June 12athon - RWB

Happy 12th! I woke up not feeling particularly well this morning, so I opted for the Bi-Curious challenge since running 6 miles sounded a lot more doable than running 12 at the moment. I ended up walking about 4 of the 6 miles anyway, but oh well:



The bike ride to the post office and back to mail a package wasn't bad, though. And this was the first time I'd used the watch for cycling, so that was kind of exciting, even if it didn't carry over the 'stop when I'm stopped' setting from the running mode and continued ticking along through the traffic lights.



And, for a few extra points, all in the Merrell Barefoot Dash Gloves, which do not glow in spite of appearing to do so in the picture. They are, however, awesome.

Happy trails to you . . .

. . . until we meet again? Today is apparently National Trails Day, and because of that, there was a 12athon Bonus run! 3.2 miles, on (unpaved) trails, for 3.2 points, and dressing as your favorite trail icon for an extra point. I did not do that, but I do have a picture of my favorite trail icon, if by 'trail icon' you mean 'wordless sign.'

(I think the guy is saying something totally safe for work.) The nearest trails to me are in a park that requires me to pay to park, and I'm not okay with that, so I normally run there, but I was not really into running 3 miles to get to trails, to run 3 miles, and then 3 miles home, so I drove 20 minutes (11 miles) to find another park. And ta-da! I found an unpaved trail!

Well, okay, that was actually a little thingy that went from one parking lot to another but from there I was able to find standard unpaved trails, with grass and weeds and mud and the occasional pile of rocks. I didn't get a picture because I'd put my camera back in my car by that point, so you'll just have to believe me. But you don't have to believe me on time! I can prove that.

I promise there are lots more posts coming; RWB and I did the Madison (Half) Marathon last weekend, and that meant LOTS of baking (no crap, 3 separate recipe posts coming, and a few reviews of crud), but for now, I will leave off here.

Syttende Mai

So, weirdly enough, this is not the first time I've run a distance dedicated to a Constitution Day, although the last time was for the US Constitution Day, which is September 17. I even have an ugly race shirt from it! But more importantly, I was supposed to run 5.17 miles today, for May 17, and I did:

But let's talk about what I had to do to get the Norwegian flag picture, which will hopefully net me another point. Yeah, a single point. I live in the northern 'burbs of the Twin Cities, and I googled the Norwegian Consulate because if anyone knows anything about the Twin Cities, they know that there's a Norwegian Consulate in town. Maybe. Um. So I went to the location, and there was nothing. No flags, no sign, not even a listing in the directory. Oh well. So I did get a picture of myself at the Norwegian Consulate:

And, um, for the record, I paid $2 to wander around downtown for 20 minutes, looking for the consulate:

And once I realized it just wasn't going to happen, I googled 'Norwegian cultural center,' to see if I'd have any more luck. I didn't, but I found a nice Norwegian Lutheran church, called the Mindekirke, and figured that would probably work, or at least have some Norwegian outside. Or something. Got there, and success!

And, to prove I was there (yes, that's my forehead and wispy hair; I cut out my eyes, which were in the original picture, because I was making a really funny face):

Oh, wait, that's not a Norwegian flag. Oh! But I have one of those, too! Kind of. It was on the wrong side of a door, but . . . style points?

Happy Constitution Day!

12athon: Month 4 (AA)

Last Sunday I ran 14 miles, which I thought was pretty awesome and impressive. (For me.) This week I'm supposed to run 16 miles, according to the chart I'm pretty much making up as I go along, and since I'm supposed to do 12 today anyway, I thought, HEY! MIGHT AS WELL DO 16 AS 12, AMIRITE?

So I suited up, got my hand-held water bottle full of electrolyte drink, got my fruit-snacky-things, etc. It was great. For about two miles, and then my right hamstring, which has been a little cranky lately, said, "No."

I said, "Um, yes."

It said, "No. No, you are not doing sixteen miles, and at this point, twelve is laughable."

I said, "%^&*." (Well, not really, but you can translate.) So I finished out my 4-mile loop (I was planning on running it 4 times anyway) and considered what else I could do. I mean, according to the chart, I'm supposed to do six or seven miles today anyway, so . . . OH! Right! Tri This.

So I ran two more miles--and by 'ran' I mean 'kinda jog-walked'--and then grabbed my rollerblades, since they were right there in the garage.

Um. Okay. I suppose here I should explain a little bit of my history with rollerblading. Back in April of 2001, which, yes, was eleven years ago (I was eighteen and stupid) I went rollerblading, went down a hill I shouldn't have, skinned the hell out of both knees and my hands and elbows and probably parts I'm not remembering, and smacked my back into a wooden guard rail, necessitating a trip to the emergency room. Fortunately, everything was fine, for varying degrees of fine, but I've got a giant scar on my left knee because of it, and slightly-messed-up hips. (No, there's no picture of the scar on my knee. It's pretty gross, though.)

Anyway, and I live in a place where I have a driveway that looks like this:



So rollerblading for me involved a significant amount of 'walking' on the grass and, you know, prayer. I didn't fall, though! Yay! Four miles of that.

Then I had to dig my bike out of the basement, which was just annoying. I'm on the short side, so getting a bike up the stairs is a matter of leverage that I just don't have. Got it up, eventually, though, and of course both my tires were flat. And of course the bike pump had the wrong attachment on the end, and I couldn't find the box with all the bits in it. (Mr. Angle's bike has the other kind of valves.) But hey! The mini-emergency bike pump had my kind of valve attachments, so I got my arm workout for the day in by doing that. *sigh*

Anyway, two quick miles on the bike--after a half hour of prep work, feh--and I was done!

Also I wore the same shoes as last time--Kinvara 2s, 4 mm drop:

And I did all of my running/blading/riding on a trail:

And, last but not least, I managed to get some excellent work in on my farmer's tan:

It's about time to switch to tank tops, methinks.

Anyway, numbers!

Miles jogged: 6 (in about 1:30, but I can't prove it)
Miles rollerbladed: 4 (in about an hour; stupid walking)
Miles biked: 2 (in about 14 minutes)
Total mileage: 12 (of course!)
Challenges: Tri This (9) and Naturalist (4) and Woodsy Owl (4)
Injuries from various activities: 3 (2 rub marks from rollerblades, 1 pair of pants that finally gave up the ghost in an indelicate spot--that's an injury, right?)
Songs listened to: About 20, but about twice each
Weirdest song to run to: "Holocaust of Giants," Rasputina (musical number--geddit? eh?)
Calories consumed at dinner: I don't think I can count that high

Happi pi dai!

It's pi day! So I chalked a giant pi on myself (and several smaller ones) and went to run 3.14 miles.

I might have run longer, but 1.) Hal said only do 3 miles today, and 2.) I was meeting Mr. Angle for lunch and I'd gotten up a tad later than expected.

Anyway, so, yeah, aimed for 3.14 miles but overshot. Maybe. My usual routes are either 0.945 mi, or 1.275 mi, so I thought, okay, one long, two short, and then maybe a few extra feet depending on how spicy the satellites are feeling today. I heard my phone tell me when I'd run 1.0 mi, and then 2.0, but I thought I might have missed 3.0, so I pulled my phone out to check about a block from my house--so about where I thought 3.0 miles should be--and I got this:

Whoops. Bless me, mighty Virtual 12athon Overlord (overlady?), for I have sinned. I ran an extra six-hundredths of a mile unwittingly. Maybe.

Also, it was really fast. If it would have been a real 5K, I would have beat my old PR by quite a bit.

Afterward, I showered REALLY FAST, drove down to eat lunch with Mr. Angle, and then went to the haircut place, to do this:

Yep, I donated 10 inches of hair. Not that my hair is particularly visible in any other picture I've ever posted on the blog (when it's long, I usually keep it tied up), but now I look like this:

It's a very refreshing feeling, having hair that isn't down to my waist anymore. And just in time for lovely weather! It's in the 70s here. In Minnesota. In March. Yeah.

12athon: Month 3(AA)

I don't even know why I'm writing this. You should just read RWB's entry. It's way more awesome than mine, because she is way more awesome than I am.

I mean, really. She did TWELVE different challenges. I'm happy that I did two, and one was sort of by accident.

You're still here? Well, okay, then.

I did the Dirty Dozen and Naturalist challenges, the first of which entails wearing 11 extra gross pieces of clothing and taking one off per mile (and then presumably stripping off everything else you're wearing at the end in disgust, which I did, but there are no pictures of that, thanks). The Naturalist challenge just means I ran in shoes with a 4mm drop or less.

Here's the proof on the Dirty Dozen:

Here's the proof on the Naturalist challenge:

Here's the story:

I live on top of a hill, sort of, and it's pretty gross out, so I didn't want to throw my clothes straight onto the ground. Instead, I figured I'd pull my car out and park it at the foot of the driveway, and then fold my clothes neatly and lay them out in the back seat. Well, then I got to my car and found that my husband had deposited his tuba in the back seat, which nixed that idea.

Well, okay, and to be fair, anyone who thought I was going to fold my clothes neatly doesn't know me very well. But I digress.

I did, as a matter of fact, park my car at the base of the driveway, and then found a 1-mile route (it involved running my 0.95-mile route and then running around the cul-de-sac in a sort of victory lap) with my phone, which was coincidentally Mile 1. After that I thought I was going to die, because I was wearing about 97 million extra layers of clothing. Ewww.

I mean, I looked like this when I started:

I hate running in baseball caps. I really do.

Anyway, so, here it is, mile-by-mile:

Mile 1: OH GOD I FEEL LIKE A SAUSAGE.
Mile 2: Removed green Old Navy 'ActiveWear' supposed wicking hoodie. No real issues.
Mile 3: Removed gray cotton Race for Justice 2011 shirt. Still no issues. Finally marginally comfortable.
Mile 4: OMG TINY DOGS TRYING TO EAT ME. Removed black Columbia fleece sweatpant things, and was now officially out of pockets. Damnit. Tied my keys to the drawstring on my next pair of pants.
Mile 5: Kid asked me for directions. I gave him wrong directions, but I didn't see him again, so it was all right. Also got a blister about this time, but nonetheless, took off pink hat. FINALLY. Went inside to get bandaid and had to re-think strategy re: shoes at the end.
Mile 6: Removed purple sweatband, which was probably the dirtiest item of clothing that I was wearing. Ew. Glad to get rid of it, despite sweat.
Mile 7: Got rid of blue short-sleeved shirt, which I was wearing under a blue long-sleeved shirt. This was my best mile by far; I felt like I was wearing the right amount of clothing, finally.
Mile 8: Got rid of black capri-length cotton pants, which left me in gray knee-length sweatpant-y things. Still okay.
Mile 9: Realized it was my damn socks that were causing all the problems, but afraid to get rid of them, so removed white H & M tank top/camisole.
Mile 10: OKAY THEN. Got rid of left sock. Originally I was going to take off both shoes at the same time and run a lap in socks, and then the last one in bare feet, which is why I was wearing icky socks from my dead-sock pile (I recycle a lot). That would necessitate running three miles in a sports bra and shorts. Sure, fine, whatever. Then I realized there were a lot of teenagers around and since I don't look like RWB with my shirt off (seriously, she has rockin' abs), I did one sock at a time, instead.
Mile 11: BYE BYE RIGHT SOCK. I should have done that at, like, mile 2. Felt sooo much better.
Mile 12: Got rid of shoes. Bad idea. Should have gotten rid of shirt, or glasses, or pants, or ANYTHING but shoes. Too much gravel. Tried running in the grass, but that made my feet numb, and I figured the damage from gravel was a lot less permanent than the damage from frostbite, so. Anyway. Last mile took me a half hour. I'm fine now, though.

It took me about three and a half hours to complete all of this, what with the last lap being so long and having to take pictures and all, but hey. I'm definitely in line for the chocolate turtle!

Also, if you read this far, why? Go congratulate RWB instead.

Glass = Ow and Mercedes Precap

[It’s probably only fair for me to warn you that the first third of this entry consists of me talking about getting a splinter out of my foot. If you’re squeamish about that sort of thing, you might want to just scroll down a page or two to the Mercedes part.]

Sometimes I get it in my head that I’d like to start running actually barefoot. Then I have weeks like last week. I walked all of about 50 yards barefoot outside to take the trash out Monday afternoon and ended up with a little splinter of glass in my foot. It went deep enough that I couldn’t see anything to grab with tweezers, and poking at it with a needle didn’t yield any results. Since it had gone straight in and wasn’t at all visible, I wasn’t sure if there was still something in my foot or if it just hurt a bit because there was a small hole in my foot and so I opted not to try cutting it out with a razor blade.

It still hurt on Tuesday morning, so I asked the internet what to do about it. It wasn’t red and nothing much happened when I put peroxide on it, so it wasn’t infected, at least. But walking on the edge of my right foot was a little annoying. One website said that putting baking soda paste on it for a day might help push the splinter out. Again, I wasn’t certain if there was actually something in there since I couldn’t see anything, but it did hurt if I stepped on it. I covered it in baking soda paste and put a band-aid over it and spent the rest of Tuesday sitting around on the couch.

Wednesday morning I washed off the baking soda paste and inspected it again. (If you haven’t tried it, I don’t really recommend spending an hour with your foot upended on a desk while you hunch over it with a lamp. Not the most comfortable position in the world.) The baking soda dried out the skin a bit, so it was a bit easier to see farther down into the little hole. I still couldn’t actually see anything, but I figured I’d poke a bit with a needle again since I was sure the splinter was still in there. I gave up eventually since I still couldn’t see anything and my neck was cramping.

Another day of mostly sitting around on the couch. I tried again with the needle later in the day. Still nothing visible, but standing on my right foot involved only a bit of discomfort instead of stabby sensations. I hoped maybe this meant it was a microscopic little bit of something in there and I’d gotten it out without actually seeing it. I put on more baking soda paste since it seemed like it wouldn’t hurt anything, at least.

It was still slightly uncomfortable to step on my foot on Thursday morning. At this point I’d already missed two runs and I was just getting kind of annoyed and tired of walking around on the side edge of my foot. I got out a razor blade and picked at the hole with a corner of it. I thought I saw a tiny bit of something shiny somewhere down in there, but it was far enough in that I still couldn’t grab it and I didn’t want to just sit there purposely cutting a hole in my foot. I peroxided it again in the hopes that this would bubble out the bit of glass if the shiny thing was indeed that and not just some deeper layer of my foot which happened to be shiny. I dried it off and didn’t see anything shiny anymore. It was still a little uncomfortable to step on, but that seemed fairly reasonable since I’d just gone at it with a razor blade. I put a band-aid on it to keep any additional bits of stuff out and drove to Atlanta and back for rehearsal.

Friday morning I thought it was fine but just as I was about to declare myself fit to go out for a run, I got a little stab of pain again when I stepped on it. I resigned myself to the fact that there was clearly still a bit of something in my foot and sat down at the desk again, determined not to get up again until I had either found and removed the splinter or gnawed off my own foot in frustration. It took about two hours of alternately picking at it with the corner of a razor blade, poking it with a needle, peroxiding it, and squeezing to try to push anything out which might be in there, but I finally found a tiny little bit of glass – about 2mm long and a fair bit smaller in diameter than a grain of sand. I tried to take a picture of it for posterity, but either the camera on my phone isn’t really designed for close-ups of tiny things (very possible) or else I suck at taking pictures of tiny things (also very possible).

I still didn’t go running on Friday because I was paranoid that there might be another little bit of glass still in there since it was such a small piece that it probably could have broken pretty easily after four days in my foot. I took out the trash again, but I sucked it up and wore flip-flops.

Saturday was a wash since I had to go to Atlanta again and this involved getting up at 3:30 in the morning and not getting to sleep until about 2:30 in the morning. I’d been planning on doing my long run on Sunday, but I decided that maybe running 13 miles for the first time ever after not running at all for a week on the day after I’d been up for 23 hours was probably a terrible idea.

Monday I finally got around to the long run – 13 miles and the last properly long run (next week is a rest week) before my first half marathon on the 19th. I live on the course for the Mercedes Half, so I decided I’d run that since I won’t be in town to actually do the race this year. I also really wanted to do the whole 13 miles of my run in one go since the last long run I’d done without a break was 8 miles three weeks prior, and doing a big loop that didn’t pass by home again until the end seemed like the best way to make sure I’d make myself do it.

(10 miles was the cupcake run so I stopped for a couple of minutes to get out my phone, unwrap a cupcake, and take a picture every mile. 11 miles was on a warm, humid day and I’d done 4 warm, humid miles the day before instead of having a day off in between like usual, so I ended up stopping after 9 miles when my foot started threatening to blister in a couple of places and then doing 2 more miles first thing the next day. 12 was also a rather warm day and I’d downed my entire water bottle and was still feeling pretty dehydrated by the time my route passed back by home after 6.5 miles, so I took a break for several hours to rest and rehydrate before I did the remaining 5.5.)

The sense of anticipation from running the course a week before the race was really fun even if I’m not actually going to be there. There’s road closure notices posted everywhere, there’s banners on all the stoplights downtown, and there were a bunch of “Oh, she must be running the marathon this weekend”s as I ran past groups of people out walking on their lunch breaks. There aren’t very many big, exciting annual events in Birmingham, but Mercedes is one of them.

I do plan on doing the race the next time I’m in town on the appropriate weekend, but I may opt for the half rather than the full even though I will have run a full or two before then. The full course is just two loops of the half course, and while there’s some parks and such along the route, it’s just not the prettiest or most exciting thing out there on the whole.

Okay, Rhodes Park is pretty.

Avondale Park is really quite nice if you’re in the front
where the duck pond is or if the rose garden is in bloom,
but the route only goes by the side of the park and even
in Alabama there aren’t exactly a lot of flowers in February.

The newly-completed Railroad Park is great in general
and has several little ponds and fountains and walking trails,
but the course just goes down the street next to the park,
so the view mostly consists of a line of parallel-parked cars.

Saint George probably has lovely artwork inside,
but it’s difficult to tell when you’re running a race
through their side parking lot.

There’s nothing wrong with the BJCC, but the route
only goes around the back of the building. I don’t know
who decided that the course should include a block
which has loading docks on one side of the street and a
Salvation Army shelter on the other, but it’s there.

If you always get a sudden craving for barbeque 7 (or 20)
miles into a race, Mercedes is definitely for you.

There’s also a couple of places where the course goes underneath a freeway overpass and there’s a mile or two of warehouses and auto body shops – presumably those parts of the course were chosen for their relative flatness rather than for their picturesque qualities. On the whole it’s a decent enough run since I already live here, but I don’t know that it’s worth traveling any great distance for Mercedes.

Anyway, my coffee-bean-laced homemade Larabars and I successfully completed the run, although the two and a quarter miles of continuous uphill definitely killed my pace. (The half has a total gain of 488 feet, with most of it in the aforementioned two and change miles. It’s not steep by any means, but it goes on for forever.) Since I started and finished at home rather than at the starting line, I didn’t hit the big uphill until I’d already been running for almost 10 miles. Probably should have taken that into consideration when planning the run. Really, though, I’m pretty excited just to have completed my first half (albeit unofficially), even averaging 11:43/mile. And hey, the Locomotive Half next weekend only has a total gain of 184 feet…