2 months???

wow i can't believe i have neglected this blog for almost two months! ok, i can.

well i've been busy! which is my excuse for why i basically stopped training from about august 19th to september 6th. i had been doing really well till then, and had actually completed a run of about 18 miles and felt great. but then things started to catch up with me, and before i knew it my right hip was killing me, i had developed some awful dry eye problem, and i was generally irritable, sleep-deprived, and miserable as a human being. so i stopped training. this seemed like the logical choice, at the time, and actually within a week i was feeling great. i had planned to start running again around august 27, but james and i went to california for a wedding from the 27th to the 1st and though i packed my running gear i couldn't motivate to run up and down the hills of san francisco or through the valleys of napa. so, i didn't. THEN my sleep schedule was off for another week... so i didn't train the week following california.... yeah....

i know these are just excuses. i think i subconsciously sabatoged myself because i had been doing so well. people do that!

anyway i thought i'd get back into the swing of things on september 6, with a CARA group run of 20 miles. this did not go well. i felt pretty good for the first 10. i thought, "ok, almost 3 weeks off and i've still got it!" but then, around mile 11, when we turned around a mile south of soldier field (coming from montrose harbor), i started to feel it. by mile 13, my left leg was on fire. by mile 14.5, i'd decided that i was done keeping pace with my group and fell back. i started walking. i guess i was limping. a woman stopped to see if i was ok. this is the point at which i decided to hail a cab. it took me the 5 miles to my car, and i quietly went home, defeated and regretting those blissful 3 run-free weeks.

but i felt bad. i couldn't do the run, and for that matter i couldn't walk like a normal human for 2 days afterwards. i really got worried that i had ruined my chances of physically finishing the marathon. at that point it was 5 short weeks away, and i wasn't physically able to run 20 miles.

so i started running again, and i went for 3 or 4 runs that week. then on sunday, september 14, i ran the chicago half marathon. i was worried, and not just because the event happened to fall in the middle of the record-breaking rainfall that chicago endured last weekend. i was worried because if i couldn't run the whole thing, or if i was in serious pain, i really think my confidence would have been shot. and then training for the marathon, then 4 weeks away, would be even more tortuous than training normally is.

so. i woke up around 5:45 the morning of the half-marathon. it was raining, it was in the 60's out. i got dressed, put my hair up, ate some oatmeal. james drove me down to hyde park and dropped me off so that i could make it to the starting line while he parked. it was gross out, this cannot be stressed enough. flooding, mud, a chill in the air. it seemed surreal. but i got into the pack just 5 minutes in back of the start. i started running. it felt... good. the rain was actually fun, and it kept me from feeling sweaty or hot. there were lots of people cheering, standing in the cold rain with umbrellas and signs. it was so nice. i kept running. i noticed the pace clock at the 2-mile mark, and it said something like 23:40. i thought i was going really slow, since at that point i didn't know how far back i'd started. but i kept running. at the 3 mile mark, the clock was right at 32:10. at the 4-mile mark, 41:something. and i realized that i was running faster than my training pace (9:30 miles) and i felt good. and it just kept getting faster. i couldn't believe it. by the 12th mile, the clock was around 1:55:00 and i knew that i had a shot of meeting my goal of breaking 2 hours. so i went for it, though my legs had started to tire of the puddles and the cold. with the finish in sight, i heard james cheer for me from the sideline. and i crossed the finish line around 2:04--. later that night i found out that my official chip time was 1:59.18. a split average that was a little quicker than 9:10 per mile.

i'm a little curious to see whether i look like a monster in my race photos again... they're being posted soon. yikes!

needless to say, i'm re-charged for training. my legs didn't even feel too stiff the day after the race. work has finally settled down, the weather is perfect, and i'm excited again about the marathon. at least, i think i can finish it.

the next test is this sunday, when i'll be running CARA's 20-mile "ready to run" training race at 6:30 a.m. we run from around foster avenue down to the museum of science and industry. then we take a shuttle back north. i'm nervous, but i think i can do it. in any event, i have a brunch planned with my girlfriends at 1:00 that day so i better do it.