post-vacation frustration

I don't know if I wussed out, or if I'm just human. Probably some of both.

My failure to complete last weekend's long run is a long story, and since I'm frustrated with myself, I feel like ranting. Strap in.


Saturday
When I was planning how my training schedule would work into my vacation home for the holidays long ago, I was happy to see that I was due to fly home on a Sunday--typically a rest day, when all goes according to schedule. I planned to knock out my 9 miles the day before I left Montana to return to Massachusetts. How naive I was.

This being my first time living across the country from my family and hometown friends, this was also my first time returning home to see everyone for after an absence of more than a couple of weeks. Consequently, I had no idea what the "last day before I leave" would entail.

It was madness. I have a habit of doubting anyone who says they were too busy to do such-and-such, because most people have downtime for TV or whatever at some point in their day. As proof for any such skeptics as myself, this is how my Saturday went down:
- 9 AM - 10:30 AM coffee w/ a friend.
- 10:30 AM - 2 PM Christmas celebration with Mom's side of the family
- 2 PM - 4 PM visited by friends from church; showered with cow-related gag gifts (don't ask!)
- 5 PM - 7 PM games with another set of friends from church
- 7 PM - 9 PM games with immediate family and Grandma from Dad's side of family
- 9 PM - 11 PM pack, prepare box of everything that doesn't fit in suitcase to ship to myself, attempt to sleep for my 6 AM flight

I admit: it does look like I had an hour from 4-5 in there. I think I spent it cleaning up though, and I'm sure I couldn't have run 9 miles (and showered) in an hour!

When my head finally hit the pillow that night, I told myself that I would run Sunday--no problem.


Sunday
As I said, I flew out at 6 AM. That meant getting out of bed after a frustratingly restless night at 3:30 AM, leaving for the airport at 4:30, and attempting to sleep on the flight from Billings to Denver between getting elbowed by the young child sitting next to me. But fine--I did catch some sleep on my second flight, so I planned to get home, take a nap, and knock out 9 miles in the afternoon.

Oh how naive I was again!

The airline lost my checked bag, which--inevitably--contained my new running shoes. I could probably have suffered through the run with my old running shoes, but I didn't have those either; I had put them in the box to ship home to myself, since I didn't think I'd need them for a while. Fail.


Monday
This one is where me being a wuss comes in. I headed to the gym after work--the obligatory hectic day that always comes after you're away from your inbox for two weeks--with the intention of running 9 miles.

I made it 4.

I was tired; my legs hurt; I was in a bad mood; the Monday Night Football game I was watching wasn't much of a game at all; I was bored; I was thirsty and had run out of water; I was hot; and the music I had selected wasn't doing it for me. I was pulling out every excuse in the book.

I woke up this morning (Tues) very sore--apparently my body didn't get the memo that I had spared it 5 miles last night. Regardless, it hurt to walk. I guess that's a good reason to have wussed out; I can't imagine what getting out of bed would have been like had I completed the long run.

Still, I was feeling very discouraged today. Life is just stressful right now. It will get better!

blog vacation, *not* a running vacation

Many apologies for no postings for a while! I've been enjoying some time home in Montana with family in friends--but don't worry, I've been keeping up with the training schedule! I look forward to getting back on track with the blog when I return to Massachusetts in a few days.

In the meantime, I hope everyone's been having a very happy holiday! Seasons greetings to each of you. =)

coffee fundraising incentive!

Many apologies for my absence! Since I last posted, I successfully completed the 7-mile mark. Woo-hoo!

Now then, onto that overdue fundraising incentive I promised. This one is a challenge for all of you coffee and espresso drinkers. The premise is simple:

>>Fundraising Incentive #2

Make the commitment that for every dollar spent on a coffee, latte, mocha, cappuccino, frappuccino, WHATEVER, you'll donate a dollar to Boston Partners in Education.

I'm going to put my money where my mouth is on this one. For every coffee/espresso drink that I purchase from now until Marathon Monday, I'm going to match that purchase with a donation equal to it on my Firstgiving page. I'll list whatever drink I had that day in the "Comments" section, so you can stalk my coffee consumption if you really want to. =) My goal is ultimately to cut back on my coffee-drinking while donating a little at a time to a wonderful cause at the same time.

Join me! Feel free to substitute your own money-sucking habit: maybe you're more addicted to Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream than espresso drinks. Whatever it is, match every purchase of that item with a donation to a truly wonderful cause. There will be some kind of awesome, cheesy reward in April (tbd) for anyone who gets onboard.

Finally, if any of you have any ideas for a name for this idea, please post a comment. The only thing that keeps popping into my brain is "Bad Habits for Kids"--but even I can see that's terrible.

ten o'clock training

Busy day today. I went straight from work to errand-running, to a conference, to grocery shopping and grabbing a quick bite to eat, and I finally arrived back home after 9:30. The last thing I wanted to do at 10 PM was make a trip to the gym for a 3 mile run on a stomach full of Q'doba, but alas, I did. The good news was that my shins seemed to understand my lack of time for shoe shopping today; I was very happy to find them virtually pain free for my entire run today.

I usually come home from a run and reward myself with a cold glass of chocolate milk. This is a great trick I picked up from Coach Rick: chocolate milk's combination of protein and carbs apparently makes it the best thing you can put into your body after a run. The thought of an ice cold glass of CM waiting for me at home sometimes gets me through the last minutes of my run, in fact.

Tonight, however, I rewarded myself somewhat more extravagant. That's right--a bowl of Cocoa Puffs. It's basically the same concept, right?

And tonight, I begin a new "running" (bad pun!) segment of this blog: the 90 BPM song of the evening. This is inspired by a related link a friend just shared with me on Facebook, which can be found here.

Song of the day: "Yer So Bad" by Tom Petty - 90.45 BPM.
A wonderfully simple beat that's easy to run to and that only Petty could pull off. Plus, some humor in the first and second verses' lyrics will distract you from the annoying pain in your stomach, caused by eating before running! =)

wrong shoes blues

I can't take it anymore. I'm buying new shoes.

I have a newish pair of Nike tennis shoes that I was sure would serve me for the first half of our training just fine. (They're not exactly the ones pictured, but they're close.) However, on yesterday's fairly easy 2-mile run, my shins started barking just a few second in.

I do love that I can call 2 miles a fairly easy run, though!

Considering I was on the treadmill once again, the only thing I can attribute this reoccurring problem to is the simple fact that I don't have running shoes. And considering I now know what the problem is, I figure any pain in my legs is my own fault until I do something about it! I'll be making the trip to Marathon Sports to remedy that situation in a couple of days.

It also helps that on our last team run, one of the girls I ran with was enumerating all of the many brands of running shoes there are that are superior to Nike. She had no idea I was wearing Nikes at the time, of course; she was actually talking about the shoe selection of someone who wasn't even there. However, I got the message--even if it wasn't aimed at me! =)

In other news, a new fundraising incentive will be posted this week. Be excited, and thanks all for reading!

our team of seventeen

Yesterday was our six mile group run, and just in time--by the time evening hit, snow was sticking to the ground! The seven-miler next week could be interesting.

I would definitely like to take a moment to sing the praises of our awesome Boston Partners team this year. This is Boston Partners' last year as an official charity of the Boston Marathon(R) (the BAA gives featured charities three years each), and I'm so proud to be the team's coordinator. We have many familiar faces on this year's team; I'm only one of four current full-time staff members who are running. We also have two former staff members, a few of our volunteers, and even two folks who ran for us last year. All of our teammates are motivated to run and raise funds for our organization, and we are so appreciative for all of their efforts so far.

Each official charity is given fifteen numbers for the Boston Marathon, but in addition to our fifteen charity runners, Boston Partners is very proud to have two qualified runners also on our team. (This is the first year that's happened!) These wonderful women don't actually have to join a charity team in order to run the Boston Marathon--their qualifying times from previous marathons earned them that privilege already. Nonetheless, they agreed to join our team and raise money for our organization anyway simply out of the kindness of their hearts. We are so happy to have them as part of our team... even if both of them finish all of the team runs about twenty minutes before I do! =)

Training continues this week with the last 2 mile run for quite a while--the "short" runs of the week will be at least 3 miles after that. Wish us luck!