VCM Relay Team!

So back in January when I thought I would be running the full Vermont City Marathon, my friend Maria thought it would be fun to enter the relay and have her relay team run alongside me for the the full race - motivation, camaraderie, company. Apparently I needed those things far before the race itself, because I my training was... lame, nonexistent and I decided not to run VCM after all.

But wouldn't you know it, Maria got a team in the relay lottery and now I am one of the runners on the team Patti's Pacers. The irony is rich.

The five-leg relay course lets you divvy the distances among your runners however you choose. I lobbied for two legs, so I'll be running about 12 miles:

• Leg 2, the Beltline: one of my favorite parts of the whole course, this out-and-back leg gives every runner a chance to see every other runner in the entire race. For back-of-the-packers, it's a pretty good thrill to see the fastest of the fast coming at you as you're heading out
  

• Leg 3, downtown and south end: the best and the worst leg. Pluses: running down Church Street, neighborhoods with water hoses and trays of oranges, bagpipers on Pine Street, cruising into Oakledge Park and then coasting up the bike path along the water. The minuses? Pine Street is mostly not attractive, the South Cove Loop is a cruel joke. Some might put Battery hill in the latter category too, but I have good memories of heading up this hill every time I've run it. And this time I get to hand off the relay bracelet as soon as I get to the top!
  

Check out the course map here.

To Gu, or not to Gu?

I've had a cardboard box of 24 Gu packets that seemed spawn its own replenishing supplies, it lasted so long. But now, it sits empty in my recycling bin, taunting me to consider whether I will run distances long enough to require more Gu anytime in the near future.

I went to the Marathon 201 class tonight, despite having stopped training for the marathon weeks, and felt a twinge of embarrassment. Today was the Boston marathon, and it gives a boost of excitement to the VCM runners who are entering their high-mileage weeks and contemplating their longest runs. I contemplate whether I will, in fact, knock off a few miles before my commute home. Sad.

So in this mindset of feeling like a quitter, but not quite ready to commit to another long race, I sat and listened, mystified, as Jack Pilla told the Marathon 201 class about his exploits racing 50 miles, 100 miles. Running in the dark, running through thousands of feet of elevation changes, sleep deprivation, dehydration, hallucinations. He enters marathons as 'training runs' - sometimes he does the course twice, or runs home afterward.

Someone asked how his pace changes from a flat marathon distance (6:20 miles) to a hilly 100-mile course (10:30 miles). And then said something that made me daydream for about 25 seconds: sometimes it's easier for slower runners to adapt to really long distances.

Huh.

Up to that point, I'd been thinking that I would give myself a break from marathons because the distance is too much pressure. Try half-marathons for awhile, then take another shot at the full 26.2. But now I wonder if I have it backwards. Maybe I should try something insanely big, and then go to back to the easy-by-comparison marathon and kill it.

This fantasy started to feel less enticing when Jack detailed the medical checkups and severe physical distress. Passing out in a desert canyon called Devil's Thumb, having your feet turn to hamburger, getting blood work done at Mile 88 to ensure your physical limits haven't been maxed out.

Not so sure....

Half-marathon, full birthday!

Run Vermont's Unplugged 1/2 Marathon started yesterday morning in cold, windy conditions -- even a sprinkling of icy rain droplets. By mid-morning, the sun was out in full, the breeze off the lake was still brisk but the air had warmed up nicely. Around Mile 6 I was soooo relieved Jess had convinced me not to wear the heavy running tights and jacket. (The jacket might have been nice around mile 11 where the waves from the lake were crashing over the bike path...)

The race culminated 3 weeks of indecision and poor training, and finish time of 2:34 is exactly what I expected, and exactly what I had earned. I felt good finishing, even though it was definitely not a day of reaching my full potential.

It was, however, my birthday! Running a 1/2 marathon was not a bad way to kick off the day. But the eventful weekend actually started the night before when a storm knocked out the electricity at my house. A few hours later, electricity still off, my carbon monoxide detector started beeping erratically. I tried to check the battery, but it wasn't easy balancing on a ladder with a flashlight and trying to twist the detector apart and detach it. I gave up and called 911 for advice, and the dispatcher rightly diagnosed that the battery died after the power went out.

But since nobody messes with CO, the fine volunteers of the Grand Isle Fire and Rescue Squad showed up around 11 p.m. in a fully rigged fire truck, outfitted with gas masks and oxygen tanks. They cleared the house, and then sat around joking with me about birthdays, 1/2 marathons and the joy of a "live training" exercise. The EMT had to go through the all the protocols of taking my vital signs, but drew out the process with corny jokes and questions about my party plans. The rescue commander kept telling him, 'she wants to get to sleep. 1/2 marathon tomorrow, she wants to get to sleep.'

The electricity came back on just as the fire crew was leaving, which put to rest some of my pre-race worries about alarm clocks and charging my Garmin. But the next morning, I was half-way to Burlington when I realized my Garmin was still plugged into the charger in my bedroom. Dang.

I wasn't sure how to approach the race: fight through and try to match the results from New Bedford, or just run and enjoy the day. Forgetting the watch kind of sealed the deal: I ran as fast as I felt comfortable running, but I didn't worry about much else. No watch, no time, no pressure. I was a little disappointed seeing '2:34' on the clock when I hit the finish line, but I'm still glad to have finished.

Beth and Heidi had awesome races, and Jess amazingly appeared along the course at just the moments when I needed a boost. And to the volunteer who told me that I was the best-dressed runner in the race, THANK YOU! You made my morning!

I went from the race to Mirabelle's to pick up 24 gorgeous cupcakes for my birthday party. I was still wearing my running dress and bib number, and the waitress said to me, 'Congratulations! What did the marathon benefit?' She meant this without accusation, maybe it was like the MS Walk or Team in Training. But I laughed and told her, "The runners. It benefits the runners!"

Eeny Meeny Miney Mo...

... run the marathon, yes or no?

This week I decided, no. I have been putting this off for months, but these are weeks when I would need to ramp up the volume of miles and the length of my long runs, so I couldn't put off the decision any longer.

I've been unfocused, undisciplined and emotional since last October. I wanted to train for another marathon because I thought it would give me structure, direction, and a mental and physical boost. And maybe if I were just running for the joy of it, that would be the case. But instead, the idea of training has been stressful, and I haven't been standing up well to the pressure. I dread runs, and skip workouts, mostly because I don't want test to test myself right now. I've been tested plenty enough lately. If running were easy for me, if I were a natural, I imagine I'd feel differently. But training for marathon requires a lot of mental effort, and I want a break from it.

I'm planning to defer my VCM entry to 2011, and think about running a fall marathon instead. I am going to keep running this spring, and racing. But the distances will be shorter, the goals smaller and the self-imposed pressure far less. Next weekend I turn 35, and I will be at the start line of the Unplugged Half Marathon on my birthday. Current forecast is an ideal 40-44 degrees, with a strong chance of rain. I have high hopes it will be a good day.


Irony alert
My friend Maria has a relay team in the Vermont City Marathon. When she put in the bid, I had planned to run that race, and we had planned for the relay team members to run along side me throughout the race. Now, I'm begging for a spot on the relay team, "Patti's Pacers."

Rear View Mirror: New Bedford

The New Bedford 1/2 Marathon was two weeks ago, but I've been a lapsed blogger since then. Here's to making up for lost time:

Going into the weekend I had a sartorial crisis. It began with an innocent-seeming email from Beth that said, 'Have you picked up your singlet yet?' We, and Heidi and Erika, were going down to New Bedford with the GMAA team -- team bus, team hotel, team dinner. All of these decisions were made so gradually that I was a little stunned and intimidated when I realized how thoroughly I had insinuated myself into a team racing weekend. With fast runners. Yikes.

I hit the limit of my comfort zone with the singlet. Just to be clear, a singlet is a tank top, not a wrestling suit as some of my rugby-playing friends assumed. More importantly, to me a singlet says, "I am a super fast racing demon! Step aside whilst I crush you with my speed!" But ME wearing a singlet? The message is more like, "Appreciate the irony! I am slow, but delusional enough to wear a racing singlet as I finish last!"

I drew a line on the team experience at wearing the singlet, and had to look askance and feign distraction at the team dinner when more than person said, "Does everyone have a singlet? We have extras for anyone who didn't get a singlet!"

On race day, the weather was gorgeous. The first warm, sunny day I'd experienced since the last visit to San Diego. The breeze was a little strong, but the sun actually felt too hot when the wind died down briefly. The course has a series of hills at the beginning, then miles of flatness then one long hill at the end. At breakfast, people who'd run the race before warned us to 'save something' for the last hill.

I was unsettled at the start line, full of emotion and agitation. I started out too fast, then calmed down and found an appropriate pace. I panicked at the first water stop when they had no cups left (WTF?! Insert complaints of back-of-the-pack-slow-runners-don't-get-no-respect here).

A few miles in, after the initial hill, I was keeping a steady, faster than I expected pace. My training had been... underwhelming and my expectations were limited to just finishing. But I was actually running 11-minute miles or under and feeling pretty strong. I lost a little time taking a port-o-let break, but then cruised into the last miles running faster than I had earlier in the race.

At mile 12, I saw the hill and was beginning to give myself a pep talk when Chad showed up to run the end of the race with me. During most of the 10:30 it took to run that mile, I was on the verge on saying, 'ok thanks - got it from here, sadist.' But he kept running just a bit faster than I thought I could go, and I managed to keep up with him. The course turns a corner just before the finish line, where I saw Beth and Heidi, long since finished, cheering me on before I hit the last timing mat.

My official time was 2:24, so much faster than I thought possible! (The weekend before I had run 12 miles in 2:27.) I knew towards the end of the race that I was in striking distance of my PR from the 2008 Unplugged Half in Burlington. I thought that time was 2:23, and coming so close after such miserable training felt like a triumph, and not at all a let down. But then I got home from Massachusetts, and dug my Unplugged bib out of a box and looked at the time I wrote on the back: 2:25!! I did PR! By one short minute.

A few quick observations about the differences between traveling with runners vs. traveling with rugby players. Runners seem to be well-organized, on time, prepared, almost fastidious. Rugby players... not so much. Bathroom breaks on the road were few and efficient. Rugby road trips... not so much. The runners showered and changed after the race, and had clean clothes to wear for the ride home. Rugby players..... well. But for all their exuberant, chaotic messiness, rugby road trips gave rise to some of my favorite stories of misadventures with friends. Like the time we got lost in Rhode Island, and ended up at a donut shop at midnight getting a tour of sprinkle bins and fryolaters from the Jehovah's Witnesses who worked there. Good times, made possible only by bad navigation and leaving later than we planned.