The big sixteen miler - Race to Trinity

I checked it out. If I was to run from my home in Maynooth Park in Ireland to Trinity College in Dublin, where I spent 4 wonderful years, it would be just over sixteen miles. Well, that's how far I ran this past weekend. Imagine! SIXTEEN miles. I don't know why, but this number has a much bigger impact on me than any before. It might be because the idea of running into Dublin from my home seems quite ridiculous to me. When I put it in context like that, I'm amazed at how far I've come.

The long run this past weekend was in Capitola and Santa Cruz. We ran along the coast, past the boardwalk with all the rollercoasters, past the pier and the sea lions and on up along the cliffs. We passed many beaches, some with surfers, some with volleyball players, some with dog owners and their four legged friends playing in the water. The weather was completely perfect, slightly overcast and cool. I ran the whole way with two wonderful women with great senses of humor who kept me going the whole time. We chatted and laughed, we made up stories about the people we passed and we encouraged each other when the going got tough. I didn't notice the time pass. Really. I couldn't believe that sixteen miles was easier than my race just one week before. Check out the path here http://rnkpr.com/a55pu6

Mermaid Half Marathon

I finished my first half marathon. I am so proud. It took me 2 hours and 20 minutes, smack bang on the 10' 45 "/mile time I was aiming for.

The marathon was an all female race and you could really feel the powerful support on the course. There were lots of, "Great Job!"s and "Well done, Keep it up, You can do it!"s throughout my race. In addition, several women greeted me at the start line with a "Go Team!" (the official cheer of Team in Training) and on the course itself people cheered, "Come on Team in Training. You're looking great!" to encourage me as I ran. You couldn't overestimate how helpful and motivating these cheers are. When you're running along and getting tired, when you begin to focus inwards and the world around you closes in a little bit, the cheers bring you up again. You smile, mumble your thanks, respond in kind with a cheer of your own and before you know it you're back on track and focused. Knowing this makes me more satisfied than ever with my pick of a rock 'n' roll marathon. There will be a live band at every mile in Seattle and the track makes it easy for spectators to stand at the side of the road and cheer.

As for the race itself, I started fairly well. I didn't speed off the start line and I kept a respectfully average pace for the first half of the race. At the half way point I took a moment to walk a little and it was enough to throw me off for a while. When the 'Mile 9' marker showed up I pulled up my socks (figuratively) and tried out some of that self talk I had read about. "In the full marathon you'll just be starting the middle section of the race right now. This is when you need to be strong. Feel the strength in your core. Dig deep and breathe. Steady now." I ran a fantastic mile feeling strong and drawing on all the motivation I had...

Then I reached the 'Mile 10' marker. And I fell apart. I felt like I had used up all the motivation I had. The 'self talk' turn into internal dialog, that went something like this,
"I am a marathoner.
No, you're not. That's just ridiculous. This is just too hard.
No, I must be positive. I am a marathoner.
What are you talking about? You haven't even gone half the distance of the marathon and you're starting to give up. You'll never make it to the end.
No, godammit. Positive. Come ON, McDonough.
Oh, screw this. I can't do it, I'm just gonna walk..."

And on, and on for the whole mile. Needless this to say, this was my slowest mile of the half-marathon. I don't know how I pulled myself out of it. I know I walked quite a bit on this mile and when I reached the 'Mile 11' marker I knew I only had 2.1 miles left and somehow it was doable. I knew I could just continue to put one foot in front of the other and make it to the end. Close to the finish line, a woman shouted, "Pump your arms more, it'll make it easier," and lo and behold it did! Much easier. I ran strong and confident for the last hundred yards and finished in a satisfying 2 hours 20 minutes.

I was rattled though. It wasn't easy. At all. And with just 10 weeks to the marathon itself, running twice that seemed almost out of my reach.

The Forest of Nisene Marks and my first half marathon

Last Saturday I woke up early and drove for 75 minutes to get to The Forest of Nisene Marks in Aptos. It was a foggy morning but there was no rain, which turned out to be a good thing because we ran nearly the whole way on a dirt track. I showed up feeling a bit nervous about the foreboding hills and the state of my shin. Luckily though, early on I caught up with a couple of other runners who were happy to share their stories and chat a little bit to pass the time.

The first 3.5 miles weren't too steep, a fact I appreciated at the time (but regretted later). The forest was peaceful and calm and the overhead canopy of trees provided shade. The conversation was good and distracting. It wasn't long though before we hit the upward slopes. And boy did they live up to the apprehension in the eyes of those who had been here before. We were passed by several cyclists who tried hard to make believe they had yet another lower gear. I felt my heart race and sure enough the numbers on my heart rate monitor soared. We gave up and walked a little. Surprisingly, I was ready before the others to try to push a little again, and so passed the next hour and a half.

In my head I was aiming for 12 miles rather than the total of 14 that everyone else had in mind for the day. Most of the people I'm training with are running in the San Diego marathon 3 weeks before mine at Seattle. When I got to the six mile turn around though, I still felt pretty good. I took a quick assessment of my body and my energy and decided to push on to mile seven before turning around. Having to make the decision about whether to run 12 or 14 miles is very different when you make that decision at mile 6 versus at mile 12.

So up I went. People began passing me on their way back, flying down the hill, as I continued my walk/run/plod uphill to the mile marker. When I made it to mile 7 I was over the moon. The way down was a lot of fun at first. Having to run so slowly on the way up and walk so often was disheartening, but now I was flying. My speed picked up and suddenly I knew what it felt like to be able to run fast, for your feet to want to make each step, instead of having to conjole them every time. I spent 5 glorious minutes engineering a treadmill in my head, that sloped forwards but moved backwards, so that I never had to run uphill ever again. The next 3 miles were a blur. I very slowly lost full control of where each footstep landed. Everything went into slow motion from my brain's perspective as my body hurtled down the mountain. The only thing I was conscious of was the 'Bam, Bam' of each footstep hitting the ground. Until it all came to a halt with 3.5 miles to go. Those wonderful flat miles at the beginning were a bain at the end. By now I was thoroughly exhausted. I had really just been holding on for the last few miles, not in control. Now I was back to having to convince my feet that they wanted to make each step and I really wasn't sure I wasn't going to make it. I was rethinking the decision to attempt to run 14 miles. I counted each. and. every. step.

The water stop showed up at mile 12 and when I saw it, I thought I would just walk the last 2 miles. That's what I had intended at the beginning anyway, right? No harm. I was just being silly trying to do 14 before I needed to in the training... But once I had a bit of a rest and a drink of water, I couldn't really face walking all the way home. I got back on the road and waddled (you couldn't really call it jogging, definitely not running) all the way back to the finish line. When I crossed the 13.1 mile point, all I could think was, "This is HALF the distance I have to run on race day." Oh dear. I'd say it took me 3 minutes to forget all the pain and intense self-talking that went on and to simply relish in my achievement. I called home excitedly, "I ran FOURTEEN miles!!!"

Now this weekend I'm competing in my first half marathon event. Runkeeper has a brilliant option to allow people to track your run live on the website. When I get started I'll send a quick tweet to let people know and then you can track my progress over the course of the 13.1 miles. It's amazing to me that even though I just recalled the pain and agony of last weekend I am still brimming over with enthusiasm for tomorrow. I'm off now to pick up my packet with my race number and electronic tracker to make sure they correctly record my time. If I make somewhere in the 2.5 hour range I'll be happy.

Wish me luck!

Racing but not getting carried away

Aside from all the training I've been doing in the last few months, I have never participated in an actual race and I don't want the marathon to be the first time I do. As I've heard over and over, nothing you do on race day should be for the first time. So I signed up for a half marathon on April 17th. It's an all female race in the Mermaid series, and it's held in my beloved Shoreline park, a place I'm very familiar with. I am comforted by the general tone of the event, with a target audience of, "novice athletes, experienced runners or just for fun", and where the FAQ answers the question of, "Can I run with a baby stroller?" with a resounding, "Yes!" This coming weekend, April 10th, we're running in an especially hilly location and I'm planning to keep my target distance to 12 miles, so the race will be my first attempt at the half marathon 13.1 mile distance. The distance conjures up such different feelings today than it would have 3 months ago. I am amazed at how my perspective has changed.

In the mean time, there was an organized fun run in work this week that I participated in on Wednesday and boy, am I glad that I did. I must have made every rookie mistake there is to make, despite knowing about most of them beforehand. Firstly I was really caught up in the excitement and fun of the event. It was a Mad Hatter race, so everyone arrived wearing ridiculous head gear. We all stretched together before the race and I participated in a little banter with some fellow Googlers. When the race kicked off, I shot off with vigor. Mistake number one. I didn't quite sprint, but my starting pace was much faster than anything I can maintain. The people I was running with were at all different levels (read: much better at running than me) so trying to keep up with anyone at the front was a BAD idea. It wasn't long before I was out of breath and panting for air. I didn't even realize why because with all the adrenaline it didn't feel that much faster than usual.

The second bad idea was not researching the course beforehand. I thought I read somewhere that the course was 3 miles long and tried to keep pace accordingly. There weren't any mile markers so I didn't really know how fast I was running. It was 3.28 miles long which I only found out later when I mapped it out. That meant that the 33.16 time I was disappointed in was actually something to cheer about.

The last issue wasn't really in my control. The race was at midday on one of the few sunny days so far this Spring. The sun was streaming down and it was hot, hot, hot. The last mile had a steep incline and I haven't yet dared to test myself on hills so all in all I was a deep red colour by the time I finished. If you're not blessed with lovely Irish skin like mine, let me tell you, EVERYONE stares when you turn reddish purple with tinges of black around the edges.

Worst of all though, to accompany these challenges I started to feel a sharp pain in my left shin half way through the race. The pain didn't fade when the race finished, if anything it intensified. I grabbed a cold drink can from the fridge and with it I massaged my shin as best I could to keep it cold but it really ached. I spent the afternoon researching shin pains and became convinced that it wasn't simply shin splints but a stress fracture from over work. Along with the unexpectedly stressful week in work, this seemed like just too much. I decided that the only thing to do was take a break from running for a couple of days.

Now it's Saturday morning. I haven't run for 2 days straight. I didn't really know what to do with myself yesterday. It felt strange not to run. Thankfully my shin feels much better. There is no pain at all and I'm dressed and ready to run at 6:30am! I'm off now to the Forest of Nisene Marks in Aptos.

Wish me luck!

Visualizations

I have a little more than 11 weeks to the marathon. The exercise given for this training week in this book is all about using visualizations to help with the tough times, in the race and during training. Those times when your legs feel heavy and you're out of breath and when you're contemplating giving up. My run on Saturday was filled with these moments so I'm going to follow their advice here. They advise creating two short mental videos based on personal experience and a little imagination. These are supposed to be positive, upbeat and happy visualizations so be prepared here for a little cheesiness. The first should be about the best training run I've done. So here goes.

One afternoon in work I realized that for the first time in weeks I had 3 full hours without a meeting scheduled. I decided to take the opportunity to go for a run. I'm lucky to work somewhere that sits right on the bay, with a running path starting practically at my door and going for miles. The sun was shining but it wasn't too hot because there was also a nice breeze. I ran the same route I've been running every Tuesday for a couple of months now with my TNT 'buddies' so I'm familiar with it. I knew how long the inclines were, and where the mile markers were. There were little bunny rabbits poking their noses out of the long grass on the side of the path, then quickly backing up when they saw me, and hopping away furiously, tails in the air. There were birds on the telephone wires and in the trees, singing loudly about how much they like spring. It felt so good to be outside, in the sunshine, being healthy and free. I laughed out loud just because I felt so good. (Then I had to stop because that totally messed up my breathing.) That day I really enjoyed feeling like a runner. When I finished the run and looked at my average pace, I was pleased that it had improved.

The second mental highlights tape should be of what I imagine it will be like to finish the marathon. I think by that time I will have lost at least a stone (this is my imagination and I can picture it how I want, OK?) The temperature will be around 65 degrees (18 C) (average for Seattle at this time of year). I'll be wearing shorts and a tshirt with the TNT logo, hair in a ponytail. I'll be pretty exhausted but very very happy. For the last few miles my feet will really be dragging but all around there will be people cheering and yelling encouragement. My cheeks will hurt from smiling. My parents and Sean will be waiting at the finish line, with big smiles too. My Dad will know exactly what it feels like and give me a huge bear hug of congratulations. I'll be really proud and amazed that I made it.

So the trick is (and I'm paraphrasing here) that when you're feeling tired and negative and beat up, to imagine that you've clicked on the wrong youtube link (this is especially easy if I imagine the link came from stads) and you need to close the browser window IMMEDIATELY. Then you need to find the link to one of your own videos and play that instead. So you replace whatever negative thoughts you were having with this movie. And you play it over and over until it's at the forefront of your mind. Our brains can be easily tricked sometimes and when your imaginings are particularly convincing they will often try to make physical reality match their perception of reality. They go ahead and release all the feel good hormones and adrenaline that comes along with actual accomplishments and magically you feel better. I have to admit just writing out the descriptions of these videos has improved my mood today.

I think this is a good plan for everyone actually and isn't tied simply to training for a marathon. We all have days (and sometimes weeks) when we just feel down and unhappy. How great would it be if you could just play a video in your mind and feel better about yourself. Well now you know how. Try it. Tell me if it works for you.