OHMYGOSH I'm So Nervous!

Wooo! It's a mere five days until my first marathon in three years! Are you scared? You should be, and here's why. I want to break 4:00:00. It's a huge goal, HUGE. Picture a cumulonimbus cloud with the words "four hours!" printed on it in large fluffy letters, attached to me by a string, floating above my head everywhere I go since October. Yeah, that's what it feels like. I'm in great shape, I've stuck to my plan, I've lost a few pounds, I didn't miss any long runs, and my pace is where it should be.

Why the fear you ask? Because now is the perfect, most lesson-bestowing time for God to say from on high, "Whooaaaaa, back it up Spooky! Quit feeling so proud and self righteous! You wouldn't even have legs if it weren't for Me!" At which point I get struck by lightning or contract Hepatitis or what have you so that I can learn humility.

All perfectly true and valid. I know the truth is that I could never do this distance running without all the blessings I've been given (strong legs, spare time, safe neighborhood, supporting husband, great friends). It's easy to think it's all my hard work that's gotten me here, but how far would I get without those blessings? YEAH.

To bring my point to a close, something inside my foot hurts. I want the goal, but I might have to be okay with not getting there because my foot is wiggety wack, and I have to be okay with that. It's a privilege to be healthy and I'll enjoy it either way. Right? Right. BUT I REALLY REALLY WANT IT.*

I went out and bought a new outfit for race day. It's a clown-colored rainbow of brightness. Luckily I decided against the rainbow socks.

Do these pants make my butt look fa(s)t?

 

Believe me when I say the tights are a bilious purple!  I took them out for a test run today to make sure they have the most important elements: No chafing, no riding up and down, and no visible crotch sweat patterns. 

 

There's another bonus to this outfit, too. When God decides that I'm too prideful and causes me to trip at the starting line and be trampled by tens of thousands, and you're watching the news that night with the headline Marathon Mayhem, you'll say:

 

"Hey, that's Christy Albers!....I recognize her Clown Pants!"

 

Simplicity of recognition. It's what I strive for. 

 

I hope you have a great week, folks! Tune in next time for the results show.

 

Does it count as carb loading if it's five days early?

*Please note that this is not one of those preemptive thingamajigs where I fail utterly and then come back and point out "I SAID my foot hurt, it's not my fault!" I'm just MENTIONING it is all.

 

 

 

This is why I like running!

Today is exactly why I like running.

Except for this!:

Cheap Socks: At Least They're Green

Don't worry, I finally bought real socks and threw these away. But back to my point...

I was grumpy and irritated this morning because some annoying things happened. They were out of my control, but they still made those little glands shoot chemical stress into my blood stream. But around 1:30 I went for a run. It was chilly but sunny, and I headed out for 4 miles in the park. 

There was a light breeze so fall leaves were scattering across the path. People were playing frisbee and fishing. Little kids were riding bikes and skating. I saw some kind of  Native tribal dance happening, and even the kids were in costume and participating, so cool! Other runners said hello. And as I ran, the stress of the day was pounded down through my quads and calves, out the balls of my feet into the ground.

Training for distance runs is hard, grueling, time-consuming and sometimes tedious. There are rewards, sure. But a 20-mile training run is not fun in any way. Being done with it is nice. Having accomplished something difficult is great. A marathon is thrilling, rewarding of course, and satisfying. But it hurts from head to toe, mentally and physically.

Sometimes, you have to set aside the training plan and the goals and timing and pace and just...have fun. And that's what I did today.

Resolutions! Such as they are.

Hi all, I hope you had a very merry Christmas or what have you!

Today's workout-- I felt like I was running super fast, and I decided that because it's so cold, my thigh fat froze solid, causing it to jiggle less. If you follow the laws of physics you know that less jiggling = more forward motion. It's Newtonian law. Ergo, if I lose weight, I'll run faster. SCIENCE FOLKS.

So! That being said, I'm laying out my New Years Resolutions.  I do them every year, and usually I follow through. The ones I didn't finish were kind of over-ambitious (learn Brahms' Rhapsody No. 2 on piano? Yeah, I bought the sheet music, muddled through it once, and thought "well crap"). As I am sure you remember from your management trainee classes, goals should be specific, measurable and attainable. One year, my friend Ann-Margret and I vowed to run in at least one 5k a month, and we did. In 2012, I wanted to run 1,000 miles, and I have (1297 as of this morning). I also read the whole Bible instead of in bits and pieces, continued exercising, and started counting my blessings every day all as part of my resolution-keeping. What I'm saying is, I take this seriously.

RESOLUTIONS!

1. Lose weight. HAHAHA, you're thinking. I lose the same dang 15 pounds every year--sometimes twice! But this year I'm changing it up. In the interest of long-term health, my resolution is NOT to lose 15 pounds. No, I need to sustain it. So this year, to get specific and measurable: I will weigh xxx* on March 19, June 19, September 19 and December 19, which is my 40th birthday. And by 40th, I mean 26th again (obviously).

*You'll never know! Just kidding, I'll probably forget I posted this and tell you how much I weigh later.

2. Break 4:00 in a full marathon. This isn't really a resolution, it's a goal. And my marathon is in January, so it's not a year-long thing. But I'm putting it here because if I do it, I can check it off my list! And if I don't, maybe JUST MAYBE I AM NOT PROMISING I can sign up for another later in the year.

3. Not sure how to put this in words, but I want to stop letting things sneak up on me. Like, I'll get a call that it's my nephew's 13th birthday tomorrow and think "What? How did this happen? Isn't he 9? Isn't his birthday in January? Oh wait it IS January! Crud!" Or, my sister-in-law was having a baby and for MONTHS I thought, "I should start planning the shower" and suddenly it was only a month away. You know what? I need a personal assistant. But since I'm not rich, I need another plan.

To start, I got a tiny pocket calendar and I'm slowly entering birthdays and anniversaries. I'm going to start planning events farther ahead then next weekend, too. And instead of just entering the event itself on the calendar, I'll enter "start getting ready for Event" a few times ahead as well. Yeah! Genius! Also, I'll back up my calendar. I used to keep it in my phone only, and when my phone got smashed in a horrific treadmill mishap, my life was in shambles.

4. I'm thinking about entering something here about push-ups and sit-ups, but I'm not fully committed yet. It sounds hard. I like sitting on the couch and I don't want the floor glaring at me in a judgemental manner if I'm not down on it sweating.

So! Those are my resolutions. Wish me luck! Or better yet, wish me resolve and determination. I need all the help I can get. Happy 2013 everyone!

'Tis the Season to be a Chunky Monkey

All I can say is, it's a darn good thing that I run a lot. Yesterday after 16 miles I proceeded to eat cookie dough and cookies for dinner--luckily I had chunky vegegetable beef soup for a snack, which I am sure cancels out the ginormous mounds of cookie dough, two kinds. I shudder to think of the calories.

But then today, this is what greeted me at work:

It's two layers. Five pounds. There are seven of us here but I guarantee that I will eat over half this box. I decided that every time I ate one, I'd run in the back and do ten pushups. But here we are at the end of the day and my arms and chest are trembling, I'm just not strong enough to stick to this deal!

Also:

My boss brought me these because, as a dude, he thinks all woman-stress must come from hormones and chocolate will solve it. Never mind the high-pressure job or all the other things that might stress a girl out. Don't get me wrong, I ate it. All. We just have so much junk food around here all the time!

First world problems, amiright? Sometimes I think about how awful it is to eat food just because it's there, hungry or not, when people in other places are literally always hungry. We are truly wealthy here in America and often take it for granted.

Anyway, it's now about six weeks till the marathon, and I'm not exactly where I should be with my training. I'm starting to wonder if my goal of "finishing with a 3 in front of my time" should change to "finishing". Which is totally fine, I am blessed to be able to do this at all!

Merry December 12th, y'all.

Sometimes You Shouldn't Go Running

No, really, I mean it!

This weekend my marathon training schedule called for 8 miles yesterday, 18 today. It's an important weekend in the 4-month plan because usually a long run would come after a rest day instead of an 8-mile day, so in theory I'd be running the last 18 miles of an imaginary marathon. Learning perseverance and all that.

However! This weekend, schedule be danged, I went to visit one of my very best friends up in Colorado. Yes, I brought my running shoes. Yes, I planned to run. But the whole visit was only 40 hours long, so why would I want to spend such a large chunk of it running? Especially when we could:

1. Sit around Andrea's kitchen table drinking sugar-free peppermint mochas (3 each) and chatting.

2. Play with her adorable little girls.

3. Eat lunch at a cute downtown restaurant, out on the patio in the sunshine, because even though it's December it was a sparkly, sunny day. (Please note at this point in the day, we were Being Good. I had salad and Penny and Andrea had soup. We're so conscientious!)

4. Finally, FINALLY see Breaking Dawn 2 in the theater (best seats in the house!):

5. Stop for a quick drink! But it was Happy Hour and 2-for-1 so it wasn't our fault we had to have two each. They were small. Still Being Good.

6. Go shopping!

7. Go out for dinner! And lo and behold, they still had 2-for-1. Which meant all my anti-junk-food inhibitions went on a mini-vacation and I downed a mountain of chicken strips and sweet potato fries.

I started to do the math at this point to determine the number of treadmill miles required to counteract my appetite, but I decided it didn't matter. You know why? Andrea and Penny and I only get to hang out a few times per decade. We had such a lovely time! I did NOT get up and run for three hours this morning. We had more peppermint mochas, went to an interesting and enjoyable church service, and got pizza. And then we talked some more.

What a great weekend! I'm not worried about the training plan because I know I'll be well-rested for the coming week of training. And I'm mentally refreshed. Sometimes that's more necessary than pushing yourself physically, know what I mean?

I Got New Shoes!

Once upon a time, I broke my hip (I'm 76, just kidding, I feel 76). Six weeks of rest, no outlet for stress, I went crazy and got fat. Anyway I was running wrong, so this year I fixed my stride and got different shoes.

Since spring I've been running in Brooks Pure Flow which are GLORIOUS, it feels like you're running barefoot on tiny mattresses! But, those suckers wear out fast, and money does not grow out of my butt. Also, for a few months my heels have been hurting. So I just got the Brooks Ghosts, which have firmer cushioning. After all my research I felt wise and confident in my choice.

I may have been swayed by Race Expo Shoe Lust also. 

My first run in the new Ghosts was yesterday. The weather was great and I was happy with my pace, especially compared with a week ago when I quit before I wanted because my legs hurt so bad. Worn out shoes? or too many Cheetos? I'm guessing both.

18 miles with the Flow: feet felt like they had been beaten with a sledgehammer

18 miles with the new Ghosts: feet feel like they have been beaten with one of the small pink hammers in those "girly" tool boxes, much less painful than a sledgehammer and cuter, too

It's too soon to tell, but I think I would be willing to go steady if the shoes asked me.

Next Race: Rock N Roll Marathon in January!

Guess What...I Started A Blog!

Guess What...I Started A Blog!

Way back in the day I had a blog, and it was supposed to be about sharing my life with my friends who live far away, but it turned into a collection of Christy's Embarrassing Moments. I mean, I was trying to explain these crazy things that happened to me so they could share in the horror, but they just made people laugh and say "Oh Christy, your life is a soap opera."

I would like to say for the record that it is NOT a soap opera! I have a great life. I'm married to my best friend, I have a good job, I have awesome kids (slash adults, two of them are over 18), and friends. My friends are the best.

And hobbies! I read, I travel, I run, I eat. I run to support my eating habit, and I eat to fuel my running addiction. I travel so that I can eat and run in different places.

Sad story of the day: It's the day after Thanksgiving, which as you know should be a delicious day for someone like me. Yet here is my lunch:

I ate it cold, from the can, with a plastic spoon. At 10am. The good news is whole grain is Good For You! The bad news is it was a crappy lunch so later we ordered philly cheese steaks.  The other bad news is that I didn't go running, so all these calories really count.