20 Miles!

Today I ran 20 miles.

It took 4 hours and 8 minutes.

My legs didn't fall off. My lungs didn't spontaneously combust. I didn't pass out.

Here I am after it was all over:


Here is my right foot after it was all over (a little out of focus but you get the idea):

Note that I now only have two good toenails on this foot and that the second smallest nail is just sort of flapping there. It may have to be pulled out if it really starts bothering me.

Since I finished, I have to say that the run was an overall success. I met the group down in Ithaca at 7am. It started out cold (about 40 degrees) and I had on two shirts, a jacket, shorts and warm running pants over those. I hadn't planned to keep the jacket or pants on but it was so cold that I didn't want to take them off. I shed the jacket at the first water stop at mile 3 but kept on the pants until about mile 15. I was feeling really tired at that point and, once I took those sweaty pants off, I felt a lot better.

Mostly I don't need much motivation to run. I like to get out by myself and listen to my audiobook and have a little time alone. But I have to admit that, if I hadn't been with a group of people, I don't think I could have run 20 miles. I definitely felt like I had my ups and downs on the run but since I ran with my teammate Amy for the way out and then with the assistant coach Monica for most of the way back, I had enough conversation and encouragement to keep going.

I had to walk some stretches (increasingly longer stretches towards the end) but I tried not to feel too bad about it. Since this is going to be my first marathon, my goal is just to finish and I don't have a particular time frame. If I have to walk to gather enough energy to keep going, that's the way it is. (After seven hours officials will pull you off the course but I don't think I'll be THAT slow.)

Now that I know I can run 20, what's 6.2 more miles? I'm looking forward to going to San Francisco and just putting one foot in front of the other.

The Team In Training people did a nice job of providing support along the course. There were water stops every three miles and encouraging phrases chalked on the road throughout the course. At the end, there was lots of food and each of us got a treat bag filled with running goodies like bandaids, vaseline, a power bar, and earwarmer, chapstick, chocolate, etc. It was a nice touch.

After the run, Braman and the kids met me at the parking lot. I decided that I had enough energy to try to do something as a family so we went out for lunch and then took the kids to the Johnson Museum's open house where we looked at some pirate art, did crafts, watched sword fighting, and listened to the Cornell Savoyards sing songs from H.M.S. Pinafore and the Pirates of Penzance. Larsson and Nora both seemed to enjoy it.

Once I got home, I took an ice bath. Yes, an ice bath. It had been suggested that this would be a good idea to reduce inflammation and muscle soreness after a really long run and I need all the help I can get so I did it. Braman says it was more like a cold water bath since we only had a few trays of ice in the freezer and those melted quickly in the water. When I got in, the water was 59 degrees. This was cold enough for me. I managed to sit there for 10 minutes (with a shirt and scarf on for a small degree of comfort) and then quickly drained the tub and took a hot shower.

Here I am suffering:


Did it make a difference? I don't know but I guess I feel more like a runner now that I did it.

So now we're on the taper, which means that the mileage only goes down until the race in three weeks. Next weekend's long run is 12 miles, the next one is 8 miles and then it's the marathon.

By the way, my foot feels pretty good but my ankle is bothering me a little bit and my left knee is a little sore. It will be good to have this marathon behind me so I can give my body some rest.

61 Minutes at The Fitness Station

This is the peak training week which means 5 miles on Tuesday, 10 miles on Wednesday, 5 miles on Thursday and 20 miles on Saturday. I ran the 5 miles yesterday but my foot was sore after it and my ankle felt a little weak so I decided to use The Fitness Station for my 10 miles this morning.

Since my foot goes numb after more than 60 minutes on the elliptical machine, I planned on an hour on the elliptical machine and then 60 minutes on an exercise bike. With some discomfort I made it through the 60 minutes and was on the 5 minute cooldown when I felt a sharp pain in my left foot. So I hobbled off the elliptical machine and decided to call it a day. I've read over and over again that it's better to undertrain than overtrain and hurt yourself.

I'll see how I feel for the 5 miles tomorrow but I want to save my foot for the 20-mile run on Saturday.

The Carrot and the Stick

Braman needed to get to work early today so I had to finish my run by 6:15. Which meant that I had to leave the house by 5:15 and that my whole 5-mile run would be in the dark. I knew this in advance so yesterday I bought a headlamp to wear on my hat. I'm not sure if wearing a light on my head is a new personal low or a new high in my running dedication but there it is.

Since I start out in the village where there are streetlamps, I didn't need to use my headlamp right away. But as soon as I passed by the gas station on my way out of town, I switched it on and was glad to have it. The headlamp created a circle of light a few feet in front of me, so right by my feet was dark but I could see if I was approaching something. I didn't realize how much I bob up and down when running until the circle of light accentuated it.

It was pitch black. I was running along and turned off the highway onto a country road. There are maybe five houses on the mile-long stretch that I'm running and they're mostly set back from the road. The start of the road is flanked by tall brush on either side and the road is fairly narrow and turns a few times so there are a few blind spots. Even during the day I try to be careful here to avoid oncoming cars but, in the blackness of the pre-dawn morning, the area took on an ominous feel and all I could imagine were nasty people lurking in the brush to leap out at me or sneak up behind me as I ran.

It didn't help that my audiobook (The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova) was at a scary spot as well.

(One of the characters, Rossi, has received a mysterious old book, blank but for a two-page spread in the middle with a woodcut print of an evil dragon. His initial research shows that the woodcut print is associated with Vlad the Impaler and he goes to numerous places to learn more about Vlad and the Dracula legend. In trying to discover more about the book itself, Rossi leaves it with a friend at the Smithsonian Museum for chemical analysis. Several months later the friend calls him and tells him that the book is ready and asks that he come in person to pick it up so the valuable item won't be lost in the mail.

Rossi goes to meet his friend at his office. The friend seems much older and worn than he did the few months previous. As he relates the results of the analysis, the friend's expression seems to switch between benign and oddly sinister. He alludes to events that Rossi hasn't told him anything about and presents Rossi with a copy of a map of the supposed location of Dracula's tomb, a map that had been stolen from Rossi on a visit to Istanbul months before but which his friend claims was folded up in the back of the book. And Rossi thinks the man has fangs. Is this guy a vampire and is he going to attack Rossi? It definitely seems likely. And, while I may not have done a very good job of re-telling this part of the book, trust me that it sounds pretty scary when you're listening to it while you're running alone, in the dark, on a deserted road.)

Running in the dark is strange because it's hard to tell exactly how fast you're going because you can't really see where you are or how fast you're approaching something. But I was sufficiently weirded out by listening to this vampire book in the dark that I tried to run as fast as I could to get home as fast as I could. There was the carrot of our well-lit house combined with the stick of the scary audiobook and the fear of Dracula lurking in a roadside ditch.

I joke that I don't have any fast-twitch muscles but maybe I'm developing some because I finished the 5-miles in 49:20. (This is almost ten minutes faster than the 5-mile race I ran on Memorial Day weekend and more than 3 minutes faster than the five miles I did last week when I felt I was so speedy.) I felt so good at the end of the run and was so amazed with my less-than-ten-minute-mile performance, that, if I wasn't so terrified of it, I might make running in the dark while listening to scary stories part of my new training plan.

11 Miles Alone, 3 With the Group

I had planned to get out of bed at 5am, eat some breakfast, fiddle around, and then leave the house at 6:15 to get down to Ithaca for the group training session. But Nora wanted to nurse until 5:30, I tried to clean up the kitchen so Braman wouldn't have to deal with a huge mess when he was trying to get the kids breakfast before Larsson's violin lesson, and I still needed to eat oatmeal and gather all my things. So I didn't end up leaving the house until 6:30.

Even then, I only had time to put sandals on and had to change into my sneakers at two different red lights on the way. I also couldn't find the BodyGlide (I hadn't used it since Philadelphia and we're not the most complete unpackers) so grabbed a tube of Aquaphor as I was going out the door and smeared that under the neckline of my sports bra as I drove, hoping it would be enough to prevent the chafing that has left a scar on my chest.

As a result, I arrived at the meeting spot five minutes late at 7:05 to find that the team had already left without me.

Another group that meets at the same spot to train together told me that I had just missed them and that if I cut a little bit off the start of the route, I could probably catch up with them. But I am stubborn and decided that I would run the route from start to finish by myself.

I wouldn't have minded so much except one of the coaches and I had emailed back and forth and I had told her I was coming. I don't remember the group being particularly punctual before and thought that they would have waited a few extra minutes for someone they were expecting but evidently not. I was told later that I should really get there 10 minutes early and that they are trying to train us to show up on time since the marathon won't wait five minutes for latecomers. Yeah, OK.

So I ran three miles to the first water stop. Drank some Gatorade, retied my right shoe which seemed loose and started running again. I ran to what I knew was the 5-mile point. Sometimes there is water there but not then. I kept running. I thought there would be water maybe a mile or so down the road but I didn't see anything. (I found out later it was well-hidden in some brush at mile six.)

The group likes to run more than halfway on the way out so that they can cut off the beginning part of the route on the way back. A small psychological benefit. But I was getting tired of running without knowing where the water was so I decided that I would run for an hour and 25 minutes out and then I would turn around. This would be about 7 miles out and so I would do exactly the same route on the way back.

At 1:25 on my watch I did a u-turn in the road and headed on back. At about mile 10 1/2, I was overtaken by some people in the group, including the coach. She said she didn't know I was coming and that she felt bad that I had been running alone. At mile 11, we came to the original water stop so I had run 8 miles without additional fluid. I drank some more Gatorade.

Since I hadn't gone as far out as the rest of the people, I didn't cut off the end of the route like they did but kept going back the extra mile or so to make sure I ran the full 14 miles. I ran about a 1/2 mile of this by myself and then Monica, the coach, met me and we ran the last 1/2 mile or so together. I told her that she didn't have to but she said that part of her coaching obligation is to make sure that everyone finishes.

I don't mind being alone but was frustrated that I hadn't taken my mp3 player with me. I could have made some good progress on The Historian. On a positive note, I felt pretty good overall, much better than I had last Sunday when I only ran 13.1 miles. I felt fast when I was running and, more importantly, felt like I could have kept going after the 14 miles were over. I finished the 14 miles in 2:47 minutes.

Goldenrod and New England Aster

I may be contending for Worst Wildflower Photographer, but I still thought I'd post the pictures I took of the goldenrod and purple flowers that I saw on my 3-mile run. They really do look beautiful together and my pictures don't convey this at all.

Here they are together:


Here's the goldenrod by itself:


And here are the purple flowers by themselves:


Based on these feeble pictures, I am going to say that the goldenrod is Canada Goldenrod (Solidago canadensis) and that the purple flowers are New England Asters (Symphyotrichum novae-angliae). (See here and here for New England Aster pictures and descriptions. See here and here for Canada Goldenrod pictures.)

I don't feel so sure about the Goldenrod now. Maybe I'll ask Craig Cramer from Cornell for some identification help.

Our Yard. 9 Miles? Wildflowers. Podiatrist.

I missed my long run on Wednesday morning because our yard is currently being dug up to lay pipe for a new geothermal heating system. The work began on Tuesday afternoon, resumed on Wednesday at 7:30am and is still going strong Thursday afternoon at 3:30. Braman has designed the system, hired local big machine guys to do the digging and is laying the pipes in the 6-foot trenches himself, with some help from the digging guys.

Our yard used to be grass but here is what it looked like at various stages of digging yesterday:






Braman needed to do some preparatory work before the guys showed up on Wednesday morning and so was out of the house at 6:30am. Since this is when I'm usually exercising, I had to change my schedule. And since I can't really run after dinner very well since things are crazy with the kids then, Wednesday turned out to be a rest day.

But Braman didn't need to start with the guys right away this morning so I did my 9 miles today. I didn't want to run in the pitch black again so I started out on the elliptical machine and used it for an hour and 5 minutes (thank you, space shuttle landing, for dominating the news and sparing me from more violent and depressing stories.) I'm guessing that 65 minutes on that machine is about 6 miles worth of activity. Since it was light out by then, I split the workout and ran my usual three-mile course so I ended up "running" about 9 miles.

It was so refreshing to run outside, in the daylight, that I really enjoyed every slow step. Cars could see me! I could see things! It was fantastic.

Though most of the wildflowers I learned this summer have come and gone, there are two blooming together which make a stunning pair: tall, spiky goldenrod and a deep purple aster-esque flower. [I wanted to link to a picture of the goldenrod but it turns out that there are many different kinds (scroll down on this Connecticut Botanical Society's page to see 12 of them) and I'm not sure which one I'm seeing on the roads around here. It's kind of like this but it might also be this, or even something else. The Connecticut Botanical Society people wrote a short article on goldenrod identification which I will read when I have time.] The purple flower may be New England Aster or maybe New York Ironweed or maybe something different. I'll see if I can take a picture of the two together this afternoon and make a more confident identification.

Oh, I saw a podiatrist this morning about my toenails. Turns out the three toenails that I've been going on about are just going to fall out one day. The purple one is going to fall out soon and the others may take a while. Since they don't hurt, he said just to leave them alone and let nature take its course. The second smallest toe on my right foot, though, which was red, swollen and sore after the half-marathon, turned out to be infected. He said the toenail was just floating on top of some goo so he cut off the top of the nail, released the goo, and put a bandaid on it. If it's still red and sore in a week, I should go back and he'll pull the nail out. Otherwise it should be fine and will eventually just fall out on its own. This makes a total of four toenails that I'm going to lose.

If I can manage it, I'll do five miles tomorrow before Braman goes to work. Then there'll be the 14-mile group run on Saturday. The Marathon's a month from tomorrow!

Outside!

I decided to try to run my five miles outside this morning. It was 65 degrees with 80% humidity so I knew I wouldn't be cold but I started at 5:45 so almost my whole run was in the dark. Running in the dark is not so fun. I think if I am going to keep doing it, I need to get a miner's light for my hat.

Overall, the run was not too bad. I felt a little stiff in the very beginning but improved as I went along. The first four miles are mostly level or uphill which was fine but the last mile is all downhill. I'd been looking forward to the downhill thinking it would give me a break but it turned out to be the most uncomfortable part of the run. I had thought my plantar fasciitis was really improving but turns out it is aggravated by downhill running. I hadn't noticed this in Philadelphia because the course was flat but hills will be impossible to avoid in San Francisco. I better try to coddle my foot as much as possible before the marathon.

It was good be running outside again instead of being cooped up in The Fitness Station. And I enjoyed my audiobook again, although I had to back up more than 80 minutes so that I could understand what was happening. The book, The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova, is a literary thriller about the search for Dracula and as such may not be the best book to be listening to on dark morning runs but I like it.

After a depressingly slow half-marathon, I was super speedy this morning, running the five miles in 52:40.

Looking ahead to life post-marathon, Braman, Larsson, Nora and I have registered to run the Interlaken Steeple Chase 5K as a family. I've done the run for all of its three years, in 2004 pushing Larsson in the stroller while I was pregnant with Nora and then last year pushing them both in the double stroller. Last year I ran it in 39:28 but this year, after having run that particular course in training many times, I hope to do much better. My fastest time was 37:15 in 2003 which I think shouldn't be too hard to beat. Anyway, it will be fun for all of us to do a race here in our hometown.

Philadelphia Distance Run

Yesterday I ran the Jefferson Hospital Philadelphia Distance Run (half-marathon.) My time was 2:42:13 with a 12:23 pace.

I was 10,146 out of 11,119 overall; 4707 out of 5363 females; and 746 out of 851 in my female age group. I am happy that I finished and that I wasn't last.

I ran 5K in 36:21, 10K in 1:13:29 and 10 miles in 2:00:45. Since I finished in 2:42 you can see that I started out slow and finished a lot slower.

In races like this that attract a lot of participants, people are grouped into pace groups with the speediest people in the front and others in sections behind, each cordoned off by a rope. Because of my estimated finish time of 2 hours and 35 minutes I was placed in corral 14 out of 15.

After the gun went off and the elite people began racing, it took me about another 10 minutes to reach the starting line. The race started out with a loop through downtown then went down one side of the Schuylkill River, crossed over a bridge, and then went back toward the city along the other side of the river to the end near the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

The highlight of the race for me (after finishing) was seeing some of the elite runners in action. The downtown loop was about 4 miles and there was a point where the beginning and ending sections of the loop were quite close to each other so I, after having run less than a mile, could see the elite runners on their way out of the loop heading towards the water. I saw the lead runner as well as some other speedy men and the first female runner. It's fun to be in a race with people like that and to actually have a chance to be running near them, albeit in opposite directions, was great.

The race was OK. I listened to my audiobook for most of the time but, with all the activity, I couldn't always follow what was happening so I may have to go back and listen to some parts again. By mile 11 I felt really tired and the audiobook just wasn't that entertaining for me anymore so I switched and started listening to a few songs I had on the mp3 player instead. They picked me up enough to keep going to the finish line.

I didn't start walking at all until mile 11 and even then I didn't walk that much but it still took me an incredibly slow 42 minutes to run the last 3.1 miles. Ugh. And I felt really tired at the end so I'm not feeling particularly encouraged about the marathon in 5 weeks. Maybe I need to start reading some inspirational books.

Overall, I think this was a good learning experience, though. I learned that I probably don't want to walk around San Francisco too much the day before the marathon. We walked around Philly a little bit on Saturday afternoon and went to the Academy of Natural Sciences with the kids and my left foot became sore and then still felt sore when I woke up on Sunday. (After mile 4, it seemed to improve.)

I learned that I need to get to the start of the race really early if I want to use a port-a-potty. I got to the start about 20 minutes before the race (you had to pick up your number and timing chip the night before so I was ready to go) and thought I would go to the bathroom one more time. Wrong. The lines were so long that I never would have made it through before the race started.

I learned that by the time I get to the water stops, a bazillion people will have already been there and poured water and dropped their cups in the road making for a very slippery situation.

I learned that having more music on my mp3 player is probably a good idea.

I learned that I need to have a post-race meal ready to eat. After this race I ate a bunch of orange slices, grabbed a few bags of pretzels and peanuts and drank a bottle of water but I was HUNGRY still and it's hard to get something good to eat in a strange city when you are tired and sore.

Larsson ran the Children's Run but I missed it since it started at 10:30 and I was still running then. Braman said it was a little hectic managing Larsson and Nora in the crowds and then trying to get Larsson ready for his race while watching Nora but he managed. Braman has been a great support throughout all the training and was particularly heroic for this crazy race weekend where we drove down at 6am on Saturday morning and drove back right after the race on Sunday.

Here's a picture of Larsson and me the night before the race in our hotel room:


And one of us with Nora:


The race started at 7:45. After Braman gave the kids breakfast he was good enough to try to find me on the course so here's a picture of me running downtown. I think this is between miles 3 and 4. I'm near the middle and have on a white shirt, black shorts and a yellow hat.


Evidently Larsson had some trouble staying on course in his race. (His race was a quarter-mile and he told me afterwards that it was "VERY long.") He was so focused he missed a turn (and didn't heed the race organizers excitedly telling him which way to go) and had to be caught by a police officer before he ran into traffic. Here's a picture of him after he got back on the route:


Larsson and I both won medals for our races. Here we are at the finish, proudly displaying them:


I'm resting today and am scheduled for 5 miles tomorrow. I may try to run it outside if I feel up to it instead of going to The Fitness Station.

No News is Good News (and Toenails)

I arrived at The Fitness Station this morning at 6:05. There was actually someone on duty at the front desk but I decided not to say something about the TVs.

However, after being subjected for 55 minutes to repeated stories of someone who was beaten to death with a hammer, someone who shot multiple people at a school, teenagers who were supplied with alcohol and who later died in a car crash, and the dilapidated state of Syracuse schools (never mind the gazillion commercials and weather forecasts) I have decided that, should I ever see someone working there again, I am going to see if the TVs could be turned off, or at least turned down. Watching the news is just about the worse way I can think of to start the day.

My foot is starting to feel better but I am worried about one of my toenails. The first two toenails on my right foot have turned whitish, separated from the nailbed and are sure to fall off at some point. If you press down on them, stuff squooshes out. Here they are:


But the toe on my left foot is still very purple, is raised and bumpy, has not separated from the nailbed and it looks like a new toenail is starting to grow over the old one. I have heard that sometimes the old toenail has to be pulled out, like George Clooney's fingernails in Syriana. I am hoping this is not the case. Here it is:


Two days of rest now and then the Jefferson Hospital Philadelphia Distance Run on Sunday. Maybe when I pick up my number on Saturday at the Expo, there will be someone I can ask about my toenail.

85 Minutes on the Elliptical Machine

If my foot was in top shape I would have run 9 miles outside today in the dark and cold rain. Instead, I drove my car to The Fitness Station and used the elliptical machine for 85 minutes. This change in training, while mostly depressing, has its advantages.

To really simulate 9 miles I should have used the machine for 100 minutes but my feet were starting to go numb so I stopped. For next Wednesday's long "run" I think that I'm going to split my time between the elliptical machine and an exercise bike. My feet will probably like it better.

I didn't even bring my audiobook with me this morning and just tried to enjoy watching the local news. At least I got to see part of the Today show--including Meredith Vieira's debut as co-host with Matt Lauer--although I only watched the first half-hour so missed the more entertaining segments featured in the second half of the show.

I remembered my towel and water bottle today and dutifully cleaned my machine off when I was finished.

Tomorrow it's back to The Fitness Station for an elliptical 5 miles (55 minutes) but Saturday we leave for Philadelphia so I can run a half-marathon there on Sunday. Something to look forward to.

The Fitness Station

Yesterday I signed up for a one-month membership to The Fitness Station, the only workout place in Interlaken. If you know anything about Interlaken (population c. 674) you're probably surprised that it has such a place at all but here it is. When I signed up I confirmed that they had an elliptical machine, that they opened at 6am reliably every weekday morning and that there would be someone there to show me how to use the machine. (The last time I worked out on a machine was my freshman year in college and that was a Stairmaster.)

I chose The Fitness Station over the YMCA in Ithaca because I can walk to it and because, if I work out right at 6am, I will be able to finish before Braman needs to leave for work and we won't have to worry about daycare for the kids. Nora has babysitter-phobia and when we do leave her with someone, she frequently cries the whole time. When I asked at the Y (which has daycare) what would happen if she did this, they said they never let a baby cry for more than 15 minutes at which point they'd come get me to comfort her. Which means I'd be hard-pressed to get in any workouts, never mind a 2-hour workout intended to replicate 10 miles.

So I get ready this morning, hobble down to Railroad Street on my sore foot and go inside. (You might have guessed from the street name and the business name that The Fitness Station is a converted train station. It was originally part of the Geneva & Ithaca Railroad--completed in 1873--which came under the control of the Lehigh Valley Railroad in 1876. I'm not sure when trains stopped running through Interlaken but I'll ask some of the Historical Society people that I know.) I get there at 6:03 and need to get started right away since I have to workout for about 45 minutes to simulate a 4-mile run and Braman needs to leave for work at 7am in order to arrive in time for his 8am class.

No one is at the front desk and there's only one other person inside but he's a customer like me and not an employee. He is nice enough to stop and tell me that the owner lives upstairs, comes down to unlock the place at 6am and then goes back upstairs. He says the owner may come back down later or there may be a person coming in 20 minutes or so who might be able to show me how to use the machine. That won't work for me so I go through the weight room into the cardio room and try to figure out the machine myself.

By reading the directions on the machine, I'm able to plug in my weight, how long I want to workout and the intensity plan I want. This all takes me a few minutes so by the time I get started it's about 6:15. I set the machine for 40 minutes since I started later than planned.

The workout is fine and I sweat a lot, more than I do when running, I think, or maybe it's just because there is no wind inside to cool me down. I do the full 40 minutes and, according to the machine, I burn 350 calories. I average about 138 steps per minute. I'm mad that there wasn't anyone there to show me how to use the machine when I explicitly asked about it but, since I forgot to bring a towel with me, I comfort myself with the knowledge that I am sweating all over the machine and won't be able to clean it off when I am done. Petty, I know.

And, sadly, it doesn't look like I am going to be able to listen to my audiobook while working out at The Fitness Station. In the cardio room, all the machines are oriented toward three TVs mounted up high on the wall. This morning one of the TVs was tuned to FOX News, one to NBC and one to The Weather Channel. I tried to listen to my audiobook but, even with the volume at the highest setting, I could still hear the TV. So I took off my headphones and watched the Syracuse news for the rest of my workout. At least the other two TVS were muted. If I'd had to listen to FOX News for 40 minutes there is no telling what might have happened.

When I left at 6:55 there still wasn't anyone at the front desk. If I ever get to speak to a person I'm going to ask if they'll turn off the TVs when I'm there. (There were big signs on each one saying "Don't Touch".)

I thought a little longingly about the row of new elliptical machines at the Y, each with their own personal TV that only works if the exerciser has headphones plugged in. Then I thought about the daycare room, which doesn't open until 8:45 and in which Nora certainly would have bawled the whole time. The Fitness Station only has one elliptical machine and TVs that I can't ignore or control but at least I got to workout. And, for the next six weeks, that's more important to me.

Ithaca 5 & 10

Today I ran the 10-mile part of the Ithaca 5 & 10. The 5-mile course was a loop and people running the 10-miler had to run the loop twice. The 10-mile race only attracted 85 people this year (read this article from the Ithaca Journal) and I am slow so, yes, I was lapped by a few people. And I came in 85th with a time of 1:54:56. I averaged an 11:29 pace and finished 9th out of 9 in my age group.

Here I am with Larsson and Nora before the race started:


I ran the race with a few people from Team in Training including Harland--one of the coaches--and Amy and Yassine, my teammates. Actually, I should say that we all participated in the race since I ran mostly by myself until the end when Harland came to find me and ran with me for the final half mile or so.



Running ten miles alone is pretty boring and I regretted not bringing my audiobook. Oh well.

The course started at Ithaca High School and then went through sections of downtown and Stewart Park. Running a loop two times is not my favorite thing to do because, when I'm running the loop the first time, I keep thinking that I'm just going to have to run the whole thing again. But at least when I start the second time, I'm familiar with the course and know in my mind how much is left until the end.

Since I hadn't run in a week, I wasn't sure how my foot was going to feel and I was a little nervous. The race began, I started to run and my foot was uncomfortable right off and then began to get worse. I tried to alter my gait and then run on the side of my foot to alleviate some of the discomfort. After about 5 miles, my foot started to feel better. It was still a little sore but I could run on it with no real problem. It became more sore after I stopped running but it was nothing like last weekend when I couldn't walk on it at all so, overall, I am very encouraged.

Here I am with the kids at the finish line after the race ended:


And here we are walking together back to the car:


Based on today's experience, we are still planning on going to Philadelphia this weekend for the half-marathon and I am looking forward to it. There are supposed to be about 10,000 runners there so I shouldn't be last.

Plantar Fasciitis

Well, it turns out that running 15 miles on a sore foot on Saturday was not the best idea since my foot is still a little sore and I have not run since.

At my appointment yesterday with Dr. Getzin I learned that I have plantar fasciitis, an inflammation of the plantar fascia, a fibrous band of tissue that connects the heel bone to the base of the toes.

He said there is no quick fix but, with a modified schedule, I should still be able to run the marathon. Evidently my foot felt that I increased mileage a little too quickly and it just wasn't ready for it. On a positive note, Dr. Getzin thought my biomechanics were fine and I am very flexible.

So now I have to wear shoes with arch support all the time (barefoot is bad), take Naproxen twice a day for the inflammation, ice my foot for 10 minutes several times a day, wear a night splint when I am sleeping and try to do some alternate methods of training (like using an elliptical machine, pool running or riding a bike) for some of the running workouts. This cross training makes things more complicated since I have to go somewhere with an elliptical machine or a pool and have to put the kids in daycare. But, after having completed 15 weeks of training already and with only about 6 weeks to go, I very much want to run the marathon so I'll try to find a way.

I had to scratch plans to run the Labor Day race in Skaneateles but I am still hoping to run the Ithaca 5 & 10 this Sunday. And I've registered to run the Jefferson Hospital Distance Run (half-marathon) in Philadelphia on September 17th but I don't want to hazard a guess as to whether I'll be able to do that yet or not. I hope so since registration cost $55 but we'll see. I might try to run a mile or so tomorrow and see how I feel. My foot does seem to be improving but I don't want to go backwards just when I'm beginning to feel progress.

So, that's it. It's a little disheartening to be sitting around when I want to be running (plus I miss my audiobook!) but I'm hoping that a little care now will ensure a successful marathon in a few weeks.

(Oh, and Dr. Getzin confirmed that my toenails are on their way out. One is black and curved and bumpy and the other two have begun to separate from the nailbed and I can actually pry them up a little bit and look underneath. Thankfully, this isn't painful but it is gross.)

15.5 Miles in Rain with Sore Foot

Monica met me this morning at 5:00 in Ithaca so we could run 16 miles together. This means that I got up at 3:45 and left the house by 4:25am. Crazy.

I wore my reflective vest since the first hour plus was in total darkness. Amazingly, we didn't trip over anything or encounter anything scary and, in a way, running in the dark was good because I was surprised when we reached the three mile mark (our first water stop) because I hadn't been able to really see where we were.

We ran about 9 miles out (which seemed to take forever) and then turned back. By mile 3 my left foot was already feeling sore and by the turning point I was already feeling ready to be done. We walked a little bit off and on but it didn't really seem to make a difference and it was just making the run last longer so I tried to run most of the time. Monica suggested that she could run ahead and get the car and drive me back the rest of the way but ultimately we decided to just cut a little bit off of the run. It ended up being only a very little bit since we ran 15.5 miles. Still, I was glad to have spared myself the extra distance.

Altogether we ran for about 3 hours and 20 minutes. It seemed like a very long time, and it was. Plus, about mile 4 it started raining and then kept raining for the rest of the run. When I left the house the temperature said 61 degrees and I thought it would only get warmer so I ran in shorts and a t-shirt. Well, in Ithaca at 5:00 the temperature was about 58 degrees but then went down to about 56 by the end of our run. My fingers were so wet and cold by the end of the run I could barely undo the cap on the bottle of water and pour some into a cup.

An hour and a half after we finished running, my left foot is now so incredibly sore that it is painful to put weight on it so I might not run the Labor Day race in Skaneateles that I had planned. I'll see how I feel on Monday. When my foot really started bothering me after Wednesday's 8-mile run, I decided to make an appointment with Dr. Getzin of Finger Lakes Sports Medicine so I'm seeing him this Wednesday at 8:45. Depending on how my foot feels, I might not run again until after the appointment.

There wasn't a lot to see today since we ran in the dark and then the cold rain (which seemed to keep most things inside or under cover) but there was one notable sighting. We were on our way back, running by a farmhouse, when I heard loud bird honking sounds. I looked over and there, on the porch, were three large turkeys--one black and two white--pacing by the porch door, making a racket and looking exactly like they were waiting for someone to open the door and let them into the house. I guess they didn't like the cold, wet weather either.