Oh, what will this year bring?

Six weeks

April 7, 2008 on 10:30 pm | In Running | 4 Comments

I’m just six weeks away from running the Historic Half, the inaugural Marine half-marathon. It’s time to get serious.

It’s not that I haven’t been working out and training. I have been, but not all of it has been running. Frankly, it’s a lot easier to run when I’m in FL and can run outdoors than when I’m home and have to run on the treadmill. No matter how good the music or book is on my iPod or how fascinating the televisions are above the treadmill, it just gets boring after awhile.

[True (stupid) story: I was waiting with another woman for yoga class to start, so we got to talking about other workouts. “What do you think of the treadmill?” she asked. “Oh,” I replied, “it’s OK for the first hour but the second hour is pretty tough.” It was out of my mouth before I realized what I was saying. I quickly explained that I’m training for a half-marathon. No one in their right mind would spend more than an hour on the treadmill (right?). ]

So, in addition to running on the treadmill, I mix it up a bit with cycling classes or the elliptical or yoga. It all helps, it all works, and the variety has been good. But now it’s time to focus on running.

I have a training plan that I generated at RunnersWorld.com. Since I train by myself, it’s the only guidance I’ve got (besides my Running for Women book). (Eventually, when the weather is good and I’m not otherwise engaged on a Saturday morning, there’s a local group I’d like to run with, but I’ve been saying that since December.)

Sunday is my day for a long run. This week was 9 miles. I’ve run 10 before so I knew I could do it. I just had to figure out where. I discovered MapMyRun.com which has a great tool for drawing a route which it automatically calculates the mileage. Plus, I can use maps that other people created. I searched through and found this one:

http://www.mapmyrun.com/run/united-states/ny/fairport/210933415

I love running on the canal path and I knew this route, it was sunny and warming up in the 50s — perfect!

I planted a water bottle laced with Gatorade at a point a third of the way from the start, then I drove to the village and parked. I tucked a wad of tissues in the pocket on the back of my shirt: when my legs run, my nose runs. I plugged in my headphones and took off.

I was pretty slow but I plodded along. Sure enough, a mile or so in, my nose was running like a faucet. I reached in the back pocket and pulled out the tissues. I cleaned out my nose, returned the dirty one to my back pocket and put the clean ones in the front pocket of my jacket for easy access. I kept running until I reached the water bottle, had a few sips, and felt in my pocket for the tissues to clear my nose again but they were gone. My whole pile of tissues gone and I still had over 6 miles to run. I forged ahead, snot nose and all.

Sorry to be gross but I had to keep sniffling the entire way otherwise I was going to have an even more disgusting mess on my face. And I was not about to put one finger on a nostril to close it off and field-blow the other one. I was raised better than that. So I sniffed and snorted the miles away. Here’s the really gross part: eventually some of the snot dried in the wind. And not demurely up into my nostrils. By the time I finished the run, I pulled off my fleece hat to reveal damp hair either matted to my head or standing up on end. Sweat had dried in salty white patches on my face. And I had caked boogerpalooza going in my nose. And, of course, no tissues in the car.

But in spite of my less than cover girl appearance, I felt triumphant. I have to admit it was a terrible run, very slow and I just plodded along. At times I thought I must be nuts for trying the half-marathon, even crazier for considering the marathon in the fall, but in the end, even though it wasn’t pretty, I finished it. And that’s really what running these races is all about for me. It’s not really a race of winning times for me, it’s certainly not a beauty contest, it’s just an expression of the will to do what I say I know I can do. Snot nose and all.

Week beginning 3/31: Total miles 21.67