Milestones

Last night Charlotte was racing.  She would pose and say, "ready, steady, GO!"  Then she would take off and run as fast and as far as she could until she hit a wall.

She told me, "I'm racing."
"Really?" I said, "Who are you racing?"
"I'm racing me!" she said, as she ran off.

I've been very discouraged on the running front.  Travel, holiday activities, and sickness have meant few runs in the last couple of weeks and the ones I did get in were painfully slow (with an emphasis on the painful).  Finally today I took some decongestants that make me feel shaky, but made my sinuses stop aching. And I ran.  Really ran.

Tonight, for the first time in my life, I ran a complete mile without stopping.  And I didn't die.  It's a Christmas miracle.  I'm doing it.  I'm racing myself and I'm winning.

Stats:

Distance: 3 miles

Duration: 34:24 min:sec (over 2 min less than my previous best)

Average Pace: 11:27 min/mile (over 30 seconds better)

Average Speed: 5.24 mph (previous high was 4.9mph)

Total Distance: 62 miles

I'm Not A Runner, but I am Running

There are a lot of things I am good at, such as:

• reading to children
• researching things
• using the dewey decimal system
• critical thinking
• explaining complex ideas to children
• imagining a scenario in which any rule should be broken 
• creating crafting activities for children
• negotiating with toddlers
• logistical planning

There are things that I am adequate at, such as:

• cooking
• sewing
• needle crafts
• music
• photography
• writing
• technology

And there are things I am bad at, such as:

• housekeeping
• poker faces
• spelling
• memorizing poetry (especially in Latin)
• drawing
• pop culture
• running

When I go running, it's like a constant bashing of my self-esteem.  I'm not good at it, I don't enjoy it and yet I keep going.  While my friends are running (as in without stopping) 5, 6, 7 mile runs, I have yet to run a full mile without a walking break.  The idea of propelling myself forward for 13.1 miles scares the bejeebies out of me.  It's really good for me to be doing something that challenges me, but I think for the sake of my sanity I need to mix in some more things that I'm good at.

I haven't gotten in as many runs lately due to travel and being sick.  Today's run was my first since Tuesday.  When I got to the Rose Bowl, I remembered that today is the second Sunday of the month, meaning it was the flea market.  Luckily I was getting there as it was ending, so parking wasn't an issue.  It did make the beginning of the run more interesting, as I was running past some of the vendors.   It was a slow "run," with my head still full of snot.  I'll spare you the stats, mostly because I don't want to look at them.  

And Then I Ask You For Money

There are a lot of reasons to run 13.1 miles.  I am lucky enough to have never encountered any of these,  until now.  What I've failed to mention up to this point is my friends and I are running for to raise money for a charity: Oasis India.  Oasis is an organization that works around the world to end modern day slavery.  Over 27 million people are enslaved worldwide, with most of them being women and children and many of those in sex work.  The average age of girls sold into slavery is 12 years old.  Oasis India works with local police to raid brothels where girls are enslaved.

So when my friends asked if I wanted to help them raise money to free girls from slavery, I finally saw a reason to run 13.1 miles.  I think I may suggest we do a bake sale next time.

Our team's goal is $5,000.  There are four of us on the team, which makes my personal goal $1,250.  I think I'll make it an even $1,310-- $100 per mile.  If our team meets the goal, we will have raised enough money to fund 10 brothel raids.  

 I'm excited about raising money for something I feel so strongly about.  If you are able and inclined, please give.  I installed a donation gaget on the right side of this page or you can donate by going here.

In other news, I really don't like running.  Especially with a cold.  I don't have the stats from my last three runs up, but they were slow.  I'm hoping to do a longer run/walk this weekend.  13 miles is still seeming impossible, especially with only 74 days to go (one of the fund raising sites has a ticker...it is stress inducing).

Butterflies Make Me Run Faster

Good news!  The butterflies do make me run faster!  I found an amazon credit we had and ordered the butterfly compression stockings.  They came today and I had my best run yet.

I also realized it's much easier to run if nothing is hurting.  The tops of my feet had been hurting for a while.  About a week ago, the pain was quite bad when running.  I came home, googled a bit, and found some stretches to try.  It seems to have helped (or maybe taking 3 days off) and I had a mostly pain-free run.

I am realizing that when I watch the time and push myself to run for a set time, I do better.  Someone had mentioned a run four minutes/walk one pace.  I decided to try it and it seems to be a great system for me for now.  I tried this for the first time on my Thanksgiving run (which I didn't have time to blog about).  It worked fairly well until I got too hot (I made the mistake of going mid-day on a very warm day).  I ended up walking most of the last mile, when my song of "four more minutes in the hot, hot sun...three more minutes in the hot, hot sun...two more minutes in the hot, hot sun..." stopped motivating me.

Tonight the 4/1 minute pace worked really well.  My app graphs my pace.  My graphs are slowly going from looking like this:

to this:

The blue line is my pace.  The green is elevation.  I'm getting more consistant and taking fewer walking breaks (the spikes).  The two big peaks are from stopping to stretch out my leg.  

It's not easy or fun, but I'm doing it.

Stats:

Distance: 3 miles

Duration: 36:39 min:sec

Average Pace: 12:13 min/mile

Average Speed: 4.91 mph

Total Miles: 47 miles

Thanksgiving Stats:

Distance: 3 miles

Duration: 38:45 min:sec

Average Pace: 12:55 min/mile

Average Speed: 4.64 mph

On Clothes and Morale

This running business is hard.  Every once in a while I like to do something that scares me to death.  For example, in college I tried out for a play (and more terrifyingly got a part) and took voice lessons (ie had to sing in front of music majors).  Running is definitely one of these things.  I am not good at it, but it is good for me.  Theologian Stanley Grenz once talked about how he liked to play guitar because he enjoyed it, but he was not good at it.  It's good for me to be reminded that there are many things I am not good at.

That being said, tonight's run was my best time yet.  I realized that I tend to go faster listening to Wait, Wait Don't Tell Me as opposed to This American Life.  I also tend to laugh out loud, which adds to the amusement of other Rose Bowl walkers/runners.  If you know of any other hilarious or upbeat podcasts (or audiobooks), let me know.

I have a favorite pair of pants to run in:

I bought a pair of Zaggora Flares impulsively a few months ago with a groupon.  I like them, mostly.  A week or so ago I noticed a hole on the outer thigh seam.  I emailed the company and they said they would send a replacement pair, but while I wait, I wear the holy pants.  This causes some anxiety/excitement.  I'm a little afraid that I'll be halfway around the track and the hole will start to grow and there I will be exposed and 1.5 miles from my car.  

Somehow my app messed up tonight, but it worked in my favor.  Every 5 minutes the lady's voice comes on (I call her Robot Monica) and says how far I've gone, my average pace and the time.  Sometimes I love her, sometimes I hate her.  Anyway, Robot Monica came on tonight at the 5 minute mark and said I had gone half a mile.  Well, that's kind of awesome because I haven't done a mile in less than 12 minutes yet.  I was inspired by my speed and pushed myself to keep it up.  Well, as I neared the end of the track I realized that the app seemed off.  Upon closer examination, the app messed up the first 5 minutes, but it did manage to make me go faster.  So I guess I'll forgive RoboMon.

Stats:

Distance: 3.10 miles

Duration: 37:29 min:sec

Average Pace: 12:05 min/mile

Average Speed: 4.97 mph

Total Miles: 41

Running Away

My favorite time to go for a run right now is 5pm.  It generally works out that Matt comes home from work and I run away.  He takes care of the girls and cooks dinner, while I have some quiet.  It's really an amazing arraignment (for me anyway).

Friday night is not my favorite run night, but I really wanted to try for a redemptive run (as in something to counter the awfulness of Thursday's run).  It didn't work.  Something is up with my stomach, which made running unpleasant.  I tried to push myself a little harder and I managed to run about 3/4 of a mile without walking.  Then I thought all my insides were going to fall out.

Stats:

Distance: 3.02 miles
Duration: 39:55 min:sec
Average Pace: 13:14 min/mile
Average Speed: 4.53 mph

Total Distance: 38 miles

Leaden Jell-O

Last night's run was more of a walk.  It was awful.  My legs felt like leaden Jell-O--heavy and wobbly and like they didn't know how to work.  My ankles hurt.  The tops of my feet hurt.  My stomach hurt.  It was quite unpleasant all around.

I'm not sure if it was because I was wearing different clothes or because I was hungry or because I had eaten (a lot of) chocolate earlier in the day.  Or maybe because I was tired or I had already heard the episode of This American Life or because it was raining a little or because I'm just not good at running.

For whatever reason, it was miserable.  But I don't want to give up because the last two "runs" were good, almost fun.  I think the good ones make the miserable ones worth it.  Or at least I'm going to tell myself that so I will keep going.


Side note: Good news!!!  A friend sent me a link to CEP sports compression stockings.  I hadn't been looking at these when researching compression options because I didn't they would be as compressive as the medical grade ones.  I did some research and found that they apply less pressure than the medical ones, which would be okay, but not ideal for now.  I looked them up on Amazon and Amazon in its infinite wisdom recommended other fun compression stockings.  That is where I found these:

Butterflies!!  Compression stockings with butterflies!  Now I just have to save up for these and the others that I put on my running wish list.  I'm pretty sure butterflies would make me run faster.

Stats:

Distance: 3 miles

Duration: 40:30 min:sec

Average Pace: 13:30 min/mile

Average Speed: 4.44 mph

Total Distance: 35 miles