More Marathon Stuff
Are you sick of hearing about running yet? I'm not! So that's what I want to talk about more. There's so much more to say about the fun I had while running my marathon. Here are my random thoughts from the race in no particular order.
I was getting pretty nervous the night before the race. We got to spend the night out at my sister's house (thanks, Stacey, for hosting us). She graciously made us a very yummy meal - pasta, tomato sauce, meatballs, veggies. It was good. I, unfortunately decided to eat more than I should have. After eating my second helping, I started to feel not so good and just felt pretty gross. I eventually realized it was the way I always feel after I eat when I'm pregnant - heartburn! (No, I'm not pregnant. I just overate and had a bit of nerves to deal with!). Anyway, that was kind of a bummer to give myself heartburn the night before. I also had a splitting headache that ibuprofen just wouldn't take care of. So we went to bed early and I prayed for full health upon my waking up. The bed was comfy and Aaron and I fell in love with flannel sheets while there. We just might have to invest in a set for this winter. We woke up at 5:30 and I felt much better than I did the night before. We had a bland breakfast of a plain whole wheat bagel. Aaron ate some granola bars too. We drank water, got ready, used the potty and left. We found a parking spot pretty close to the start of the race and got ourselves situated in the starting area - all three of us in different starting areas so we wouldn't feel pressure to stick together if we didn't need to. Julie and I gave each other permission to run how we were feeling and not feel bad about leaving whoever behind if they were feeling better than the other. It was nice to have that freedom.
I'm so not used to running with anyone nearby (other than Julie and we hadn't been able to run together much at all the past two months due to my foot). We run out on the rural gravel roads and if we have more than two cars pass us during that time, we're appalled at how busy the roads are. I like the solitude of running. I like being able to go out with my own thoughts, my own pace, and just run for me. So running in a big city with a few thousand other people with me, and lots of spectators was new. So being that it was in a race, I was okay with people being around, because I'm competitive. : ) I ran past two women running together who were complaining together about bugs and lack of specators as we ran through a beautiful residential areas. I did not see any bugs. There were some AMAZING houses through the area we ran during miles 3-6. I could have happily lived in almost any of them. I was greatly enjoying the beautiful scenery and delighting in the lack of many spectators during that section.
I was really happy through most of the race. Yes, at times my body was hurting a lot, but my attitude was one of happiness and contentment that I was finally doing what I had always wanted to do. I found myself smiling a lot and greeting people, and responding to their cheers, and good-naturedly thanking the water-passer-outers. I had fun about 95% of the race.
At mile 23, I had to give myself a pep talk because I was starting to lag in my enthusiasm for the run. I did it outloud since no one was near me and I needed to hear some verbal encouragement. It went something like this, "Melissa, you are doing what you've always wanted to to. You are doing awesome. You are going to crush the time goal you made. Your legs can do this. It's only 3 more miles and you've run 3 miles plenty of times. You've trained hard for this and you are enjoying this. Your body is strong and very capable of completing this run. You like to run. Running is fun. Melissa, you are going to finish this race, and you are going to finish it well." I had to stop talking to myself as I came up on some other runners as I didn't want to freak them out by crazy lady running past them. But it helped me to reorganize my thoughts and get my thinking straightened out again.
Post race hunger. My stomach is fickle. I go from being ravenously hungry to feeling nauseous in the blink of an eye. I only need to eat a little bit at a time to feel full and to make sure my stomach doesn't revolt at having food in it. I'm sure it will even back out in a day or two.
Pace Teams - if you want to run a certain time, there are pace groups you can run with that has an official pace person who carries a little sign for what time he's running. I started off with the 4:15 pace team because I wanted to push myself just a bit while I was running (just under a 10min/mile pace) since I had planned on walking. I lost them around mile 6 when I took a small walking break, but by then had decided to run more than walk since the moment I started walking, my competitive nature took over and all these runners started passing me while I walked and that drove me CRAZY! So eventually the 4:30 pace team caught up with me and I ran with them from about mile 10-14. By then, I was still feeling pretty good that I made it my goal to not let the 4:45 pace team catch me. Beating 4:45 became my new goal. I got nervous about that during some of my walking breaks, so I didn't walk for long and kept compulsively checking my watch and calculating that I could beat it if I kept up my pace to where it was. My average mile pace was 10:46 - which I am super pleased with since I walked around 3 miles of the race. Most of my running miles were under 10:00 - except for the last 3 or so where I was struggling to run 10:30 due to fatigue.
Shredded - is how I would describe my leg muscles right now. They are so tired out. Going down stairs hurts way more than going up. Sitting down hurts more than standing up. Once I get moving I'm fine. It's just the initial starting motion that aches. I plan on taking some walks over the next while to move some of the lactic acid around. Surprisingly, my foot hasn't been hurting very much. It's a bit achey, but not the sharp shooting pain I've had after some of my runs. I'm hoping it stays that way. I still plan on babying it for awhile to give it a lot of rest and healing time. But I'm pleasantly surprised by how good it feels so far. Let's hope it stays that way!
Salt - towards the end - about two miles to go, my eyes started stinging and watering. I reached up to wipe them and found gritty stuff all over my face. What was that? I realized it was salt. Aaron had a nasty salty crust on his face from evaporated sweat. Mine was less noticable, but still kind of gross. I was very happy to shower and feel clean and non-gritty again. I think that's my first time of getting salt crust. Isn't that exciting?
Okay, I think I'm done with the running gushiness for now. I can't guarantee that my next post will be run anecdotal free.
I was getting pretty nervous the night before the race. We got to spend the night out at my sister's house (thanks, Stacey, for hosting us). She graciously made us a very yummy meal - pasta, tomato sauce, meatballs, veggies. It was good. I, unfortunately decided to eat more than I should have. After eating my second helping, I started to feel not so good and just felt pretty gross. I eventually realized it was the way I always feel after I eat when I'm pregnant - heartburn! (No, I'm not pregnant. I just overate and had a bit of nerves to deal with!). Anyway, that was kind of a bummer to give myself heartburn the night before. I also had a splitting headache that ibuprofen just wouldn't take care of. So we went to bed early and I prayed for full health upon my waking up. The bed was comfy and Aaron and I fell in love with flannel sheets while there. We just might have to invest in a set for this winter. We woke up at 5:30 and I felt much better than I did the night before. We had a bland breakfast of a plain whole wheat bagel. Aaron ate some granola bars too. We drank water, got ready, used the potty and left. We found a parking spot pretty close to the start of the race and got ourselves situated in the starting area - all three of us in different starting areas so we wouldn't feel pressure to stick together if we didn't need to. Julie and I gave each other permission to run how we were feeling and not feel bad about leaving whoever behind if they were feeling better than the other. It was nice to have that freedom.
I'm so not used to running with anyone nearby (other than Julie and we hadn't been able to run together much at all the past two months due to my foot). We run out on the rural gravel roads and if we have more than two cars pass us during that time, we're appalled at how busy the roads are. I like the solitude of running. I like being able to go out with my own thoughts, my own pace, and just run for me. So running in a big city with a few thousand other people with me, and lots of spectators was new. So being that it was in a race, I was okay with people being around, because I'm competitive. : ) I ran past two women running together who were complaining together about bugs and lack of specators as we ran through a beautiful residential areas. I did not see any bugs. There were some AMAZING houses through the area we ran during miles 3-6. I could have happily lived in almost any of them. I was greatly enjoying the beautiful scenery and delighting in the lack of many spectators during that section.
I was really happy through most of the race. Yes, at times my body was hurting a lot, but my attitude was one of happiness and contentment that I was finally doing what I had always wanted to do. I found myself smiling a lot and greeting people, and responding to their cheers, and good-naturedly thanking the water-passer-outers. I had fun about 95% of the race.
At mile 23, I had to give myself a pep talk because I was starting to lag in my enthusiasm for the run. I did it outloud since no one was near me and I needed to hear some verbal encouragement. It went something like this, "Melissa, you are doing what you've always wanted to to. You are doing awesome. You are going to crush the time goal you made. Your legs can do this. It's only 3 more miles and you've run 3 miles plenty of times. You've trained hard for this and you are enjoying this. Your body is strong and very capable of completing this run. You like to run. Running is fun. Melissa, you are going to finish this race, and you are going to finish it well." I had to stop talking to myself as I came up on some other runners as I didn't want to freak them out by crazy lady running past them. But it helped me to reorganize my thoughts and get my thinking straightened out again.
Post race hunger. My stomach is fickle. I go from being ravenously hungry to feeling nauseous in the blink of an eye. I only need to eat a little bit at a time to feel full and to make sure my stomach doesn't revolt at having food in it. I'm sure it will even back out in a day or two.
Pace Teams - if you want to run a certain time, there are pace groups you can run with that has an official pace person who carries a little sign for what time he's running. I started off with the 4:15 pace team because I wanted to push myself just a bit while I was running (just under a 10min/mile pace) since I had planned on walking. I lost them around mile 6 when I took a small walking break, but by then had decided to run more than walk since the moment I started walking, my competitive nature took over and all these runners started passing me while I walked and that drove me CRAZY! So eventually the 4:30 pace team caught up with me and I ran with them from about mile 10-14. By then, I was still feeling pretty good that I made it my goal to not let the 4:45 pace team catch me. Beating 4:45 became my new goal. I got nervous about that during some of my walking breaks, so I didn't walk for long and kept compulsively checking my watch and calculating that I could beat it if I kept up my pace to where it was. My average mile pace was 10:46 - which I am super pleased with since I walked around 3 miles of the race. Most of my running miles were under 10:00 - except for the last 3 or so where I was struggling to run 10:30 due to fatigue.
Shredded - is how I would describe my leg muscles right now. They are so tired out. Going down stairs hurts way more than going up. Sitting down hurts more than standing up. Once I get moving I'm fine. It's just the initial starting motion that aches. I plan on taking some walks over the next while to move some of the lactic acid around. Surprisingly, my foot hasn't been hurting very much. It's a bit achey, but not the sharp shooting pain I've had after some of my runs. I'm hoping it stays that way. I still plan on babying it for awhile to give it a lot of rest and healing time. But I'm pleasantly surprised by how good it feels so far. Let's hope it stays that way!
Salt - towards the end - about two miles to go, my eyes started stinging and watering. I reached up to wipe them and found gritty stuff all over my face. What was that? I realized it was salt. Aaron had a nasty salty crust on his face from evaporated sweat. Mine was less noticable, but still kind of gross. I was very happy to shower and feel clean and non-gritty again. I think that's my first time of getting salt crust. Isn't that exciting?
Okay, I think I'm done with the running gushiness for now. I can't guarantee that my next post will be run anecdotal free.
I love that you talked to yourself out loud. :)
ReplyDeleteI get emotional after really long runs - like yesterday when I almost started crying just thinking about cooking dinner. Irrational. I think I'm just overtired, but I don't even realize it until something happens and I react so bizarrely. It's neat. I'm sure it's really fun for Dave, too.
I am enjoying hearing about your running. Keep talking till you get it out of your system ! :)
ReplyDeleteOn a side note....you are only now learning about flannel sheets??????