Easter run

The statistics: 7 miles. Daytime high: 86 degrees. Post run: One hour of catching rays in my back yard, sunlight filtering through the trees. Reading a good book.

I was up early this morning anyway, so I drove to the West Orange trail, 24 miles away, where I used to train for the marathon with Team In Training. I hadn't been there since January. Each week I still get emails that my old teammates are out there running, but I've either been on long runs with my running partner or else otherwise occupied/injured.

The trail is pretty long-- I'm not sure how far it extends, but Central Florida is doing a good job trying to build lots of bike paths and running paths for people. Although the trail is paved, the scenery is incredibly beautiful -- live oaks draped with moss, orange groves, horse pastures, old shacks, lumber mills, etc. It's nice to go out of the way for a long run there.

I showed up at 7 a.m. thinking my Team In Training friends would be at the usual meeting spot. The parking lot was deserted, save for two cyclists-- I knew it was Easter, but I was thinking my comrades would be inspired by "Let Nature be your church" or similar Emersonian running sentiments. But I'd made a mistake-- they were there yesterday.

On the bathroom doors (locked), I saw a sign from the Parks department saying there had been a lot of cars broken into lately. I got creeped out again and decided to leave. I wavered, got mad at myself, and then decided to park at a church up the street. Soon it would be filled with people, and as for the trails, I decided to take my chances.

The run was beautiful. I saw a lot of cyclists and a few stumbling runners who may have been on a twenty miler-- they looked like they had been to the wars and back. Running at West Orange brought back a lot of memories from my training, especially since the conversation always drifted around to leukemia, and I can remember how I'd think of my friend Sandy while I was running, how I was convinced she was going to be fine.

I learned so much through the whole training experience; it was a pretty powerful and intense experience. I passed the parking lot where Susan and I high-fived each other after completing a twenty-miler. Today I paced myself-- slightly under ten minute miles and no hurt IT band the whole run. I was always so stubborn during the long runs, refusing to believe that over such long distances the body inevitably slows down, or that speed would make me more susceptible to injury. I learned a lot about myself-- about endurance, and the body's limitations. Several months of training for one rite of passage, gaining weight that was definitely not muscle, and I wondered what had taken over my body that I was in better shape than ever but weighed more than I ever had in my life.

In retrospect, the process of training was such a significant part of the actual marathon-- the process actually meant more to me, including raising the money for leukemia research, which wasn't as hard to do as I thought. The actual marathon, when it came, was a crazy, disjointed experience. The heat, the pain, the sun, the exhaustion, the weird herd of runners (20,000 strong) surrounding me who looked as bad as I felt, smiling Disney characters popping out at unexpected times, almost like a bizarre hallucination brought on by the ridiculous test I was subjecting myself to.

But what an amazing experience marathon training was overall. Difficult and rewarding and overwhelming like life itself is. And I still have nights where I wake up at odd times thinking about Sandy. I don't ever want to forget her.

falling behind

I've fallen behind in my blog reading...

After having a great spring break, I seem to have fallen behind in everything. I've been overwhelmed with the amount of work I've had to do since I got back. In some ways, being a professor is great because my schedule is so flexible-- if I want to come home at 2:00 on an afternoon when I'm not teaching, I can, and if I want to go for a run at 9 in the morning, I can. But what people don't see is the many, many hours of labor that fall outside the 9-5 hours, and it is never a job you can just leave at the office. So it's been one of those weeks where I was up until eleven at night writing tests for students to take the next morning, catching up on the reading for the class I was to teach the next day, writing an evaluation of myself for my first year of teaching, preparing a conference paper, blah blah blah. This is to say nothing of how cranky this all makes me.

Not interesting. But I apologize for missing out on RBF updates, and I hope I can catch up soon...

I'm back to my lifelong running pattern of running 3 miles every other day, which my body seems to like, but which I'm not satisfied with, especially since marathon training had me feeling like a badass on my regular 12-mile jaunts. But there's been the nagging IT-band injury, which has gotten better since I decreased my mileage. I'm going to go for a long run tomorrow, and hopefully build up my endurance again. And one thing I did not neglect this week was Power Abs with Carlos. The class was on a Tuesday, but the abs were still aching on Friday, thus appealing to my more masochistic tendencies...

For those of you interested in food and cooking, I've restarted a food blog I kept for about two years. You can check it out here.

Hope to catch up with all of you soon...

the end of Spring Break

Back from the nation's capital... and visiting family in the Carolinas. When I travel I constantly have to remind myself that a vacation isn't reality. It's hard, because I always covet where other people live and imagine how much better my life would be if I lived there too. But once you're living there (wherever there is) on an everyday basis, all the hassles of everyday life take away the novelty. Such is life.

While in DC, I ate and ate and ate and ate some more. Highlights included pomegranate margaritas and guacamole liberally spiced with cilantro at Rosa Mexicano, the best french toast I've ever had (challah bread with an intense, pecan-maple syrup), a French bistro in Dupont Circle with amazing ravioli baked in gruyere and cream sauce, Italian pizza with all organic ingredients, prosciuttio, and lots of woodsy mushrooms, and a crust that was the perfect combination of soft and crispy. One night my friend Beth also cooked amazing spare ribs in a lemon and olive sauce, and another night, my host Mara made a pretty tasty tofu stir fry.

I managed to get in one visit to Mara's excellent YMCA-- seven floors full of state-of-the-art machines of all kinds-- and I also had a good run with some big hills thrown in for good measure. Did a five miler and three miler while in South Carolina, so I'm pretty happy I managed to get in four good exercise days while still getting substantial amounts of rest for my IT band over a ten day period.

Back to the grind-- but one thing I really did miss, among all the friends and food and culture in DC, was the weather in Florida, ironically enough. It was great to be driving home and watch the car thermometer register higher and higher, with sunny skies and tall palms welcoming me back to Florida. (We'll all be paying for it this summer, and into fall with the hurricanes, but right now, it's ideal).

I drove to my usual running trail this morning to find a creepy-looking guy sitting on a picnic table, no signs of a vehicle nearby. I was a little creeped out but saw a woman walking her dog, so I ventured onto the trail for a warm-up walk. The guy looked confused about his purpose at first but then he ran by me on the trail-- he was wearing long black socks, and his white-blonde hair was long and not in any kind of ponytail, both of which made me think might not really be a runner (Also I'd never seen him before). I ran for a little bit but got freaked out as the trail started to get more deserted and woodsy, thinking maybe he was pretending to be a runner but was actually waiting ahead in the bushes. So I turned around, got back in my car, drove to work, and ran around the busy neighborhood there.

Have any of you ever felt unsafe/wary/freaked out on a run? I hate that feeling.

cross training and spring break

I've been cross training a fair amount, trying to give my aching IT band a rest. I consulted a couple of running books (Bob Glover and Hal Higdon), both of which were fairly alarmist about cross training, even though they recommend it (they imply that you WILL lose your running fitness, even if you're doing other cardio stuff)-- but if you're trying to avoid/get rid of injury, what else can you do? In an ideal world I'd like to run three times during the week and then have a nice long ten miler on Saturday, but obviously right now that's not going to happen, so I'm just going to have to deal with it.

Last Saturday I did a little five miler with my running partner and the IT band was hurting after a few miles. This is disappointing, but I did run two half marathons, a full marathon, and a 12K since December, so it's probably time to give it a rest. I kind of like the elliptical trainer, and I discovered something odd-- the newer machines in our gym are easier to use than the old ones. On the old ones I huff and puff for twenty minutes and it barely says I've gone a mile, whereas with the newer ones I can do three miles in 25 minutes, no problem. Not quite sure why that's the case. It's still a challenging workout.

So, only one run since Saturday-- I did a little three-mile run on a treadmill yesterday and wasn't feeling any IT pain, although my hip was sort of sore afterward. While on the machine I got bored and wanted to play with the resistance and speed but I held back, kept it at 9:30 with one 8:57 minute mile in the middle thrown in, then tried to do a lot of stretching afterward, some weights, some ab work, etc. I unfortunately had to miss Power Abs with Carlos this week, which I'm hoping will become a regular part of my exercise schedule. Spring Break is coming up, starting tomorrow, and I'm off to visit friends in D.C. and family in South Carolina, hoping to get in a few gym visits and runs while I'm there. (Although the weather in the Northeast seems so dreary, I almost wish my DC friends could come down to Florida and we could go to Miami)...

running modesty

Something that grosses me out just a bit is men racing without shirts. This may be due to a few unfortunate racetime encounters with big, sweaty, hairy, shirtless dudes, jostling me in a manner far too intimate for a race with strangers. Or a particularly potent memory of a man doing a pre-race stretch right in my face, his arms up to the sky, allowing me a close-up of underarm hair long enough to weave into braids. (For this I dread starting line-ups in the dark). I have noticed that at races, men of all shapes and sizes seem to have no compunction about sharing themselves with their neighbors, and in some pretty close quarters. When a friend of mine sent me this,
I had to laugh.

In a stunning coincidence, a few minutes later I was browsing the net for local races, and I came across the Hidden River Trail Streak. All sorts of questions came to mind, including whether it would be difficult to run without, um, support. I couldn't help but imagine the karmic justice if I could send some of those shirtless dudes over to this race, where they could fully express themselves.

Elliptical Trainer

I decided not to run at all until this weekend, following David's example of taking a break. So just one little 2.8 mile run this week to give my muscles some rest. Instead, I did the elliptical trainer at the gym for the first time. I have never gotten on that machine before. I think I was scared of it-- like it might take off without me and I would go flying through the air. That did not happen, but I was surprised at how difficult it was. Not difficult coordination-wise, but just arduous. From among choices like "Forest Trail" and "Mountain Pass," I chose "Fat Burner-- 20 minutes." My heart rate went up immediately and I actually had a hard time completing 20 minutes. What's up with that? How is it that I can run for two hours straight and my heart rate stays pretty steady, but yet I do twenty minutes on this machine and feel like I'm slogging through two feet of mud? I did feel like I got a great workout, though. I was drenched with sweat. I lifted some weights and did my IT-band exercises, so that was that. I felt no pain anywhere-- is the elliptical trainer a good machine for cross-training purposes? Is it going to do any damage somehow?

Tomorrow, pilates. Diversify, diversify!

We're having the last gasps of a Florida winter here-- rainy and in the 40s, the coldest it ever gets, when most of the time it's in the 70s. I love the weather in the winter here, but I actually find myself craving cold and rainy days now, so I'm pretty happy. It will be a good night to go home and immediately don pajamas.