Great Black Swamp Festival of Races 25K

That's a long event name. It reminds me of this:

A solid tech tee

In February 2012 and 2013 I ran the Toledo Road Runners Club 25K. I dig the 25K distance--it's more challenging than a half-marathon and burns enough calories to make me feel like it's okay to eat and drink carelessly for the rest of the day. This year the TRRC didn't offer the 25K in February. Also, there is no more Churchill's Half Marathon in March. Also, there used to be some other "Festival of Races" during this time of year. I think the Great Black Swamp Festival of Races is intended to replace all of those events. Seems to have worked out well; there was a turnout way bigger than the former 25K and possibly even bigger than the old Churchill's Half.

The Great Black Swamp Festival of Races offered distances of 5K, 15K, and 25K. It might have been wiser with consideration to marathon training to only run the 15K because we were only supposed to have run a long run of 12 miles this week. Nevertheless I chose the 25K for us because, like I said, I like the distance. I wanted to attempt a PR, too.

See me and Joe at the front of that photo? That's how we look when we're unaware that someone is taking a photo of us. We had no plan for pace prior to the race. We did end up running the majority of it together. Joe told me after we started that he'd try to stick around an 8:45 pace. Within the first mile we were doing closer to 8:30.

Long story short, the race started at Anthony Wayne High School. We ran, did some turns, went uphill a little bit, hit the Wabash Cannonball Trail a couple of times, passed the Fallen Timbers mall, and ended up back at the high school. It was a pretty solid course because we were on the road a lot but there was hardly any traffic and where there was, cops held the drivers so that we could pass through. I was surprised by the little amount of wind with which we had to deal, especially being out in the middle of nowhere.

I said we ran the majority of the race together; although we did a good job of maintaining an 8:15ish pace, I was feeling whooped by mile 13. Joe, on the other hand, was feeling all fresh and shit so he pulled ahead at that point. The final mile was a "memory mile." During registration there was an option to enter the name of a deceased family member or friend, so I went ahead and put in Jessica Fernandez--my 16-year old cousin who died nearly two years ago. Along with probably hundreds of other signs lining the last mile of the route, I passed Jessica's name twice (once for my registration, once for Joe's). That was nice. Also, it was cool to see how many people took advantage of that memory mile thing.

There's Joe finishing followed by me a little bit behind at 2:08:16. I PRed by more than a minute and I mostly have Joe to thank. Truth be told, I was feeling like doodoo early on but was having a good time running with Joe so I tried my darndest to hang with him. Thanks, Joe!

That 2:08:16 was good enough for third place in my age group. My prize? A beer glass!

Elliott being Elliott.

Wellness Screening 2014

Yesterday I got something awesome in the mail.

Those right there are the results of my most recent wellness screening. My employer and our insurance company are good people and offer the service for free annually. In the six years that I've been with my current employer I had only taken advantage of the opportunity one other time. Truth be told, at the time I wasn't focused on my health so I only did it for the Target gift card giveaway. All that I remember is that the results were good.

This time, I destroyed it. Also, a woman destroyed my arm.

That's my arm a day after the screening. I don't think it's supposed to look like that just from having a little blood sucked. I can only make out two in the photo, but there were actually three wounds. I don't claim to know anything about drawing blood, but given that I've got an awesome vein that you can see on the left, I question why the woman had to tear up my arm. Tidbit: When I had blood drawn back in high school, the woman who did it told me that I've got great veins for shooting up. Only in Lorain. Almost two weeks later I'm still bruised.

Anywho, I screwed up the morning of the screening. On my way to school I stopped at Starbucks for a nonfat latte. I arrived at work, did my regular morning stuff, and at 8:00 plopped myself into my office chair. I opened my Franklin Covey Planner to February 28th, took my first swig of latte, and scanned through my tasks.

A1: Wellness screening @ 7:50

Balls!

Two strikes against me (10 minutes late AND I broke my fast that I didn't know I was doing when I took that sip of latte), I hustled down to the wellness screening site. My late arrival was no big deal but the dude who checked me in said that my results might be inaccurate because of the milk in my latte. If anything, I supposed some stuff would be a little elevated.

Here are the highlights:

Blood pressure: 121/85 (Pre-hypertension, eek)

Total cholesterol: 156 (Ideal = less than 200)

LDL: 91 (Ideal = less than 100)

HDL: 58 (Desirable = 40-59)

Triglycerides: 36 (Ideal = less than 150)

Glucose: 92 (Normal = less than 100)

BMI: 21.6 (Normal = 18.5-24.9)

Percent body fat: 23.4

I'm going to work on decreasing my blood pressure. For a couple of years it was actually interfering with my ability to function at work. A handful of times I ended up light-headed and with tunnel vision in the nurse's office, but it hasn't happened this school year. Admittedly, I can get pretty high strung. Seriously, this weekend I had a meltdown because the house wasn't spotless.

I'm pumped about the cholesterol stuff. Joe and I put a lot of effort into eating good food in terms of flavor and nutrition. Of course we induldge a couple of times per week, but we can do that because of the quality of most of our meals. We're good at portion control, we avoid processed foods, and we eat a lot of good produce. Take a peek at our snack stash and ignore the Gu and Clif bars, the latter of which I've replaced with Kind bars before long runs.

Full disclosure: I ate fish and chips and had a beer at trivia last night. BUT! I only did that because 1.) I ran 6.5 miles (of speed work) in the afternoon, 2.) I had lots of granola and Greek yogurt throughout the day, and 3.) I ate less than half of the meal and brought the rest home.

I'm cool with my BMI but I don't care about it too much because it doesn't account for muscle. I'm also good on my percentage of body fat, but it wouldn't upset me if I were to see that number drop. Joe tries to encourage me all the time to do strength training with him in order to tighten up but I just don't feel a passion for it. Maybe one day I'll get an itch just like what happened with running. Or maybe my bout with P90X turned me off. I could be proactive and make it a goal between spring and fall marathons. Hmm...

And that's that; my 2014 wellness screening. I'm feeling good. It's time to work on better results for next year!

It's still winter.

Yep, March is here. It's been a month since I've blogged. We've been crazy busy--weddings, running, mini-road-tripping. And you know what? It ain't over. You know what also ain't over? Winter.

It's still cold as a mofo here. The snow has tapered off, but it's still on the ground and falling now and then. I can't wait to have our entire driveway back. Since the first snowmageddon at the beginning of January, so much snow has accumulated from the sky, shoveling, and the plows on Joe's side of the end of our driveway that there's just enough room for one car to get through. It sucks on trash day.

The weather is reflecting in my running stats. I've been way more disciplined about getting the miles in than I was at the end of 2013. Last week was my first week over forty miles since Chicago Marathon training last summer and fall. But my pace, it's been strugglin'. This year I'm averaging a sad 6.4 miles per hour. For 2012 and 2013 I maintained a 6.8 average. It's no small task to establish a good pace in ankle-deep snow week after week. I guess that I'm at least getting outside; that's a good thing. Also, apparently Garmin Connect doesn't account for treadmill pace when it's calculating average pace. Although we don't have a treadmill I've managed to do way more treadmill runs in two months than I had done in two years.

To-do list: Buy a house that has a basement so that we can buy a treadmill.

That's reasonable. Right? I've got priorities, man.

I've been killing it on our long runs. The last two weeks we had 17 and 18 miles. The snow sorta helped because it forced me to run slowly, which has gotten me to finally do those real LSD runs. After both of them I felt like a beast and I wasn't sore at all. Okay, that's a lie. I was sore after the 17-miler, but that was because I fell. On ice. Yep, right onto my butt. To boot, there was a Gu packet in my butt pocket, which I had forgotten until mile 14 when we stopped for a Gu break. I reached into my pocket and only pulled out a hand covered in Jet Blackberry. I was mildly upset that I had no fuel, but I think my emotions pushed me through the rest of the run to get home. Note: I've still got a sore wrist from when I broke my fall.

Yes, a Gu exploded in my butt.

I've stuck to my speed work on Tuesdays. I destroyed nine solid half-mile repeats last week. This week I only did five, the last of which was at an incline of two. That was kinda rough at 8.4 miles per hour. But I did it!

Thirteen miles tomorrow. I'll run two marathons in a little over a month. It's slightly-nervous-time.

Speed work: I did it!

Last week I promised myself that I would begin doing speed work this week on Tuesday. We got more crazy snowfall over the weekend which made me worry that it wouldn't happen. Then, during the Super Bowl, a friend revealed that she's got a treadmill in her basement and that I'm welcome to use it any time. Boo-yah!

And so it was: Yesterday evening, before trivia, I squeezed in a visit to said friend's house and hopped onto the treadmill. I planned to do four half-mile repeats.

Warm-up: 1 mile @ 6.5 mph

6x 1/2 mile @ 8 mph

1/4 mile @ 6 mph recovery between repeats (5x)

Cool down: 3/4 mile @ 6 mph

Yep, I manned up and threw in two more repeats. During the fourth I was feeling good. Also, I decided mid-run that I wanted to do six miles instead of five. I wasn't sure exactly what my pace was, but I thought 8-miles per hour was a good place to start. Next week I'm going to instead go for negative splits on the repeats, considering that I know I can go harder. Also, I'm going to aim for eight repeats.

This can only improve my speed and endurance, right? We'll find out on April 19th. Or maybe on April 27th. I should probably figure out which marathon in that 8-day span will be my PR attempt. Or, dare I say it, my Boston qualifying attempt...

Mid-Week Musings. Alliteration--WHAT!

In this unprecedented (for my lifetime) super ridiculous, excessive, frozen weather I've been cooped up at home a lot. Here's what's been happening.

On Monday I needed to get off of my ass so I walked to and from the grocery store--bundled up like Randy Parker. I've never been one to complain about winter in Ohio, even as a runner, but this shit is for real. Yesterday evening before trivia we went to Anytime Fitness to do four miles, side-by-side on the treadmills. I was feeling really good and could have gone on for another mile or two. We might end up there again this evening because it's still cold as a mofo.

I'm just going to put this out there so that I do it: Next Tuesday I will begin doing speed work. Last winter around this time I told myself I'd do it weekly, but that only lasted for two weeks. My only excuse is that I didn't commit. This year I need to do it and stick with it. I want to give myself a better chance of improving on my marathon PR and, save for a miracle or voodoo, that's the only way I know how to control it. Although the forecast is calling for snow on that day, I will do speed work next Tuesday. It might mean that I'll need to give in and actually buy a real membership to the gym. Note to self: Next house must have a basement with a phat treadmill. Yeah, I said "phat."

I'm looking forward to our 15-mile long run this Sunday. Looking forward to a long run?! Usually I'm a teeny bit excited to do long runs because I feel so awesome afterwards, but this one is mounting up to be memorable. We're switching it up from P-Burg and Maumee and heading down to flat and windy Bowling Green to run with Joe Boyle. Joe is a teacher living in BG who took up running a few years ago, then received a diagnosis of kidney cancer. In a couple of weeks he'll begin a new treatment routine, so if he's going to run a marathon, he needs to do it now. We don't know Joe at all, but his story has gone sorta viral over the past few days. His original plan was to run 26.2 miles with a few friends and his doctor. Now, though, it's looking like there will be a solid crowd of northwest Ohio runners joining Joe for portions of if not the entire marathon distance. There will even be fuel, aid stations, restrooms, and spectators! If you're interested in supporting Joe, hit up his blog post about the event at this address: http://boyledonia.blogspot.com/2014/01/marathon-details_25.html.

Now if you don't mind, I'm going to enjoy the bejesus out of my latte. It's so warm, which is very different from outside.

14 Cold, Snowy Miles

Training last week was rough.

Monday: 5 miles

Tuesday: Rest

Wednesday & Thursday: 0 miles (excuse: fever)

Friday: 0 miles (excuse: crazy wind chill)

Saturday: 4 treadmill miles

Sunday: 14 miles

Beginning Saturday night we were under a level two snow emergency. We woke up to more snow, still falling, and a sub-zero wind chill. Still, we were determined to get out for 14 miles. The original plan was to run four miles to our friends, six with them, then four back to home.

We struggled to get out of the house, not because of the weather but because of the stuff we had to do to *prepare* for the weather. You know, find and put on all of our layers, fiddle with busted YakTrax (both of us had one break during the 12-miler the week prior), eat a snack, fill the water bottle, and put on watches, gloves, and mittens. It's a process much like preparing to go deep sea diving. That resulted in taking a 2.5 mile route to our friends instead of the planned four.

The weather wasn't bad, save for the periodic low visibility in blizzard conditions. That also kept traffic at a minimum, so we had free range of the entire road much of the way. At least, until we were on our way home for the last 5.5 miles.

At eight and a half miles It got really, *really* cold. Poor Joe at one point couldn't hold the water anymore because his fingers were too cold, even in gloves. Not long after that my thumbs were cold and stinging and I was actually concerned about frostbite. We stopped so that I could try to warm them up and Joe, being the problem-solver he is, told me to just put my thumbs with my other fingers in the big part of the mittens.

Because it was still snowing, most people and businesses hadn't cleared their sidewalks yet. The church crowd had hit the roads eventually so we had less space and usually no discernible shoulders to run. Most drivers were really considerate, moving over to give us a lot of space and even waving and smiling. One driver of a minivan was deserving of a rock through the windshield, though. He didn't move over, didn't slow down, AND lay on the horn while making an angry face. Seriously?

A few minutes later, after trudging through ankle-deep snow on the sidewalk, Joe's YakTrax were jacked up again. He took off his gloves to adjust them and his hands were red. I gave him the top layer of my mittens (Dumb & Dumber, anyone?) to wear over his gloves, which I guess warmed up his hands significantly.

We ran through some more deep snow on sidewalks. A few times I had to stop to peel clumps of ice off of the bottom of my tights. No, not frost or a little bit of snow--clumps. CLUMPS of ice were built up at my ankles. It sucked.

It was slow (10:08/mile). It was cold. It was snowy. Some drivers were asswipes. But we made it through 14 miles. Treadmills are for the weak. Also, they're for the smart people who want to avoid all of that bullshit.

Blender Babes Juice Detox

Christmas vacation this past year was marked glutony. Together Joe and I rang in the new year carrying about 20 excess pounds of steak, conch fritters, alcohol, and all of the bloating that comes with those things. We both felt like doo-doo and needed a serious jump-start to living healthy again. That's why we decided to do the Blender Babes' Juice Detox.

This juice detox isn't your standard drink-more-juice-than-you-can-stomach + starvation diet. It's not even a "diet" so much as it is a dietary reboot. It got me interested because 1.) it's free and 2.) it require us to use our Blendtec a lot. I guess there's a number three, which is that I've never "cleaned out" my system and I really felt, after that vacation, I had never needed it more.

Blender Babes suggest using a Blendtec or Vitamix, but they say all of the recipes are also standard blender-friendly. In addition to the Blendtec we needed to stock up on about $50 of produce and some liquid stevia. You could probably spend less on produce, but I prefer organic. Side note on the liquid stevia: we had been led to believe that agave nectar is the way to go to sweeten drinks, but Blender Babes don't like it, I think due to the processing through which agave nectar goes before it gets into a bottle and to the grocery store.

Blender Babes offer an options pre-detox five-day place to gradually eliminate common problem foods from our diet; they suggest this to avoid shocking the digestive system. By the fifth day we were eating no meat, gluten, wheat, artificial anything, processed anything, dairy, soy, and caffeine. After the fact, we feel that we could manage the juice detox again without needing five full days to clean out our diet. If we do it again, we'll probably take three days instead.

On Friday we started the juices. In the morning we had "morning water," which is just a warm cup of filtered water with lemon and fresh ginger. Throughout the day we had six juices, all but one with a coconut water base and featuring a huge variety of fruits and vegetables, notably beets, jalapeno, and kale among a lot of your standard juicing fruits. Admittedly I cheated between the mid-afternoon and dinner juices. I was craving to chew on something so I had some almonds, a prune, and a carrot.

I thought I was done after one day, which is the standard amount of time to do the detox, but decided to give it a second go on Saturday since Joe was feeling it. Also, I hadn't pooped yet so I thought that maybe I needed more to get everything out of me. I enjoyed the juices a LOT on day two but by the evening I was struggling. Never was I hungry, but again I just really wanted to chew some real food. I gave in and instead of the dinner and dessert juices (numbers five and six respectively), I had a chicken salad. I felt terribly guilty, but I had also gotten very irritable, which made me feel more terrible for how unfriendly I was being.

On Sunday morning Joe and I had a 12-mile run on our marathon training schedule. We woke up, and weighed ourselves, both happy to have been down to our pre-vacation weights! This didn't all happen over the two days of juicing, but started instead during the five days prior. Also, I finally pooped on Sunday morning and I lost ANOTHER pound just from that. Yeah, it was quite a poop. Apparently there was a lot of nastiness just chillin' in my digestive system for way too long.

After juicing we are to follow the same regiment as leading up to the cleanse, only backwards. That made it a challenge to run 12 miles because we couldn't have any of our regular long run fuel--no Clif bars or shot blocks, no gels, no gatorade. We bagged up some almonds and managed to pull out 12 miles, even if they were a little slower than usual.

As we gradually shift back into our "regular" diet, I'm glad that I did this juice detox. It was really easy and I think I could definitely do it again and better--that is, without getting all whiney again. Today I feel good, especially knowing that the juices pushed out so much gunk. Also, beets do funny things to your poop.

Dave's 10 Miler

We ran Dave's 10 Miler on Sunday. This is my recap.

Dave's 10 Miler is "one of the oldest races in Ohio." I put that in quotes because I'm pretty sure its the race's tagline. I think I remember wanting to run it last year, but not enough to pressure Joe into driving out to Delta, which I thought was a lot farther away than it actually is. He was game for it this year and for $27.50 plus my favorite race shirt--a Nike dri-fit cotton long-sleeved tee worth $28 alone, it was a good decision.

Race start wasn't until 2:00PM so we got to have a late Saturday night watching Aziz Ansari's stand-up and then take it easy Sunday morning. It was less than a 45 minute drive to Pike-Delta-York High School, where we arrived around 1:30. We stayed in the car because we aren't big fans of mingling with the sometimes-hard-to-tolerate racing crowd. Everyone babbling about PRs and Garmins and Gu just isn't my style. On the way into the school we passed a woman stepping out of her car, dressed to run with a burning cigarette hanging out of her mouth. She looked so trashy but so ridiculous that I couldn't hold in my laughter. Seriously? Showing up to run a race with a cigarette hanging out of your mouth? There are so many questions to ask and judgements to make.

A little after 2:00 we were off and, as usual, we quickly separated. Joe and I just don't race together. I can be too whiney if I'm not running the way I want and I worry that if we were to try to race together I would end up being unpleasant. It was 35 degrees but "felt like" 25 so it was hard to dress right. Thirty-five is my cut-off point at which I prefer to wear shorts, but with that wind chill I couldn't. I wore running capris (it was a struggle for me to bring myself to buy them because I think they make women look stumpy) and my newest Nike Element jacket, which is really, really warm. I felt good for the first couple of miles, which I finished each around 7:30, but after that I started to get a little too warm. Also I felt like I really had to poop.

I'm not sure if the sweats I had were actual hot-sweats or poop-sweats, but I wasn't comfortable. I refuse to tie any kind of top around my waist because it's not 1994 so that wasn't an option. Also, under the jacket was my Chicago Marathon tech tee and I figured that I'd get too cold without sleeves. I unzipped my jacket and let it blow, annoyingly, in the countryside wind of flat, flat Delta, Ohio. With each turn out of or back into the wind I'd go from hot to cold to hot to cold. The wind was for realz. I determined about halfway through that there was no appropriate way to dress for this race.

At mile 5 I took a Gu from a race volunteer. I lucked out and got some espresso flavor, which was surprisingly good (I've avoided Gu for a long time and usually take Clif Shots instead). I think the delightfulness distracted me from the uncomfortable weather conditions for a while.

The first half of the race seemed to go by really slowly for me, but I think it was just the boring lack of scenery. The second half was way better and before I knew it, I made the final turn for the straight-away to the finish.

See that lady there in black? She was like, way ahead of me. I caught her and passed her just before she hit the mat, finishing one second faster. Go, me.

Official time: 1:21:06, 8:07/mile

(That lady: 1:21:07)

I'll add a picture of the race shirt when I get it out of the dryer. I've worn it a lot in the three days since the race and it needed a washing...

The Cleanse

Joe and I don't mess around when it comes to vacations. We live it up--eating, drinking, and adventure have no limits when we're on the road. After the Bahamas, Greenville (a food-lover's paradise), and a NYE wedding, we were both fat and bloated. Running (for me and Joe) and strength training (for Joe) wouldn't cut it alone to get back to feeling good. We needed to make some kind of dramatic dietary change. Truth be told, we've needed to change the way we've been eating for months; things started to really fall apart for me after Las Vegas in November, but the pieces were crumbling little by little long before that.

Our jump-start is a cleanse. It's not one of those ridiculous, lose-weight-then-gain-it-all-back-immediately-by-fasting-and-drinking-maple-syrup-and-cayenne-pepper cleanses. Instead it's a lot of blending in the Blendtec of dark, leafy greens and a variety of nutrient-rich fruits and vegetables.

Generally I think cleanses are for people unwilling to make real changes to their routines and diets and so they are happy with a quick fix that won't have lasting effects. This cleanse piquied my interest for two key reasons, though:

1.) We get to use our Blendtec more.

2.) It's gradual.

We got the Blendtec back in August and were immediately hooked on preparing smoothies and meals with it. The chicken tortilla soup that we made on the first day was freakin' phenomenal and the high power of the Blendtec got me to really like green smoothies since it liquifies all of the leafy bits and funny textures. Unfortunately we fell out of the habit of making smoothies in October-ish and the Blendtec just sat all pretty on our counter for a while, untouched. For the cleanse we are required to drink six blended drinks each day until we are finished. The Blendtec is going to get a lot of love.

The cleanse is planned in a way that avoids shocking the body. We techinically began the cleanse two days ago with the five-day pre-cleanse meal plan. Each day we have eliminated a few foods from our diet. Here's the long and short:

Day 1: Last day to eat red meat; no wheat, gluten, aritificial sweeteners, artificial flavors, and processed foods

Day 2: Last day to eat poultry and fish

Day 3: Last day to have eggs and dairy; no meat, caffeinated beverages, or soy

Days 4 & 5: Soups, greens, vegetables, beans, legumes, grains, starches, fruits, and nuts

Day 6 (plus however many days you want): Prescribed blended drinks

Then repeat days 1 through 5 backwards.

We're on the third day right now and we've been pretty well-behaved for days one and two. We sort of broke the rules on day one. On the night prior I made corn chicken chowder in which I used canned corn and I'm pretty sure anything in a can like that is processed in some way. We ate the leftovers for lunch on day one, but other than that we were good. Well, then last night we went all out on our last day to have poultry and we had wings. At least they were naked.

The biggest challenge for Joe will be drinking no soda. He's like a moth to a flame when there's Diet Pepsi or Coke Zero in the fridge. The biggest challenge for me will probably be eating no bread. I never thought about how much bread I eat until now. I could really go for some crackers or toast.

Have you ever done a cleanse of any sort? What was it and how'd you feel about the results?

Yes, it's cold. Yes, I'm still running.

Eight days into 2014 I think I can finally get back into a running routine. Fourteen-routine. That would qualify as a rhyme to some rappers nowadays.

On December 1st I made it a goal to run every day in that last month of the year. I thought it was a cool personal challenge. I made it through the 17th then on the 18th I said "screw it." I was neither burnt out from running nor injured. I definitely wasn't bored. The "challenge" just lost its novelty. I ran on the 19th, then the 20th may have been the most overwhelming day of my life. It was the last day of school, which was awesome and relieving, but Joe and I were leaving that night to be away for 10ish days and we hadn't packed. Usually packing isn't a big deal, but we needed to pack Bahamas-appropriate clothes, upscale dinner clothes for four nights, running gear, and clothes for a few days in South Carolina. I was a basketcase doing laundry and trying to figure out how I could pack as few items as possible. Joe got home from work and, being the most awesome husband, friend, and person that he is, told me to play Tetris on my iPad while he took care of what remained to pack. I love him.

Back to the point, from that day on for the rest of the month I was a naughty, irregular runner. I left my running shoes out of my Bahamas bag and so instead of forgoing running for a few days I ran 4 miles barefoot on the beach. That resulted in giant blisters which sidelined me from running until two days after Christmas. Fortunately there wasn't too much time left in December and in the end I managed to still run over 118 miles that month.

Enter the new year. A snow storm pummeled us on New Year's Eve, which kept me inside on New Year's Day. I ran a couple of times last week before we got slammed by another snow storm and 30-degrees below zero wind chills for two days. Since Sunday night I had been stuck in the house because all of northwest Ohio shut down due to the dangerous conditions. Finally this morning the wind died down and the"real feel" temperature was reasonable enough to get out and run--nine degrees. Normally that would sound miserable but after the past few days it sounded and felt like an early spring day.

I knew to bundle up with the proper gear for what I hoped would be the only super cold run of the year: Tights, pants, long-sleeved dri-fit top with a hood, Nike Element jacket, 2-layer Brooks mittens, hat, ear warmers, balaklava, and Yak Trax. Even with Yak Trax I am still always nervous about falling, so I brace myself with every stride making for a more difficult run. This was also the first run for which I was really happy to have a Road ID--I joked on Facebook that I might have frozen in my own tears, but really I was slightly concerned about a driver losing control, forcing me to dive into a snowdrift and knocking my head on a telephone pole, thus rendering me unconcious. It didn't happen.

I felt like I was moving slowly, like 9:00/mile or slower. Every time I looked at my Garmin, though, I was hovering around 8:30. It must have been a mind game from sitting on my ass so long Monday and Tuesday. About a mile into the run I was feeling stuffy and warm so I pulled down the balaklava; only a few times the air got a little too cold for comfort in my throat and I'd temporarily pull it back up. Not long after that I took off my mittens because my hands felt like they were in tiny saunas. I ran past pepole snow-blowing and shoveling in their gloves, looking all cold and miserable and thought to myself, "Suck it, weenies. Bare hands right here."

I had to alter my normal 5-mile route a little to avoid a busier road--didn't want to risk anything with the roads covered in snow and ice and said snow and ice covering the shoulder lines. Stopping a few times to cautiously wait for traffic, I managed 5.15 miles in a little over 45 minutes. It was so much more pleasant than I expected that I might even run again this evening if Joe is up for it. If not, I can't wait to get out again tomorrow. This Sunday we're likely running Dave's 10-miler out in Delta. Those long runs aren't going to, um, run themselves...? Registering for a race will better guarantee that I get back into the double-digits sooner rather than later.

Sorta side note: Last week we were talking to a former XC runner-turned-know-it-all. Among the barage of points he made about running, one that I just couldn't buy was that cold weather running is horrible and that road runners are better off taking a break in the winter months. He claimed that cardio+cold air is dangerous and has long-term effects on lung capacity. Instead of disagreeing, I just listened and nodded. Then I asked Google about it and pulled up a variety of studies proving otherwise. Maybe those researchers are in denial and so am I. Or maybe we're right.

Do cold temperatures keep you inside? How has this crazy winter weather affected your routine? Am I an idiot?

A Future Maniac

I've got crazy plans for running this spring. Before that, though, is the cliche new year's round-up of last year's running:

9 races

2 first place age group finishes

6 personal records

1 DNF marathon

1 most awesome marathon

3 half-marathons

3 new countries on my Garmin Connect history

1498.56 miles run

It would have been cool to have run 2000 miles or a nice, even 1500, but that doesn't mean I'm not happy. I ran about 70 miles more than in 2012 and I'm completely over the Cleveland DNF back in May. Now I look forward to an even more awesome year ahead.

That brings me to my abovementioned crazy plans. My big goal is to become a Marathon Maniac.

Marathon Maniacs do crazy things (http://www.marathonmaniacs.com/are-you-a-marathon-maniac/maniac-criteria). I've got my sights set at the entry level here:

What led me to attempt this? Foremost I want a new type of challenge without going entirely insane and running an ultra--I have no interest in that. Second, I love running the marathon distance. I don't know if I've ever actually said that, mostly because I feel like it's a weird thing to enjoy. Also, I run with some cynical folks who capitalize on such statements with condescention and discouragement.

We're so over marathons.

You're new to running and therefore naïve.

It must be nice to still have the time to train for marathons.

I just realized that I've got enough fodder for an entire post about running negativity.

Anywho, here I am stating it proudly and nervously: I am going to run two marathons in as many weeks. And now I have to poop. Those who know me well know that I need to poop when I get nervous.

The races:

Kentucky Derby Festival Marathon on April 19th

Glass City Marathon on April 27th

We learned about the Kentucky Derby Festival Marathon while at the Chicago Marathon expo and Joe had been pushing for us to run it ever since. I'm not too pumped for the non-flatness, but Joe is really excited to run a lap on Churchill Downs. Oh yeah, that means that Joe is also running the full. I could see us running this one together, since we're running it for more of a fun, destination marathon.

Regarding Glass City, Joe and I initially thought we'd be running the relay with our running group, but it has really fallen apart since running Chicago back in October. It's kinda sad, but such is life. After I ran Glass City as my first full back in 2012 I am fairly certain that I said I'd never run that full again. Not that I had anything against it, but I think I wanted to just try new things. Now I'm ready to try it again. Also, the directors have slightly changed the route (less bike trail = good). With the itch to become a Marathon Maniac and Joe's fervor to run the KDF Marathon, all signs pointed to Glass City. Side note: Joe is running the half.

And that's my crazy plan. I will run two marathons in April. Now I just need the right training plan to get me there.