really glad Coach Dan is making us do so many hills. That's the one thing that was lacking in my previous training periods & it really hurt me (particularly in San Diego last year). Dan has us doing the hills at Shepherd &/or multiple runs of the 5 story parking garage in all of our long runs, plus every other Tuesday night we do a 3 mile run plus at least 3 runs of the parking garage. (I'm sure the # of times we do the garage will increase as the season progresses. We started out @ 1 & are up to 3 now.) I'm actually surprising myself at how well I'm taking the hills. Since I can't really run down them (too much jarring on the ole spine) I'm really tackling them going up, giving it all I've got. I may be slow going up them now, but I have no doubt I'll get faster. I already have a little bit so far. I still have 4 months left to get even better.

I'm kinda surprising myself at how optimistic I've been about this training season. Maybe I'm just taking it more seriously this time around, what with Meredith & Emily having cancer now. Sadly, my best friend's dad lost his 3 week battle with cancer & died this past Saturday. I thought of him on that last pass on the parking garage run on Tuesday night when I came *this close* to stopping. I said to myself "NO! You can't stop! Think of Kelly & all she's going through now that her dad is gone. Do it for them!!" It really helped. I've got to keep going. It's all I can do.

*side note*

I thought it was kind of ironic that at the very moment Kelly's dad died of cancer, I was at Biba's having breakfast with cancer survivor & fellow marathoner, Jonathan. I guess in a way it all comes full circle, eh?

Aaawwww YEAH!!!

I swear, tonight was the hottest night yet. It poured rain right before I left for the park & by the time I got there, the rain had ended & there was steam... actual STEAM coming off the road. OY!! However, maybe all this friggin' heat is actually good for me because tonight at track practice I KICKED ASS! We did 1/4 mile sprints & my total pace per mile was 13:39!! Sweet!! I couldn't believe I was able to keep up the same pace every single 1/4 mile. Only one was slower & it was only by about 4 seconds. The rest were all almost identical (only 10th of seconds off). I feel GREAT!!! :)

Now that's more like it!

Today's long run: 6 miles.

I only checked my watch once the entire time I was out there & that was at the 1/2 way point. At that moment, I'd been out there for just a hair over 45 minutes. I couldn't believe it! I figured there was no way I could keep that pace up for the rest of the way but dammit, I was gonna try. I refused to look at my watch the entire rest of the way back to the park. When I got to that last 1/4 mile, I kept chanting to myself "You can do it! Just PLEASE be no more than 1:36:00. PLEASE be no more than 1:36:00!! You can do it! You can do it! Only a few steps more to go!" I didn't look at anyone on the trail. I just stared at the ground in front of me, concentrated on my breathing & my form, tried to ignore the river of sweat running down my entire body (good GAWD it's hot out there!!) & just kept on going. When I finally got to the finish I looked at my watch.

1:31:06

I couldn't believe it! I threw my arms up in the air & said "YES!!!" I'm sure people looked at me funny but I didn't care. After a week of terrible runs, I finally made progress. It felt great! And my body feels great. My back was only sore in the beginning, but that's always how it goes. Once I'm about a mile or 2 in, I'm loosened up & the pain goes away. Let's hope I can keep it up. :)

Highs, lows & a need for anger management

Again, I apologize for not posting in so long. I'm not even sure how many people still read this thing. I'm thinking it's only a couple. So for those brave few of you that still check this here blog, here's a little post for you.

Training has been going ok so far. I've had some highs & lows. The lows are mostly just me being disappointed in myself for not doing better. I'm so competative with myself & when I don't do as well as I think I should, I tend to beat myself up over it. I keep trying to tell myself "remember... 10 months ago you couldn't even walk!" But to that I usually just say "yeah... TEN friggin' months! You should be better by now!"

I know. I'm bad.

The worst is when I'm out there "running", thinking I'm doing great. Then I come home, map out the route I just ran, then look at my time & realize I was slooooooowwwwwww. Today was one of those days. I just got back from a quick run thru the neighborhood. Just a week ago I ran a similar route, thinking it wasn't very far, but when I mapped it when I got home I saw it was much further than I thought. I had the best time I've had in what seems like forever: avg. of 14:40 per mile. WALKING! I was thrilled! So today I decided to take that route & add to it. Again, I didn't map it out beforehand. I just played it by ear. I started out a little slow but quickly picked up the pace. I felt like I was doing great... keeping my pace steady & going strong. When I got home & stopped my watch, I'd been out there for 49 mins. I was excited to see just how far I'd gone. I was SO disappointed to find out it was only 3.02 miles. That means I went from 14:40 per mile to 16:16 per mile. I was LIVID! How could that be? I felt like I was going so much faster. I was in the friggin' ZONE! Hell, I did better on Saturday when I went 5 miles (15:50/mi). GRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!

This is me... kicking myself.

Maybe that parking garage* I ran on Tuesday did more of a number on my legs than I thought. I don't know. All I know is that I'm pissed & want a "do over". Unfortunately I'm too tired. So instead I'll take a cold bath, then shower & go to bed. Maybe I'll feel better about it tomorrow.

Yeah. Doubt it.

(* Btw... I did great w/ that parking garage. I was able to go full speed up all 6 or 7 levels twice, & of course the down part was easy. Plus, I had to run about 1.5 miles to the garage, then another 1.5 miles back to my car. It didn't take me nearly as long as I thought it would, & I even walked back to my car pretty damn slowly. Definitely need to do that at least once a week to strengthen my legs.)

Take THAT!!! :)

Sorry I haven't posted in forever. Life is crazy.

I just have to brag for a second... today is the Rock & Roll Marathon in San Diego. A kid that I have grown to love & adore over the past year... 18 year old Jonathan Nitsch... my former honored patient who for over 2 years battled Lymphoma & almost 1 year ago today was declared cancer free... just finished the Rock & Roll Marathon with a time of 4:56:51.

Take THAT cancer!!!

This is me.... BEAMING with pride. :)