Month: December 2011

Oh hey, my first marathon is TODAY.

Wow, the window of my hotel room is dirty.

The marathon starts at 4 p.m. Pacific and I hope to be done by/before 8:30-ish depending on when I cross the start line! I’m in corral 8, which I moved up to at the expo since I’m aiming for a 4:15 finish.

I signed up for runner tracking that will text seven splits to five people of my choosing. My mom, who is HERE by the way, is receiving them so she’ll know when to meet me at the finish, and my lovely friend @Edger will attempt to live-tweet my splits on the Twitter machine, so follow her if you want.

I’ve got three slots left… who wants ‘em? Bonus points if you’d like to live-Tumbl the splits for me. Send your email address to my “Ask” if you’re interested, and let me know if you’d be able to Tumbl it up tonight.

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Wow. I can’t believe this little two-miler was my last training run. The next time I lace up my Ghost 4s, it’ll be to run 26.2 miles in Las Vegas!!!

I just ran at a comfortable pace. Easy breezy.

I’ve loved marathon training for the past 19 weeks. It helped me deal with the stress of quitting my job. It also helped me get through a really sad breakup and an even sadder death in the family.

I also got to enjoy lots time outdoors, watching the leaves turn from green to orange, red and gold, then eventually fall to the ground.

I got to run with lots of new friends, like Theodora, Meg and Lindsey, as well as some old ones, like Carly and Ben. (Yes, Ben, we’re old friends. Don’t you know?)

I ran half-marathon and 5K PRs, as well as my first triathlon. I modeled in a running fashion show. I played Nuun pong. I trained in Washington, California and New York.

I took a ridiculous amount of pictures of myself before, during and after runs.

Here’s one more.

I ran 426 miles, biked 68 miles, strength-trained 22 times (and cleaned my shower twice), swam seven times and went to just one yoga class. All of that, I suppose, is sufficient to run a marathon.

We’ll find out soon enough.

See you in Vegas, baby.

Today I wrote about everything that led up to making my big decision and what went down on my last day of work: Deciding to Quit & My Last Day of Work.

You’ll find that the past few months have been extremely emotional for me, and maybe you’ll wonder, “How the eff did this girl train for a marathon during all this?”

When you channel your frustration, your uncertainty and your fears into running and training vs. overeating, watching TV and curling up into a ball every night, great things happen. You can either let stress motivate you or crush you — it’s all about making a choice.

I absolutely love this excerpt from Dean Karnazes’s book 50/50, and you can apply it to whatever it is you struggle with:

“Awakenings are always terrifying, as they force you to realize that your past has been lived in confinement. The most disturbing part is when you recognize that the shackles holding you down are largely ones you have placed upon yourself. The prison is self-constructed. ‘We are all living in cages with the door wide open,’ George Lucas once said.”

What does it take to step out of that prison? Courage. Guts. The realization that so much awaits you outside of it.

Go get it.

First of all, THANK YOU for all your kind words about my news yesterday! Leaving work turned out to be very emotional — I cried several times, completely unexpectedly — and it was so great to have your support.

Now, here’s the scoop on my first run as an unemployed person / first run of December / second-to-last run of marathon training:

My plan was to run an easy four miles at marathon goal pace, which is about 9:40, plus or minus 10 seconds. I wanted to memorize what this pace feels like because even though I’ll be wearing my Garmin, I know how easy it is to get caught up in the excitement of a race and accidentally blow out the first few miles. Slow and steady!

I’m really happy with this as my goal pace because it feels like a decent clip without tiring me out quickly, and I did most of my long runs at this pace…

* Oct. 15: 16 miles — 9:39 pace

* Oct. 22: 12 miles — 9:33 pace

* Oct. 29: 18 miles — 9:41 pace

* Nov. 5: 14 miles — 9:12 pace (OK, so this was fast — I blame Kory)

* Nov. 13: 20 miles — 9:46 pace

* Nov. 20: 12 miles — 9:03 pace (this one, too — I blame Meg)

The finish time for running a marathon at 9:40 pace is 4:13:15.

So that’s the plan for the first half of the race, and depending on how I feel, I may try to drop a few seconds per mile for the remaining half. I know that sounds like CRAZY TALK to some of you, but, uh, welcome to my blog. I’m just crazy enough.

I talked with Don (my mom’s boyfriend) recently about the marathon and he was completely confident I’d meet and likely demolish any goal I set for myself.

“What if I hit the wall?” I asked.

He said, “No problem. I’ve seen you push through a wall. Remember that time you said you were going to do 10 pushups and then you did 10 pushups? You had already decided you were going to do them, so there was no other option.”

So remember that, Tumblr friends, as you pack your glitter eyeshadow and shiny shirts for Vegas this weekend. Decide in advance to kick the shit out of your race. Prepare to go into beast mode. The only option is total domination!