Red River Gorge part II

Day 2/night 3 

On my run today, I actually ran outside of our campsite and on some of the trail we hiked on Monday. It is not too hilly, but it is also not flat. I enjoyed changing up my run and not just doing laps. These rolling hills are killing me, but I am loving it at the same time. I wish I had a little more time to explore the national park. 

Once I got back from my run, we had breakfast and packed up to go to another camp site. We drove for about 25-30 minutes(maybe longer) and I finally had signal! It had been weird, but fun to go a few days with no phone. It has been really fun hanging out with this group. I tried my hardest to avoid the Bears game, but a couple of texts let me know the results were not pleasant. Thankfully this trip helped me avoid such a demoralizing loss. We set up camp and ate lunch in the parking lot of our site. That does not sound glamorous, but we had a great view and awesome weather. We got a kayaking lesson shortly after eating. 

Our view of Cave Run Lake

Kayaking is something I had not done before. I have canoed before and figured they would be the same;they are not. Needless to say, I struggled a little bit. Haha. I wish I had a good answer for him. Tomorrow should be interesting since we will be out there for much longer.

Making our tinfoil dinners 

Day 3/night 4

I thought my hilly run would be the toughest part of the day until we started kayaking. 

We packed up our site and kayaked over to eat breakfast in the parking lot again. Once we finished that, we started our journey to our new site and I definitely struggled out there. I could not keep my kayak straight to save my life. Haha. Eventually we took a tiny little break to eat lunch on a small little "beach" before continuing. We were pretty tired form kayaking into the wind and the sun bearing down on us. Shortly after eating lunch, we our muddy backcountry site. 

Cooking up some Jambalaya 

I do not know how long we were officially out here, but I would guess around two hours. That is a really long time for someone who never kayaks, a.k.a, me. Despite my struggles, I still had a lot of fun out there. The weather could not have been any better. Hopefully I will be able to put pictures up once I get pictures developed off of my disposable camera.

Not only were we tired after our little venture over to our backcountry site, but now we had to walk through the mud to get to a spot where we would set up our tents. Then, for a short while, we could not find my tent poles: we were sure we packed it into one of our kayaks. The boys really wanted me to sleep in their tent. The adults searched for a good while to find these tent poles and we eventually found them under the girls tent. That is probably the toughest thing I really had to deal with until tomorrow.

We have a tough day ahead of us as we kayak back to our site (where we were on day 2) to leave for another. The bonus of tomorrow is that we should get a warm shower! 

Red River Gorge Part 1

Some of you may not have noticed, but I went on a camping trip with the high school I work at for a week. It is called interim week at the school. The short explanation for it is that the school shuts down for a week and everyone does something that can be a service or a fun trip like I went on. That is a somewhat poor explanation, but is close enough for now. The next few blog post will detail what we did on the trip that I went on. We spent some time on a camping trip on the Red River Gorge in Kentucky.

Night 1

We had a semi long ride down to our site from Winnetka. It really only felt long because we made a few stops to eat and run a few errands. Once we finally got down there, we set up shop and started cooking dinner. We had burgers and chips that were pretty good, some kids told "scary stories" and we relaxed. The two guides talked about goals for the week and students were selected as leaders of the day. 

This should be an interesting trip because I'll be doing a lot of things I have never done before and spending it mostly without technology. I can nor remember the last time I spent time in a tent. Two of the girls and I are planning on going for a run in the morning. I'm glad there are a couple of people on the trip that enjoy it. I know for a sure that my friends who know me well are very surprised that I would agree to go on a trip like this. Haha. 

Day 1/night 2

Compression tights for the win(hopefully you will understand why later)! Two girls and I on the trip on doing our best to stay in shape, so we got up and ran. Together, we ran 1.67 miles or so. They split off after that to do sprints and I ran for a total of 45 minutes. 

We finished our activities and joined the group for scrambled eggs and bacon. After breakfast we talked to our student and two group leaders about the plan for the day and what we would do for lunch. Once we got ourselves together, we headed out for our adventure.

Bacon and eggs cooked by two students

As a group, we followed out student leaders and they used a topographical map to help us find a natural arch on the Sheltowee trail. For some reason, I got it into my head that this would be a flat adventure;oops. I spent a lot of time trying not to get hurt(I ended up with a bruise on my shin, but it wasn't my fault). We got a little lost while trying to find the first arch, so we take a break and ate lunch.

On our way to finding the natural arch 

Shortly after finishing eating, we found the arch! It felt good to find it and hang out there for a little while. The next step in the plan had been to find another natural arch, but after hiking for a few for more miles, we decided to head back to our camp site. 

The view while eating lunch

I can not say for sure how long we hiked, but we did at least ten miles. My CW-x compression tights were a lifesaver. My legs probably would have felt a lot different if it were not for that. During our walk back to camp, I kept looking at places I could run. I did eventually find some places I could get a few miles in. It is funny how my mind has changed since I started running.

Hanging out under the natural arch 

We had time to kill after we got backed and I attempted to learn to play euchre. Hopefully I will understand it a few more times after playing it a couple more times. Once we stopped playing, we had spaghetti and meatballs for dinner and relaxed.

My home for the week

Marathon Recap

I did not know quite sure how to do this race recap, so I decided to write a timeline of the day and some thoughts I had during the race.

Timeline for the day

4 a.m.-I wake up(thankfully) and kind of lounge around. Races make me paranoid and I never get much sleep. My high school reunion had been the night before and some of my classmates were wondering why I had not been in bed. I knew my body and knew I would not be in bed before midnight regardless of what time I got to bed. 

4:30 a.m.- I figured it would be ok to eat a Peanut Butter & Jelly Sandwich. I also had a 12 oz. glass of water. It would not be fun if I had to end up in the bathroom for either reason, so I ate and drank lightly. 

4:45 a.m.-Took a trip to the bathroom and showered. A shower always wakes me up a little, so I do it before every race. 

5:20 ish a.m.-Finally headed out to join the masses. It is time to get pumped up! 

6:30 a.m.- I finally arrived at Roosevelt College for the Chicago Endurance Sports (CES) Race Resort. It kind of felt a little overwhelming, so I made sure to use the bathroom and calm myself down a little. I got my warm-up in, chatted a little and checked my bags. Despite me saying it felt a little overwhelming, I highly recommend CES and the Race Resort. It felt awesome to not have to worry about using gear check at the marathon. 

7 a.m.- I finally left the race resort to head to corral D. In retrospect, this should have happened probably 15 minutes earlier, but I wanted to be on my own scheduled and not feel pressured. Either way, I got to my corral around 7:15 after waiting in a couple of long lines. It seems like they heightened security a little this year and that is fine with me. During the week, I had thoughts about sneaking into corral B because that corral fit my goal time. I ended up in corral D because at the time, who knew how well training would go and my predicted finish time matched that corral. I made the executive decision to stay in D because with the strict corral checks, it probably would not have happened anyways. 

7:20-I ran into a co-worker and we chatted about our goals. Being this far back worried me a little. I had questions like, Would I reach my goal? Should I try and catch the pace group in corral B? What if I get out too fast and kill chances of hitting my goal? Eventually, all those questions did not matter and I just had to do my best. 

7:38-This is slightly earlier than I anticipated;here we go! We are not even a mile into it and I am thinking, "I am running to slow." Trust the plan, I told myself. 18 weeks of training should not go to waste because you did not race smart. 

Somewhere between the start and 5k mark (8:02 a.m.)-The weaving in and around people drove me crazy. I hit the 5k mark with a time of 23:37 and trying to do the math in my head, I thought I had been around two minutes behind my goal pace. My split sheet says I had a pace of 7:36 at the time. 

8:25 a.m.-This, the 10k mark, is where I finally started to settle in a little bit and gain some space around me. Things felt smooth and the first GU Roctane just got eaten. My pace also picked up a little (to 7:30) between the 5K and 10k marks. It had not been enough to scare me, so I tried to to stay there for the next few miles. 

15k-7:24 pace

20k-7:29 pace

9:16 a.m.(13.1)-My second GU Roctane of the day just got eaten and I felt a little too good and my pace spiked up big time (7:29 to 7:07)!;oops. Time to slow it down and make sure my legs are good for the rest of this second half.  I hit the halfway point at 1:37:59;perfect! The remainder of the race got spent trying to do math in my head. 

Sometime after 25K-This is where things started to look like I could hit my goal. Now, I just had to mentally tell myself to race smart. I knew if I could make it to 18 and get my third GU in, I would start to feel even better about hitting my goal. Things were going well and that made me very happy. 

20 mile mark- The cramps always came shortly after this mile marker and that definitely made me nervous. I told myself, "Get to mile marker 23, take your GU, and things will be just fine." I just had to take things one mile at a time and not get too anxious or down. They always say running is largely mental and I made sure to make sure that my brain stuck with me. 

10:44 a.m.-10:53 a.m.(35K or 24.854 miles)-My final kick begin at 24 and gave it all I had on this stretch of 2.2 miles. I slowly started to gain speed and geared up to hit Roosevelt "hill". I put my head down and did not look up until got over it and turned on to the stretch run. It felt so good to see that finish line. At this point, my goal had been reached, but I had a chance to get it under 3:15 and I tried to pick it up a little;did not quite get there. It did not matter, because I felt great! My final time ended up being 3:15:12!

Looking back at this, it made realize that my hydrating plan is not mentioned. Going into things, I knew I would have a GU at miles 6, 12, 18 and one other time after that. The Hansons Marathon method plan emphasizes getting electrolytes and sugar in you when you are not taking GU and I did just that. While at each station (where I did not take a GU), I made sure to get one or two gatorade cups based on how filled they were. I had the same strategy when I took water and it seemed to work out really well. 

What is next?

I do not really know! The Hansons maraton method program gave me a lot of confidence during this training cycle and I will definitely use it again while training for whatever race is next. Qualifying for Boston may be next on the list, but I need to build a base and do a little strength training first. 

Hard work does pay off. If you want something, go out and get it. When I signed up for this in April, I did not know a 3:15 marathon would be possible, but I got there. It is possible to make time for a social life and training;a commitment just needs to made to both. Thanks for reading! 

Marathon Playlist

It took me a long time to decide if I would run with music during the Marathon last Sunday. The crowd support is so great, at points it's not even needed. I decided to come up with a Chicago themed playlist of songs that are on my iTunes. The playlist for ended up at 98 songs and I started it once I passed the start line. Another post going into detail about the actual race will come later this week.

The Dog and Everything-Superglue

R. Kelly and Jay Z-Big Chips

Mest-Rooftops

Mest-Dody Road

Fall Out Boy-Alone Together

Mest-Jaded(These Years)

R. Kelly and Jay Z-She's Coming Home With Me

Mest-Random Arrival

Mest-Long Days, Long Nights

The Academy Is...-Summer Hair = Forever Young

The Academy Is...-One More Weekend

Lucky Boys Confusion-Hey Driver

Fall Out Boy-The Pros and Cons of Breathing

Fall Out Boy-The Phoenix

The Academy Is...-Down and Out

Fall Out Boy-Grand Theft Autumn(Where Is YOur Boy)

Mest-Opinions

Lucky Boys Confusion-Commitment

Fall Out Boy-The Mighty Fall (Ft. Big Sean)

Kanye West-Amazing (Ft. Young Jeezy)

Kanye West-We Major

The Academy Is...-Season

Lucky Boys Confusion-Fred Astaire

Ok Go-Get Over It

Jay Z & Kanye West-Otis

Fall Out Boy-Rat A Tat(Ft. Courtney Love)

The Academy Is...-Checkmars

Mest-R Ska Song

The Lawrence Arms-The First Eviction Notice

Ok Go-It's A Disaster

Kanye West-Bittersweet Poetry

Ok Go-This Too Shall Pass

Allister-A Lotta Nerve

Kanye West-Runaway

The Academy Is...-Attention

The Lawrence Arms-Your Gravest Words

Fall Out Boy-Tell That Mick He Just Made My LIst Of Things To Do Today

Ok Go-A Million Ways

Kanye West-Power

Jay Z & Kanye West-Gotta Have It

Ok Go-Louisiana Land

The Dog and Everything-The Book

Fall Out Boy-Hum Hallelujah

Kanye West-Can't Tell Me Nothing

Allister-Somewhere on Fullerton

Mest-Cadillac

Lupe Fiasco- Hip-Hop Saved My Life

Fall Out Boy-Sophomore Slump or Comeback of the Year

Lucky Boys Confusion-40/80

Mind games

Congrats to everyone to who completed their 20-miler over the weekend. 20 miles is no easy feat and those that completed it should be proud of that;no matter how they did it. My Saturday morning consisted of a 16-mile run because that is the longest run in the Hansons Marathon Method. The run went great, but that is not the run this blog is about. On September 18, 2014, a 10-mile tempo run made me feel marathon ready.

Week 15 of training had been going great, but a 10-mile tempo run lingered and made me nervous. All of my previous runs went really well. The runs included a eight mile easy run, 3x2 miles with an 800 recovery and off day on Wednesday. Maybe the tempo runs make me nervous because they are at race pace and it makes me wonder if I can hold that pace during the marathon. Thursday finally came and the run had to be done.

It started off very well. My legs felt pretty good during the first mile or two and tricked me into thinking that this would be the run that made me feel marathon ready. It had all the makings of a fairly easy tempo run and my splits were right around where they should have been. Things started to change a tiny bit at the end of mile two and the beginning of mile three.

My legs were pretty tired during the first two miles, which is a normal feeling during training. My legs suddenly started to feel heavy. This is where the mental battle begin and I had to talk my brain into thinking my legs were fine. Mile three ended up three seconds slower than mile two. That worried me because it had still be early, there were plenty of miles left to be run and no GU would not be consumed till mile six. It had me wondering how this tempo run would go.

Miles four and five were a struggle, but mile six came and that meant GU time! Hopefully this Chocolate Peanut Butter GU would be my savior;spoiler alert, my legs still were not happy. This is where I just had to suck it up, quit complaining and push through last four miles. The marathon is not going to be easy and it dawned on me this is the run that would get me mentally ready for those last six miles;or as Luke Humphrey says in the Hansons Marathon Method book, the last 16-miles of the race.

The last four miles went really well. Is it a coincidence that once I stopped feeling sorry for myself that my run got better? I can not answer that, but my body and body felt a lot better. Mile 10 ended up being my fastest and despite it being way too fast for my tempo run pace, it made me feel proud of myself.

It is taper run time for most of those training for marathons the weekend of October 10, 2014,  but finish these last couple of weeks strong. There are going to be days where you are sick of running, do not want to run and just feel terrible during your run, but keep fighting. Tell your brain, body and legs you are going to complete this run and they will just have to deal with it. The last half of the marathon will be a mental battle and these struggle bus runs will make you tougher.

Random thoughts

These are just a few things that are on my mind. It is tough to keep this going with marathon training and my various other activities, but I need to make an effort to update this a little more often.

Running with your music

Running with or without music will always be a topic within the running community. More often than not I will run with music myself, so I will not be leading the charge against running with music. One of the issues that I see while running is that people's iPods or whatever they use to lists to music is compromising their form. It makes running look harder than it already is.

The most common issue I see is with runners who have an iPod in one hand that is not moving while the free hand is. It is almost inpressive that a lot of people can do this regardless of how far they are going. I assume this is happening because they are trying to eliminate the cord bouncing as much so the ear bud will not come out. There are a couple of solutions that are worth looking into:

     1) One thing that works for me that I learned from others is to slip the cord inbetween  your body and  the shirt. There is not as much bounce and  the cord buds stay in my ear easier.

    2) Buying new headphones is always an option. I have never used wireless headphones or yurbuds, but those are two suggestions I hear quite a bit. Buying an armband or pouch that goes around your. waist is also an  option.

   3)  This is probably the least popular option,;run without music.  It is nice to zone out every once in a while  and listen to your body.

Obviously, nobody has to take any of these suggestions. These are just thoughts that hopefully will make running with music a little easier. Hopefully the last two will  cause people to think twice about replaying to a text while running.

Bouncing at stoplights

This is something I see runners do and never got. It seems counterintuitive to getting a little rest and would appear to cause the runner to  expend more energy.  I suggest walking around a little bit to allow other muscles to recover. It is also less strenuous on the body  and keeps the legs moving.

Bibchat

Therast two bibchat twitter chats have had two good topics. Last week we talked about having a run life balance. Here are the questions from last week to get more of an in-depth look at  what they asked us: https://twitter.com/BibRave/timelines/506882189594607616

Marathon update!

Training is continuing to go great! I can not say enough good things about the Hanson's method. I competed a 66 mile week and had three of better runs onwards the end of  last week. The only thing that is bothering me is a nagging shin issue that comes and goes. I keep telling my body to just get me through the marathon in one piece and I promise that I will take a break from running;hopefully it is listening.

Ten things you may not know about me

I recently got tagged in a post by Heather in a post to list 10 things people may not know about me and I am finally responding.

1-I am what I call a selective eater. Food is great and I love to eat;however, if I do but like how it smells or looks, I probably will not try it.

2-Keeping up with the food topic, I have a small allergy to pecans and walnuts

3-I love music and concerts. I attended 33 live music events last year. Free events are a good way to check out new bands

4-My friends do not believe me, but I consider myself a shy person

5-My family loves to call me old man

6-Non-fiction books are my book of choice, but I do love John Grisham

7-If it involves peanut butter, I will eat it(notice I am talking about food a lot)

8-Running use to terrify me and I never really stuck with it until a friend asked me to run a half with me. I thank her often for suggesting I do that half. I had never run more than five miles in my life, so I still wonder why I agreed to run that race.

9-I have seen Bring It On more than I am willing to admit

10-Seinfeld and The Cosby Show are my favorite tv shows

11*-I have some funny stories about strangers that love to talk to me. Here is an example from yesterday:

Some guy just came up to me out of nowhere in Wilmette:

What sports team do you play for?

Me:I don't play for one.

Guy-run?

Me-yeah

Guy-how far can you run?

Me-it depends on the day

Guy-tell me about it. How far did you run today?

I tell him and he just nods his head and goes sweet... Sweet.

The halfway point

Welcome back(for those of you that read this)! I have been away from this for a while and just wanted to share a few thoughts on how marathon training is going;hence the title of this blog. For any new readers reading this blog, I am using the Hansons Marathon Method.

It is hard to believe that I am nine weeks through training. Training has gone pretty well so far, but week nine is the week I thought would get me. Here is what the week looked liked:

M-easy 8(at 8:30 pace)
T-6x800(3:09 pace)
W-Off day(my favorite!)
Th-8 mile tempo at 7:25 with 1.5 WU/CD
F-easy 7
S-long 15 at 8:05 pace
Su-easy 8

Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday were great. The workouts went as planned and I had no worries about anything. My foot is having some issu that made me worries about my tempo run, but it did not hurt during my run at all. Saturday, Sunday and the two workouts after that did worry me.

Normally I would have gotten my long run in early on Saturday, but I had to be up early to get to work. I worked till 3:30 and needed to eat. That meant I wouldn't get my run in till around 5 p.m. During my run, I took a Strawberry-Kiwi GU Roctane at mile five and felt great for the duration of the workout. When that got finished, I stretched, ate, showered and tried to get to bed early because it would be another early morning.

The long run and a lack of sleep did not help me during work or my run. I got home around 12:30 p.m. and slept till about 4:30.  My legs, body and brain were exhausted. Everything about the day screamed a run sometime around 8 p.m., but the weather looked dicey and forced me outside. What happened after that is probably going to be the most memorable run of my training session.

The Hansons method allows for easy runs to be 1-2 minutes slower than marathon pace; my run would be close to a nine minute mile. Every inch of that eight mile run hurt. I finally understood what they meant by cumulative fatigue. It seemed crazy that an eight mile run at this pace would hurt so much. It is a run I will certainly not forget for a very long time. It made me tougher and I definitely appreciate that part of it, but I just wanted to be in bed the whole time.  My legs probably wondered how long they would be tired for.

Week 10 got started with a six mile run that hurt just as much as the run on Sunday, but I willed my way through it. The track workout(3x1600) went slower than expected, but it got done. Even though it did not go as planned, it is probably the best I felt mentally after any of my workouts; my mood had been really high. With the workouts starting to get marathon specific, things will get harder, but I will be ready for it.

How is training going for you?