Tag Archive | running

Go Away

I am officially in taper mode for the Chicago Marathon and of course, I’m restless. This is a time when I need to be taking it easy with my intensity in the miles I still have remaining as well as the cross training that I am doing. Things that for a person like me, are much easier said than done.

I have chatted with a few people and gotten some great advice on what to do during my taper. It shouldn’t be so hard, considering that I did a taper before the Green Bay Half Marathon I ran in May. However, I didn’t really feel a need then to “chill” during taper because I had already so many half marathons. Continue reading →

Things are getting less scary

Aug26

This past weekend I ran 18 miles. That was by far the longest run I have done. At least the farthest I have done on a training run. In my first attempt at the marathon, I made it just past mile 21. In any event, the 18 miles actually felt pretty good. This was kind of surprising to me considering that the week prior, I had 17 miles to run and the entire week leading up to the 17 miles, I was freaking out about how far I was going to have to run.

I chose not to do the 17 miles with my pace group for various reasons and it turned out I did alright. Although, I did have to adjust where I ran because the Air & Water Show was happening so I couldn’t run as far south as I normally would have. Anyway, that run was almost my best long run of the year except around mile 10, I started to get a weird pain in my calf near my knee. Continue reading →

The Dead Body Run

Aug5

It isn’t every day that when you decide to go on a 15-mile run, you come across a dead body. This is especially true if you are running in a highly populated area. Most people would expect that if you a person were to run across a dead body, it would be because you were running trails in the woods or on country roads.

However, this past Saturday when I left to go to the Lakefront Running Path in Chicago for my group run, I did indeed see a dead body. I live in a very populated area so I wouldn’t exactly expect to see one. It is a very residential area that I was running through to get to the lakefront and only expected to see the random early bird person out as I was.

Instead, as I was roughly 0.38 miles into my run, I saw flashing police lights. There were no sirens or anything, just the lights. As I got closer, I then saw that a police car had the street blocked and there was yellow tape up. Then, as I was passing the scene, I saw the dead body. Fortunately, it was covered with a sheet. Continue reading →

Athletes, Burnout and Routine Shake ups

Jul13

Before I started marathon training, I had been taking a number of rest days. Part of me knows that was completely reasonable to do. Especially since I had run a half marathon and a 10 mile race within six days of each other. During the weeks of the taper leading up to my half, I started to get sick. That would explain my half not being the absolute best and why I ended up missing my time goal.

Anyway, Shortly after the 10 mile race, I ended up taking consecutive days off from working out. And I realized I was starting to get burned out from working out. Yes, I took days off, but then to get back at it seemed like such a chore. I tried to run a couple of times and each time, all I could muster was a mile. It felt so pathetic. Pathetic because I was the person who had gone over 450+ days straight of doing something, whether it was easy yoga or an intense weight class to leisurely runs. I talked about this revelation with my trainer and she said, well part of it is because I am now an athlete. Athletes have to and do take breaks. To prevent injuries and so as not to start hating what they do. Continue reading →

Random Thoughts

Jul9

After a recent session with my trainer, I got to thinking about all the random and strange thoughts that go through my head. It came up because she said she had on her to-do list to read one of my other blog posts. And a lot of the strange thoughts that I have occur in the gym because I do a great deal of people watching there and when you are on the treadmill, sometimes your mind just wanders.

Granted, many of the thoughts are just way out there and could possibly explain a whole lot about me, but here goes. Some of the strange thoughts I have: Continue reading →

Being a Troublemaker

Jun23

Cricket Hill in Chicago, IL / Image by flickr user karbon69

I don’t ever set out to be a troublemaker because I have no reason to do so. However, last Saturday, I seem to have put myself in that position. It was my first group run with CARA for the summer marathon training program. I was pretty excited about it because this year I plan to finish the Chicago Marathon and hopefully get myself that much closer to ultimate running goal.

In any event, things were not bad to start. My pace group leader is a hugger, but that is ok. Even though I am not one, I felt prepared for the incoming hug when we met so I wasn’t in a foul mood to start the run. The group is pretty big and already I could tell from our second water stop of the day that there might be some people who will drive me bonkers. There is the lady who I would flat out call a jogger because when we stop, she will jog in place. Why people do that is beyond me because it really doesn’t do anything beneficial that I can see. I guess that some people think they cannot start again after a stop, but really, you’ll start again. Continue reading →

Misadventures

May31

Lately, my life has been one laughable moment after another. Nothing bad, per se except that I have unintentionally made people laugh at stupid stuff I’ve done or have had happened to me.

It all kind of started a few of weeks ago when I was at the gym running one night. I know some people are “surprised” I was at the gym, but I kind of “live” there so whatever. Anyway, this particular night, I wore some grey pants to run in. That was a mistake because about 2/3 of the way through my run, I looked down to see that I was sweating so much that it appeared that I had peed my pants. Had I been wearing black pants to run in, this would not have been a problem.

ANYWAY, when you are at the gym as often as I am, you will start to see the same people around the same time. Lately, I’ve noticed this rather attractive guy there. And he sometimes makes me “Edith googly-eyed” if I see him and he smiles and says hello. (I’M HUMAN OK!) This particular night, when I got to the gym, I didn’t see him so all was well in my world because there was no thinking, do I look unbelievably awful right now?

Continue reading →

I Don’t Know What Else to do

May30

Last week after a run, I was checking a notification on Facebook and ran across the above picture. All I could think was that it summed up perfectly my need to run. I say need because, while I desire to run, it really is a need. When I shared the picture, I said that this is really the only time in my day when I am truly happy.

I know some people took that to mean oh, running is fun sometimes so if you are having fun, then guess you are happy. What I really meant was that for me, running really is the only time during my day that I am happy. I’m not thinking about how I might be disappointing others by being a terrible friend. I’m not thinking about how my life is not where I want it to be or that I am ot in a great job or in a great relatioship. I really do mean that when I am running, I am happy because I am able to do it and all the other things that go on in my life really don’t matter. Continue reading →

I’m a Runner

Apr1

There, I said it. I’m a runner. I’ve been at the running thing since 2006. It is now 2013 and I feel like a runner. I am a runner. Some people would say that I’ve been a runner since 2006, but back then, I felt like a fraud. Sure, I would jog / run a little bit, but more of my time was spent with walk breaks. But last August, something finally clicked and I started to feel like I could accomplish things with running.

It is now April and so far this year, I have run over 221 miles. Yes, over 200 miles. In January, I started the year with a 5K race and over the course of the month, ran over 50 miles. February turned out to be an even better month. There were three fewer days and I ran over 10 miles more. The big month so far has been last month where I put in over 105 miles. If that seems like a lot of miles to you, imagine how it feels to me. Before this year, I thought I was having a good month when I got in 30 miles in a month. A run longer than three miles seemed like forever. Granted, I had done way more than that on numerous occasions, but those were just for races. Running more than three miles in a race was a no-brainer to me. It was what races were for. Continue reading →

The Ignored

Mar31

Middle kid syndrome. If you are a middle kid, you understand this. If you are an oldest or youngest, chances are you don’t really have a clue about it, unless something happened in your life that caused you to suffer. What exactly is middle kid syndrome? It is that situation where you are ignored by your family because attention is paid to the older kid or the younger kid. You learn to be invisible so as not to cause grief because you parents have other stiff to deal with. Quietly, you go about your business. If people notice you, it is mostly because you ended up doing something really amazing that called for praise.

Perhaps in school, your parents got a note from a teacher about a great thing you did in school. Or maybe you play a sport and scored the game winner. In any event, most of the time what you do goes unnoticed.

There is another group of people who suffer middle kid syndrome and these people really go out of their way to not be a burden to their parents and family. Those people are siblings of those who have cancer. Specifically, I am talking about kids who have a brother or sister who has cancer. Continue reading →

In My Head

Thoughts and Observations on lots of stuff