Backing Off

The best thing about training for a marathon is seeing yourself improve as you climb towards your goal. Ever since I joined cross country in high school I had people giving me weird looks whenever I talked about running in a positive light. Who in their right mind would want to run by choice? In my sophomore year, my favorite cross country workout was interval miles. You had ten minutes to run a mile. The amount of time you had left out of the ten minutes when you are done running the mile is the amount of time you have to rest. As soon as the ten minutes is up, you start the next mile. We did three to five of these at a time. Every week I had a goal to beat my own mile time on at least one of the miles. I got my time down to 6:20 once and have never beat it since, but I will never forget how I felt after that mile. It was better than a runner's high. I felt like I could do anything after that.

Now the next goal is to continually beat my distance. Last week we ran ten miles. This week it was back down to eight. This coming week we are supposed to run twelve. That will be the longest run I have ever gone in my life. It will almost be a half marathon. There is just one problem.

While running the eight miles yesterday I did something bad to my foot. I'm not exactly sure what is wrong with it, just that it hurts. The beginning of my run was painful already, because my shins still felt tight and achy. I tried convincing myself that I just had to stretch them, it wasn't shin splints. That self talk didn't work out so well, especially when I stopped to stretch them and they felt worse than before. Finally I stopped and tied my shoes tighter. They felt loose around the arch of my foot. Surprisingly, it helped a lot. Within a quarter mile after tightening my shoes, my shins felt better.

However, the closer I got to the end of my run the more my feet started to bother me, especially my right foot. My toes started to go a little numb. I was tired of stopping to fix my shoes so I kept pressing on. By the last two miles I was picking up speed a lot. Kal had told me earlier that his time was 64 minutes for eight miles. I wanted to run at the same pace as him and I was determined to do it. I felt like I was flying until the very final stretch, because the course ended on an unhill. My foot was hurt a lot and I couldn't feel my toes. I finished at 65 minutes.

When I hit the eight mile mark I removed my shoes. I'll admit, I was a little worried that my toes had turned purple from cutting off the circulation, but they were still a rosy red when I took them out of the shoes. I walked a little under a quarter mile back home with bare feet to let them stretch out a bit. This probably was a bad idea, because the second I started walking without the shoes the inner arch of my right foot felt like it was cramping, only without a knot in it. I walked slower, but didn't put the shoes back on. I am a firm believer in walking off the pain. Again, dumb idea.

It has been a day and a half since I ran, and my foot still hurts. I let my mom see my foot today and she said, "Your foot is swollen! Put some ice on that!" I had already iced it three times that day. I may be walking my "run" on Monday. I'm stobborn when it comes to pressing through pain, but I don't want to ruin all chances of running the whole marathon by being an idiot right now. I am starting to feel stressed just writing about backing off, so I will end here. I hope this is just a small injury and that it will heal quickly.

Stress Fractures and Other Nightmares

On Friday Kal, Meesh, and I ran our last run together before we leave Rexburg for home. We left just when the sun was rising for a ten-mile run. I decided it would be nice to end on a downhill, so we were going to run the course backwards from the way I had mapped it out. I found out later that running it that direction actually had a whole lot more uphill than it would have had otherwise. Meesh was not happy with me. It started with one huge hill. We reached the top of it to see a small downhill before we would have to run another hill. This pattern repeated a few times and I kept assuring her that the last three miles were nearly all downhill. After the third or fourth hill we went over, Meesh yelled in anger. I asked her what the problem was and she told me she was angry at the hills. "I hate hills!" She exclaimed. I told her to try to stay positive. Negativity never helps anything. In high school my cross country coach used to say that running was 80% mental and only 20% physical. I am a huge believer in that statement.

The last three miles were more flat than downhill. At one point I turned around to check on Meesh, because her breathing changed. She was gasping for air and a tear slid down her cheek. She gasped, "hill..." in reference to the small incline ahead. She was working herself up way too much, and I was afraid she would stop breathing altogether, so I yelled out to Kal and told Meesh to stop and walk with her hands on her head. This position opens up your lungs wider, making it easier to breathe. Hunching over with your hands on your knees when you are struggling with breathing is never a good idea.

Kal had been a ways ahead of us for most of the run that day, because Meesh and I were both struggling a bit. He came back to us when I called his name, though. I always feel safe running with him, because he would never leave us behind. Having Meesh as a running partner is really useful too. I doubt she knows how much it helps me to have her run with us. Urging her on during our ten mile run was just as much for me as it was for her.

I've discovered this especially in the last week of being home. Two of my best friends, my running partners, are gone now. It is a whole lot harder to give yourself encouragement when you are running alone. Today when I was running, I imagined that Kal was running just ahead of me and Meesh right beside me. It helped me finish the run. My shins have been feeling tight and sore all week. I am trying not to worry too much about it, but I can't help but remember the shin splints I had during my junior year of track. They got so bad that I walked with a limp all day, and running was agony. My mom took me to a physical therapist to look at them to make sure it was a muscular problem and not stress fractures.

A stress fracture is one of the biggest nightmares of a runner. It's caused by thousands of steps and weak bones, or a weak spot in the bone, or a part of the body that takes more pressure than the rest. The more pressure put onto the soft spot, the weaker it gets. Finally, it reaches a breaking point and it cracks or breaks. It has to be extremely painful, but I am blessed enough so far to have never experienced it.

Kal and Meesh have both been diligent in running. Meesh told me this morning that she thinks she may have hurt her thigh, but she isn't slacking off. She ran an extra mile today. Kal said his run had some good hills in it. I hit some pretty big hills myself today. The long run this week is back down to eight miles. Hopefully my shins and Meesh's leg hold up.

Running During Finals Week

This week was the most hated week of the semester by students: finals week. I remember when my family used to watch "The Biggest Loser" on TV together, and the contestants always had the hardest time keeping weight off when they went home and had to return to their regular lives again. It's hard to balance all your everyday tasks and still make time to exercise. I haven't had too much of a problem finding time to exercise until this week. It was finals week. All my finals were due on Monday and Tuesday. The good news about this is that I get done with my finals by Tuesday. The bad news is that I only have until Tuesday to get ALL of my finals done. I did what any student would do if they wanted to get decent grades on their projects and tests. I didn't go to sleep Monday night. I stayed awake nearly 40 hours straight aside from twice when I fell asleep for ten to twenty minutes.

I still ran on Monday, though. We ran four miles. I could feel food in my stomach as I ran and I was already pretty tired from the day, but we did it, and that's what counts. It is more of an accomplishment to go out an run when you don't feel like it. On our run last Friday we went eight miles. I was pretty tired the first few miles of that run too, but picked up some speed by the end. Meesh was hurting towards the end of the run, and with about a mile and a half left we had to make a stop to a building on campus so she could used the restroom. Even with the discomfort, we were all proud of ourselves for running eight miles. This Friday we are running ten! That's the farthest I have ever run before, and that was at the end of cross country season when I was in top shape. I can't wait to go that far again.

One of the best parts of training for a marathon is the bragging rights. It is a common occurence, when weekends are coming up, for us to just throw it out there during conversation around people about how much we are running. "How much are we running this week, Kal? Oh, ten miles? Sounds awesome! I can't wait!" Our roommates shake their heads at us when we bring it up. Just wait until we are running twenty miles. It'll sound more like, "So are you excited to run twenty miles?" "Heck yes! It'll be epic!" What would your face look like if you heard that conversation?

During our eight mile run on Friday the sky looked incredible. To the west the sun was sinking towards the horizon and it was glowing red. The entire sky was neon. On the other side to the east was the moon. It was full and bright. I couldn't stop staring at it. It almost made me forget that I was extremely tired. Later that night when we were back home, I saw a post on Facebook that there was an eclipse that day. No wonder it looked so incredible! Every day following that day, the sunset has been stunning, with the sun glowing neon red.

After a nice nine-hour sleep last night, I felt ready to run again. We only ran four miles, but it felt a lot better to run than it has felt in a long time. It snowed this morning for the first time in weeks, so we had a nice inch-layer of fluffy snow to run on. It was slick in places, and Kal had fun running and sliding on his feet down the hills. I am known to fall, so I decided against sliding around too much on purpose.

Friday is our last run all together before being seperated for four months. It'll be more challenging to go out and run on our own, but we can do it. We have to be ready for when we run our marathon in June!

"I'm On a Diet"

I think the one thing about training for a marathon that is harder than kicking your butt to go workout everyday is eating healthy, so that when you finally get your rear-end out the door you don't want to vomit ten minutes into your run. We all have weaknesses, and mine is my sweet tooth. One of these days I will conquer it all the way, but I have not experienced that day so far. I am also gluten-intollerant, so eating bread, pasta, pizza, and any baked good you can think of will suck the energy from my body for about ten times longer than sugar ever could. After four days at home for thanksgiving I definitely felt the effects of the junk food I had eaten.

Kal and I ran four miles on Monday. It was really nice to have my running partner back, but we both felt pretty tired. Kal hadn't eaten all day, because he had classes. I had eaten right before we ran and was still recovering from a 12-hour drive back to Rexburg the day before. Our time was still under 34 minutes, despite feeling lesser than usual.

When we got back from our run we sat at the kitchen table drinking water to rehydrate. My roommate, Shazaam, offered Kal a fruit snack and he raised his eyebrows at her with the response, "I'm on a diet." I had to laugh. If only we were always that dedicated to the marathon diet. I know that more than one of us has slipped up big time on the "marathon diet." I really am no expert on dieting, but I do know that I need to work on the whole disipline thing. If only food with sugar in it didn't taste so dang amazing. That would solve this problem entirely.