Wednesday, November 28, 2012

W.A.R.T.S. 5K Recap

Originally, Wifey was going to write this post because Saturday was a big day for her, but she honestly doesn't have time to do it!  So I will do my best to cover everything we talked about.

First of all, what is W.A.R.T.S.?!  The acronym stands for We All Run Together for Sandy.  This was a benefit event put together by the owners of The Sneaker Shop in Ocean City, NJ to assist the residents affected by hurricane Sandy.  This was not an "official" race by the city, just a group of people who wanted to help.  There were no race bibs, no clocks or timers, and your registration fee was a donation of goods or money to the cause.  For more about the origins of this race and another recap, check out Kashi's Cape Island Runner's Blog!

The Night Before

Since the race was in Ocean City, over an hour and a half away, we knew it was going to be an early morning.  We were lucky enough to have Wifey's mom stay over the night before to watch the kiddos so that both of us could do this run together.  Wifey was pretty nervous about  this run because she had yet to run 3.1 miles in her life.  EVER!  The furthest she had gone was 2.6 Miles, and that was the week before the race!  I assured her that she would be fine and that she could in fact do this.

Wifey's concern was finishing, but I was more worried about staying warm but not overdressing like I did earlier in the week.  The night before the run I chose what I would be wearing - My black tights and a bright pink LS compression shirt.  And of course, gloves & an earband.  I decided to forgo the additional shirt since I was too warm last time, though I was nervous about making the wrong decision.  Finally, I decided I would bring the outer layer and decide when we get there if I would need it or not. 

And of course, there was the fear that we would lose the pack & be completely lost in Ocean City and not know where we were or how to get back to our car.   This was much more likely since streets wouldn't be blocked off or labeled because it wasn't an "official" race.

Getting Started

Of course we were running late the morning of the race.  It got to the point of us not being sure we would actually make it in time, but we decided to chance it and hope for the best.  The only details we had were to meet at 9am at the recreational center, and we were hoping they would allow for late-comers!  In case we missed the actual start, our back-up plan was to find the boardwalk and make up our own run.

Amazingly we made it just before 9am!!  Not much before, but we didn't miss everything!  I got the chance to meet up with Kashi, who has been a running inspiration to me since the start of this whole journey.  Unfortunately she was nursing an injury she got right before the Philadelphia marathon, so no running for her this day :(  But she was there to cheer everyone on nonetheless! 

Since we ran to use the bathroom before everything started we of course missed the course overview and I immediately started panicking, thinking that my biggest fears had come true and we were going to be lost in a city we didn't know!  (You know, because we don't have smartphones now with GPS)  Luckily, Kashi filled us in on everything and it was pretty simple...run straight down 18th Street to the boardwalk, go down to the Music Pier at 8th Street, turn around and come back.  Easy.  Yes!

Here We Go!!

I knew going into this that today was all about Wifey and her first 5K.  This was not going to be my fastest run or any kind of record breaking event, rather a chance to prepare for next weekend's race in the cold weather.  I let Wifey set the pace that was comfortable for her and I followed her lead.  I reminded her not to get over zealous and go too fast too early.  She definitely pushed herself because she couldn't get more than a word out at a time, but she kept going. 

It was definitely a gorgeous day out!  The sky was clear, the sun was shining, and it wasn't too cold.  I definitely dressed accordingly for the day.  But one of the things that surprised me the most was the wind!!  I knew it would be windier near the ocean than it is in our West Jersey home.  However, there were a few gusts that pushed us around the boardwalk and I was not prepared for that!

Another surprise for me was how much I LOVED running on the boards!!  They are easy on the body, give you a little extra spring in your step, and hey - it's ALWAYS great to be on a boardwalk!  I had ZERO aches and pains after this run, where I usually have at least a little twinge or two that need to be stretched afterwards, whether it be on the treadmill or pavement.  If I lived closer to the beach, I would definitely be running outside more often in ANY season!

Results

When all was said & done, according to MapMyRun (click to view the run!), we ran 3.08 miles in 38:40.  Not bad for Wifey's first 5K!  And in the cold!  Our average pace was 12:32, which is right around Wifey's normal speed.  Fantastic for someone who didn't really have time to fully prepare for a 5K and just threw herself into it!  I am so proud of her for finishing, for not walking or stopping, and for wanting to run with me next weekend in the Race for the Hungry Holiday 5K in Burlington!  Way to go Wifey!!

Wifey & I on the boardwalk, just after we turned around - Halfway there!!  Who wants ice cream??!!

Monday, November 19, 2012

Cheering for Wifey - 2.6 Miles

I just wanted to take a second to cheer wifey on.  Yesterday she ran 2.6 miles outside in the cold.  This is the furthest she has ever run and she was incredibly nervous about taking on the challenge.  She is hoping to run a full 5K this Saturday with me so she is in full-on prep mode.  Until now, her longest running distance was just over a mile, and she more than doubled it yesterday in one single attempt.  I think yesterday's run proved to her that she is more than capable of doing it, and I am so proud of her for taking on this challenge with me :)  Way to go wifey!!


Sunday, November 18, 2012

Running in the Cold

So, some fun stuff has happened since my last post!  The #1 being that wifey & I are going to be running a 5K together to benefit the victims of Hurricane Sandy next Saturday, November 24th!!  For anyone interested, here's the info:  
W.A.R.T's -- We All Run Together for Sandy. Wear a bright color shirt, show up at 9am at the OC AQUATIC CENTER (1735 Simpson Avenue, Ocean City, NJ 08226), and bring canned goods, blankets, etc. for those dealing with the aftermath of Sandy! Run, walk or crawl 5k or 5 miles!
Black compression top
I hope some of you can join us!  This is wifey's first 5K and she's a little nervous since she hasn't fully trained for one yet and only has a week, so the extra support would be great too!  Plus, the donations will help people in need.

Well, now that I had 2 colder runs coming up, I used the rest of my birthday funds to buy some cold weather running gear at Target.  I was really anxious to get outside and see how all of this stuff worked, figure out what would be comfortable and what wouldn't, and also just run in the cold.  So yesterday I geared up and went outside for a crisp morning run!

Black running tights
Luckily, it wasn't too too cold out in the morning.  According to weather.com it was about 41 degrees when I headed outside at 8:30.  So I donned some running tights (which made me SUPER self-conscious), a long-sleeve DuoDry compression top with an additional long-sleeve zip top, some touch-screen compatible gloves (AWESOME!), moisture wicking socks, and an earband.  

I also recently obtained an iPhone so I wanted to use MapMyRun for the first time.  However, it did not fit with the armband that I had for my iPod so I struggled to find a way to keep the phone on me.  I ended up using the pocket from my water bottle to hold the iPhone and just stuck the earbuds in my ears.  The earband worked great at keeping them in too!  However, I had to leave the pocket zipper a little open to let the wire come out which made me nervous that I was going to drop/break/lose the brand new phone.  So I need to come up with a better way of doing this.  My sister told me about some wireless earbuds but they cost about $40 and I don't want to spend that much money on a solution for this.  So I think I'm going to look for a cheap iPhone arm band.  The other problem I had was that combining the weight from the water bottle & the phone made holding the water bottle uncomfortable for me.  Usually I don't start to get annoyed with the bottle until the end of the run, but maybe a quarter of the way in I was struggling.  I did notice that I drank a lot less in the cold than I do normally, but I don't know that that was a good thing or something that I want to repeat.  So yeah, a new arm band it is!
Long-sleeve zip top

A few minutes in I realized that I had overdone it with the shirts.  Since I am a total spaz there was no way I was going to be able to strip the top layer off while running (hell, I had a hard time taking it off while standing still in my room!), so I said, "Oh well!" and kept right on running.  The route I had in mind was going to be somewhere between 2 & 3 miles (wasn't sure until I did it) so the absolute longest I would have to suffer is half an hour.  Totally do-able.  The other thing that I hadn't gotten right was the gloves...my hands were still cold.  Since it wasn't even that cold out I'm thinking that I might need to invest in something warmer than what I got.  Everything else was great!  
Touch screen compatible gloves

Interesting finds:
  • Running in the cold sucks!!  My lips & face felt chapped from just a few minutes in.  I wish I had lathered my face with vasoline or something before heading out, that's how awful it was and it's only going to be worse on the days of my runs!  Not sure what to do about that one...suggestions anyone?
  • I was thankful for my gloves even though my hands were still cold because they gave me something to wipe my very runny nose on, lol.  Gross.
  • I felt as though I was running slower in the cold than I normally do.  After looking at my pace on MapMyRun, it looks like I started out a little slower than my normal pace but then I slowed down as the run went on.  I'm not sure if this was from the cold or if it was because the only thing I consumed before leaving the house was some juice.  I don't normally run totally empty like this, except for the few times when I run early in the morning.  I don't want to waste the time of getting food together & then having to wait even longer for it to digest a little before I run.  It hasn't been an issue in the past, but I'm wondering if it didn't slow me down a bit.
  • Towards the end of the run I felt like my body was going to give out.  Again, I'm not sure if this is a cold thing or lack of food thing.  When I've gotten tired during a run it's always been the difficulty breathing that's gotten me and not fatigue in my legs.  Yesterday my legs felt like they were having a hard time working right, and as I approached my house at the end I felt like I was going to throw up.
  • Aside from the warmth from having too many shirts on, I didn't really sweat at all until I got back inside my house & started to stretch.  That's when the sweat started pouring from my head.  I thought that was odd.
  • As with every other time I have run outside, today my hips are killing me in a way that they don't when I run on a treadmill.  No clue what's up with that. 
  • Wearing black tights & a black compression shirt (under the zip top) made me feel like I was wearing a cat suit.  I proceeded to prance & pounce around the house mimicking a jazz cat for a while.  It was amusing.  Especially if you appreciate Fosse. 
I definitely need to run out in the cold again before either of the races but I need to do it with some food in my belly so I can figure out what got to me so badly yesterday.   

That's all I've got for now!  If you want to check out my run & stats, you can click here.



Monday, November 12, 2012

3rd Hotel Gym...This Time With Mirrors! Ack!

As you have probably guessed by now, I have given up on re-starting the Couch to 5K program to become faster.  It was frustrating me and actually make me NOT want to run because I felt like I had stepped so far back from where I was.  Having been given a new perspective on pretty much everything over the past week, I really don't care if I can't beat my PR of 30:05.  But I do always want to be able to run a 5K at the drop of a hat.  Hopefully if I just keep the endurance up, speed will eventually come or I'll somehow learn to get faster, or I'll stumble upon a training program that doesn't make me feel like I'm going nowhere, lol.  So for now, I'm just going to run.  The goal will always be 3.1 miles but as long as I'm moving, I'm OK with whatever my body will grant me :)

This past weekend we went to visit some friends up in Kingston, NY.  Thanks to Wifey's silver membership with Hilton we got a pretty good deal on a Hampton Inn, so I got to check out yet another hotel gym.  I have to admit, I kind of love hotel gyms!  There's TV's, super cool treadmills and I can people watch, which is one of my favorite activities.  Plus I feel all fancy-schmancy when I'm at a hotel gym.  I don't really know why, but just let me have my moments, lol.

This particular fitness center was the smallest of the 3 I have been in so far, but it was nice because it eliminated being surrounded by hoards of people which can make me uncomfortable.  But what I found to be the most interesting about this gym was the mirrors on the wall.  They had the treadmills lined up on an angle in front of a wall of mirrors.  At first I was not happy about it because I didn't really want to watch myself run.  I was sure that I looked like an idiot and I didn't want to blow the whole fancy-schmancy vibe I had going on in my head.  And for whatever reason, if I am in front of a mirror I feel a need to look at myself in it so looking away was not an option.  I don't think it's a vain thing...believe me, I don't usually like what I see, lol.

Not quite THIS good, but getting there!
So here I was, staring at myself in the mirror on a treadmill.  I started out with my usual quarter mile speed-walk to get warmed-up and I did NOT like what I saw!  I had no idea that my thighs moved so much when I walked!  That was saddening.  All of my life I have had these stick-figure legs that I've been self-conscious about because they were too twiggy, and now my skin is flapping about on them like deflated sails on a windless day.  Wonderful.  Ugh!  But then I started running and I was shocked; there was actual muscle definition on my legs!  I had no idea!!  When I ran my legs looked almost "normal", like a real runner's legs.  There were lines and firmness and actual leg matter there (remember the aforementioned twigs from my past)!!  I couldn't believe it!!  Calves where you could see the muscle flexing, quads that looked like muscle instead of twigs.  Even my arms were showing some muscle tone as they went back & forth.  I seriously couldn't believe it.  I knew my body was changing - that I could see just from looking at it on a daily basis.  But I have never seen myself in the process of actually running other than my finish-line pictures from the Spotswood 5K, and by the time you can see my legs I'm already slowing down & they look like windless sails.

So noticing my legs in the mirrors was the high point of this run.  I only did 2 miles but I'm OK with that.  We ended up going on a walk in the woods up a steep hill later on in the day so I did get some additional exercise and I feel pretty good about where I am right now :)

On another note...the birthday fairy has endowed me with some extra cash, so today I FINALLY signed up for the Dec. 1st 5K I previously mentioned that I had to back out of.  This one is for the Burlington Twp. Food Pantry and is the Race for the Hungry Holiday 5K.  It's $20 to register by November 30th, and $25 on race day.  Anyone looking to help support local food banks or just get in a nice cold run, come join me!

A Birthday Run - Running For Sandy

So it's been a while since my last post and it's not because I haven't been running, it's because I don't have time to write about it afterwards!!  So I don't think I can keep writing after every run anymore, but I did want to take the time to write about the run I had on my birthday, Sunday, November 4th. It was very emotional & interesting for me and very unexpected.

It had been a few days since Hurricane Sandy hit and it had been a few days since I had done running of any kind.  The bleak weather, lack of electricity, and getting my mom settled in with us while she had no power herself made fitting a run in difficult for me.  The training program I had been following had me feeling frustrated and lackluster towards this new sport I have thrown myself into.  So I honestly wasn't looking forward to it but knew I had to do it.

Me & the girl at Pt. Pleasant, July 2009
For days I had been looking at pictures of the devastation in disbelief.  I couldn't fathom what had happened to these places that hold so many memories for me.  In my childhood, days at the beach were spent at Sandy Hook and vacations were to Wildwood Crest where the beach was so large it felt like you walked for miles before hitting the water.  When I got older I headed to Seaside with my friends.  Our after-prom festivities, hooky days, and retreat before heading to college were spent on the rides of the Funtown Pier and in the sands beside the MTV beach house (for you youngsters reading this, the ORIGINAL MTV beach house back when it was merely a tent and people dancing on the beach, not this Jersey Shore BS).  And when I had children the MILF crew walked the boards of Point Pleasant and enjoyed all the fun Jenkinson's had to offer. I heard the reports about the Atlantic City boardwalk floating through the streets.  I heard that there had been damage to other boardwalks as well.  But I didn't see the image of the Star Jet in the ocean until the 3rd.  The bar we were supposed to sing karaoke at the night before in Brigantine was pretty much gone.  And it was on this day, the 4th that I saw the first images of Point Pleasant.  I guess I had hoped that since it stayed out of the news for so long that meant that not much damage had been incurred.  And when I saw the pictures, I couldn't wrap my head around it.  We were there just weeks ago. 

I went downstairs with a fuzzy head.  What was happening?  It wasn't fair.  I was angry.  I was sad.  I was happy we were OK.  I was frustrated that next summer would be so different.  I was upset that my 33rd birthday was completely overtaken by everything else going on in the world and I felt overlooked.  And so I ran.

Me & the boy at Pt. Pleasant carousel, July 2012
I ran with the intensity of all of the emotions I was feeling.  I ran angry because my karaoke bar was taken away from me.  I was angry that I had to explain to my 3 year old that no, we can't go to the aquarium for a while because the town around it is in pieces.  I thought of what she would say to me and how would I be able to tell her that the rides are broken and I don't know when or even if they will be fixed.  And then I cried.  I cried and I ran.  I cried because of everything that was lost.  I cried because of how stupid & selfish I felt.  Who cares about my 33rd birthday?!  I cried because I was disappointed in myself for being mad.  I have friends who don't have houses right now, how on earth can I think about karaoke?!  I cried because I didn't know what else to do and I felt completely helpless.  I cried and I ran.  I cried because of how lucky I am.  Lucky that all of my family is OK.  We were without power for less than 2 days and we are fine.  I cried because our rickety old house withstood this frankenstorm yet staples of our NJ shore heritage were gone.  I ran and I cried.  I cried because I could run.  I cried because while I was running on a treadmill thinking about how to explain to my kids that their summer fun place was gone, a woman's voice echoed questioning how she would tell her kids that their house was gone.  My God, I am so lucky.  I cried because I was so overwhelmed with joy to be blessed with this life, MY life.  I cried and ran until the nonsense was gone and the tears were dry and the noise was silent.  And then I just ran.  I didn't care how tired I was or that I haven't run 3 miles since September and my hamstrings were screaming.  I ran.  I ran because I could.  The more I ran, the more I settled.

I ran 3.1 miles in 30:54.  When I was done I was at peace and my head was clear.  I've never had such an experience as this; it's probably the healthiest way all around that I've ever dealt with overwhelming, polarizing emotions.  I think I get it now, or at least I am starting to.