Worried I was going to fall on my butt a few times

Last night, again, the thought of running at the gym (this time for over an hour) gave me the shakes. Plus (and this may be TMI for some folks) I was feeling…gassy. There I said it, now the whole world (in theory) knows that I had gas last night. (Sorry mom.) Anyway, I didn't want to be like Amy, so I went home and headed out in the rain. I hadn’t thought of where to run, and sort of assumed I'd just go up to the reservoir. But when I got to where I would turn to head that way I decided to keep going up the mountain. Once I got to the park I remembered why I don’t do that this time of year. Once you are off the streets and inside the park, the frequency of streetlamps goes way down, making it hard to see speed bumps, piles of slick mouldering leaves, and crazy people laying in the street talking about Nirvana (don't know if they meant the band or the state of ultimate enlightenment). And although there are still a surprisingly high number of runners, dog walkers, and bikers out and about in the winter darkness, I can't help but feel nervous in the unlit areas. So I didn't go all the way to the top, just looped around the back and to the reservoir, where I finished up with laps. It was incredibly windy on the more exposed south side – I felt like I was running up against a linebacker. I didn't really track my mileage, just did seventy minutes, so it was probably a little over 7 miles. I felt really good.

Singing in the rai- wait, the sleet... no, now its snow

I had an interesting run last night. I couldn’t face the treadmill, not yet, so I ran outside. I started at my house down at the base of Mt. Tabor (~200 ft. elevation) and ran up to the track around the reservoir (~530 ft.). At my house, it was raining. At 55th Ave, halfway up, it was sleeting (ouch). And at the reservoir it was snowing. The snow was beautiful, big old flakes, and it wasn't sticking so I could enjoy it without worrying about sliding around. I descended through the weather again on my way home. Very cool.

I'm scheduled for 17 miles on Saturday and its making me nervous. I will never flake on a long run, and compared to the last few weeks I'm feeling good. But its supposed to rain all day, and 17 is creeping awfully close to 20. I guess its just daunting. Plus I had a dream about it last night in which things kept coming up and I couldn't run until nearly sunset, plus I'd forgotten my water and gels. It was unpleasant – I need to have a talk with my subconscious about making me more nervous than I already am with these nighttime shenanigans.

Sidebar: I've been upping my carb eating the past few weeks. I'm a veggie-tarian but I was still on the light side when it came to starchy carbs. I eat a lot of fruit, cheese, veggies, yogurt, cheese. Cheese. But given how tired I was feeling after my long runs I decided some dietary tinkering was necessary. I'm hoping a 7:30 bedtime won't be necessary again this Saturday. I'm willing to make certain sacrifices for marathon training but going to bed at 7:30 on party night? Not acceptable.

I admit, I wimped out

Saturday morning dawned cold & icky (a scientific term). It was raining/icing steadily, and I made the call that it would be silly to put myself through another long run in miserable weather. Plus, parts of the sidewalk by my house were slippery enough that I nearly went toes over ass while walking on them. Thus to the gym I went, to complete twelve grueling miles on the treadmill. Shudder. Yuck. Blarg. I really hate when I have to restart the treadmill. I don't know if this is a 24 Hour Fitness thing or is universal, but all the treadmills at the gym have a max of 60 minutes per session. Even if I do a separate warm-up, that's a max of 6 miles, give or take a few tenths. Ergo, if I want to do more than 6 miles I have to let the treadmill come to a complete stop, furiously press the "restart" and "speed up" buttons, and try to get back into the groove I was so ignominiously booted out of. I realize that in the grand scheme of Life's Inconveniences this one ranks pretty low, somewhere in the vicinity of changing the oil in your car, but way below flossing or the stomach flu. Still. Oh, and another thing I've come to dislike about doing long runs at the gym is that I get funny looks from people while swallowing gels. I get that most people on the treadmill at the gym are walking or running 2 or 3 miles, and have most likely never run long enough to need a gel. I get that it might be weird to see the gal next to you trying to subtly ooze some goo out of a tube into her sweaty face while simultaneously trying not to fall off the back of the treadmill into the guy behind her. But do ya gotta stare?

To look on the bright side of the gym thing, I wasn't on one of the machines that faces the wall, and I got to watch most of Paycheck, a completely forgettable action movie from the 90s that I vaguely remember seeing at the drive-in with my two best friends in high school. We went to see it because we had a thing for Ben Affleck, who spends the entire movie looking like an insurance salesman with tanorexia and a pomade fixation.

Notes from around

Last night = fastest four miles EVER. I wasn't super-motivated or energized, oh no. It was just late and ASS COLD outside (for Portland, I mean). I literally sprinted up the first half of Mt. Tabor in an effort to stop shivering. Brrr. I know that it really isn't that cold here, in the grand scheme of winter. Where I grew up we hit ten below a few times a year, and in Moscow it got down to maybe -20, consistently (it was all Celsius, so who really knows?). But its all about what you're used to, and in Portland we're used to 45 degrees and rain, not this 27 degrees and sun thing. When I was in college I studied abroad junior year, Prague in the fall and Singapore in the spring. I left Prague on January 1, spent 36 hours at home in New York, then flew to Singapore. The temperature gradient was about...hmm…sixty degrees. My first ten days in S'pore were miserable, just awful. I was sweating buckets every time I left the sweet embrace of the AC. But then my body figured out that I was no longer in the middle of a Central European winter and hey, maybe I shouldn't sweat out every ounce of moisture I ingest. After that I found the climate quite pleasant (if somewhat boring). Anyway, my point is, it was cold last night and don't make fun of me just because I've been softened by this easy Pacific NW living. I still got out there and ran.

So, a digression: I've been striving for real honesty about my training, and how difficult it is. I have a tendency to sugarcoat things in hindsight, and I want to make sure that I don't do that here. (In case I get the crazy notion to do this again.) The past couple of weeks have been trying, to say the least. But I also don't want to give the impression that this training is nothing but a torturous exercise in masochism. That's just a small part of it. :) In that spirit, here are a couple of notes & shout-outs from my training thus far:
1. To the men who ride their bikes along the Springwater Corridor on Saturday mornings: thank you. Y'all definitely improve the scenery, especially from (ahem) the backside.
2. Thanks to Portland Parks and Rec for creating & maintaining the SC. It's great to be able to go for 40 miles (in theory!) on a smooth, safe, straight trail.
3. A baseball hat is my absolute best friend when running outside. It keeps the sun out, the rain off, and the sleet manageable.
4. Memo to the guy next to me at the gym: if you rest your entire upper body on the sideguards of the treadmill, it doesn’t count as running. Sheesh.
5. Hammer gel is yummy, especially the raspberry and apple-cinnamon flavors. I have not yet figured out how to eat Sport Beans (Beanz?). Do you eat them while running? One at a time? Where do you put the opened pack if you don't eat them all at once?

…Now I just have to steel myself for tomorrow's 12 "Wintry Mix" miles. Prepare for some whining about that one...

Here's hoping

I completed my 15 miles on Saturday. It was hard. I thought ten miles in the rain was bad, then I went fifteen in the sleet & hail. In all honesty it wasn't coming down the entire length of the run. But it stung my face and hands and made the path slippery. The last three miles I increased my pace: one) to see if I could; and two) because I just wanted to be done. I was tired, and that night I went to bed at 7:45. Last week was my first 30-mile week, and it took it out of me. I think/hope I'm still wrestling with a cold, because I could easily go to bed at 8 every night, and I refuse to let this training take over my life.

Today it was sunny and completely beautiful in Portland. An extremely rare day for us this time of year, and I jumped at the chance to run outside on my lunch break. It is runs like the one I enjoyed today that remind me of why I like running in the first place. I was going along the Springwater Corridor at a perfectly comfortable pace, my legs felt good, my breathing was perfect, the sun and wind were on my back, the river was sparkling. I felt a great amount of joy, and it was remarkable to think that this is something that I would seek out – that I would consider running to be a… relaxation activity. It's hard to explain, but I think anyone who feels the need to coerce themselves into exercising knows what I'm trying to get at. Today's run was like a break, like a mini-vacation in the middle of the workday. There is nothing that I could have done that I would have enjoyed more than running four miles in the beautiful sunshine.

That feeling has been missing these last few weeks – this great run came at the perfect time. I've been feeling worn down, and the lingering hip thing has cast a pall over running the past 6 weeks or so. Running was a chore, something to get out of the way so that I could spend the rest of my free time doing "fun" things. But today running was a fun thing. I need to capture that spirit and bottle it so that this weekend, when the rain and snow are due back, I can face my long run with a smile and not a grimace.