Last Place Runner

I really wish I had made more time to write about my training for my first half marathon. It has been so rewarding, so amazing, so life changing. And, surprise surprise, it has been easy, too.

One day I just ran 5 miles. Then six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven. Then our last training run was 12.25. Our last group run was yesterday, an easy and fun 6 miles. Whoo!

The race is less than a week away. And I’m ready. Without a doubt.

What kept me away from writing was partly the running! So that’s OK. My job also kept me so very, very busy with work and commuting that any extra time I had from January until now I was trying to get my running done, or just having dinner and falling into bed.

I was commuting 70 miles per day, two hours minimum. I loved my job and the people I worked with. But when something closer to home and much better paying came along — unexpectedly, too! — I took it. So I started a new job last Monday.

I think I’ve already started to mourn the end of my training. I felt really sad this morning and I couldn’t think of a reason. But I cried as I pulled towels out of the dryer, and I cried while I folded and put them away. And I cried a little bit more while I started other laundry and unloaded the dishwasher. But then I felt a little better.

Yesterday was my last time to run with my training group. And even though I’ve spent the past four months running with people I know I’ll get to run with again, it was really bittersweet. Some of the volunteers in our group advised us to go ahead and schedule a race to have something to do after the half, but I haven’t done that yet. There’s no question about whether I’ll keep running, I just think I’d like at least one Saturday of sleeping past 5:30 AM.

So for now, my plan is to run my first half marathon on April 2 and then find a race to do in May. I think it would be great to stay 10K ready, and now that I know how excited I was yesterday to “only” have to do 6 miles, that shouldn’t be a problem. Some of my friends are going directly to another half marathon the weekend after. But I want a breather.

I’m turning 40 in a few weeks and that’s the only plan I’m going to have for now.

The half marathon is creeping up on me. I’m going to hate not having my group to run with on Saturdays, but I may also kind of like not getting up at 5:30 in the morning 6 days a week.

Yesterday’s training run was 9 miles. That’s what I was mentally prepared for. We did 8 a couple of weeks ago and last week was a cut-back week, so we did 6 miles (4.97 of which was our Valentine 8K).

Yesterday was hot, too. I took my Camelbak Charm with me, although I kind of waffled about it. I decided I’d rather have it, even if it bugged me, than to run 9 miles in the sun and 70-degree heat without it.

The Charm holds about 1.5L of water and doesn’t weigh a thing. So the only thing I don’t like about it is the sloshing sound it makes, but nobody else can ever hear it. I was also loaded down with my phone and my fuel. I’d put on sunscreen, pulled my hair back, put on a headband, and had my sunglasses on top of my head. I was never so glad that we keep our keys at the community center. I was out of pockets and pouches and hiding places to carry stuff.

I didn’t sleep well Friday night because I was worried about it being so warm while I was running. And then I was frustrated that I wasn’t sleeping because I was going to run anyway and it would be warm anyway and I’d just be sleepy because all my worrying couldn’t change anything.

The first mile always kind of sucks, but usually I’m pretty happy by mile 3. I was running with my friend Michael and got to tell him we’d just run a 5k! Haha, only about 6 more miles to go now!

I felt good until about mile 7.25. Then it was just hot and I was tired and hungry, despite the two GUs I’d had by then. I told myself just to power through, it was just a little ways more and there was no sense in quitting.

I met a new friend along the way, too, and she ran with me and Michael from about mile 4. Coach had just said that morning that he can’t believe all the chatter on our Facebook group about how we are all just now getting to know each other. “It’s NINE MILES!” he said. “You got time!”

So we were all plugging along, seven miles, eight miles, eight point five … And we were like nowhere near finished, even though we were on the course that was planned for yesterday. It was hot, a GU had leaked in my bra (if you don’t have any experience with GU, you can’t even begin to understand my misery), every part of me was sweat and grime. You seriously could’ve salted the rim of your margarita glass on my face. And as I saw my watch clock that 9th mile, I knew I was at least 8/10ths of a mile from my car.

It may not seem like a lot until it does seem like a lot. Of course I know that if I can run 8 miles, I can surely run 10 miles. And I think if Coach had said the course was going to be longer, I might’ve been able to deal with it more gracefully than I did.

I shut down my watch at 9.53 miles because I was moving too slowly to care about documenting it.

I had 25,000 steps by the time I got back to the community center, and still a whole day of living life ahead of me. I got some water, did my leg drains and picked up my official training group shirt.

A little while later, my friend B. came in from her run. I saw her come out of the locker room after a while and she was crying. There were a lot of emotional runners yesterday — we ran 10 freaking miles. We went right on to the double digits. Each one of us can go out now — right now — and run the full 13.1. Who knew?

Honestly, I knew I’d give it my best shot, but I couldn’t see myself ever running more than 2-3 miles without stopping. But somehow it just happens. I just did it. And everyone in my group, all 300+ of us, just did it.

Next Saturday is our 10-mile run, but Coach already made a comment about eating our Wheaties next week. What diabolical plan awaits us next week?

Several years ago, I read a book I really enjoyed — except for one scene. A character finds out the central character has died, and the character throws up.

In a book that was so well written otherwise, I thought the author was at that point incapable of showing us any other emotion. And to have a character react to an unexpected death that way seemed shallow and false. I wanted to feel it and I just thought throwing up was cheating.

But one day last week, while I was in my office at work, I got the news that a woman in my training group had been hit by a car and killed the night before on her training run.

I heard a loud rushing sound, like I was holding a seashell to each ear. And I felt sick. I felt exactly like I was going to vomit. I felt like I wanted to die. And I felt so angry.

Jennifer wasn’t doing anything wrong. She was wearing a light, she was wearing light and reflective clothing. Jennifer was even running on the sidewalk. And still she was hit by a car. I don’t know how many times I cried, “How does that even happen?”

The running community here is the genus, but the training group is the species. We’ve spent the past two months together and this half marathon is our half marathon. The race is still about two months away, and now, with one of our own family members killed doing what we all do every day, I feel like this race is less my own now and more something I need to finish for Jennifer. With 300 trainees and 50 volunteers, coaches and medical staff in the group, we’ve all shifted our goals for this race.

I was worried that our group run this past Saturday would feel like we were running with a limp. And I won’t lie, it was a difficult day. But it was also a great day to honor our friend. The whole town was invited to come out and run with us. We filled the gym of a local mega-church. Jennifer’s parents came from New Jersey to see why she loved this group so much. We cried, oh we cried. And then we ran 8 miles.

Jennifer’s twin sister ran. Her parents were at the aid station at the 3.5-mile mark to give us water and gels. I’d never run 8 miles before, but giving up wasn’t an option.

That’s how training is going. Each Saturday I run farther than I ever have. It’s a great experience. Our two-mile run, way back on the second week of training, was almost enough to break me. It was all in my head — I’ve been capable of running two miles for almost two years now. I woke up that morning convinced that I was in over my head and that I would never be able to finish 13.1. And then the miles started adding up. A volunteer on Saturday asked, “Did you ever believe 8 miles would feel good?” I actually thought it would be hopeless and miserable. I’d given myself permission to quit if it ever seemed more than I could handle. But I’m more than halfway there now. What’s 13.1 miles after you’ve run 8?

What’s 13.1 when you’re running for Jennifer? I wouldn’t give up now for a million bucks.

The past several weeks have been difficult for me. Not, of course, in comparison to what is truly difficult for billions of people around the world. But I was starting to climb into a dark place where I was exhausted and grumpy, which left me feeling sad most of the time.

My typical work day is 12 hours, from the time I walk out my front door until I get back home in the evening. My husband is usually home hours ahead of me, but I still bear the responsibility for the housework, yard work, meals, and almost everything in between. So by the time I’ve cooked dinner, we eat, and I clean it all up, all I can do is go to bed and hope I get some sleep before the cycle begins at 5:30 the next morning.

But then a few weeks ago, the sponsors of my training group announced that the 5K program would begin early this year. And without hesitation, I signed up as soon as registration opened.

I’ve been running every day at the gym during lunch and meeting up with Lauren sometimes on Saturdays to run with her. She’s training for a marathon in November, so it didn’t take long for me to be in over my head with her. But she still invites me to put in my daily mileage with her. So I’m not a total beginner this time around, but I know there’s still so much I can learn, and so many ways I can challenge myself. And I could not WAIT for the program to start.

Our first group run was last Wednesday night. Lauren’s whole family was there to volunteer and support (and, it turns out, to make me run more than the required 2 minutes scheduled for the first night), plus there were a few familiar faces from last year, an old friend of mine I haven’t seen in about 5 years, and a guy I worked with at the newspaper years ago is a volunteer, too!

Ten and 15 years ago, when I was a drinker, I sought out friends who drank. And they were easy to find. Just open a door to any bar past 10 o’clock on a weeknight. Some of those friends are still dear to me, but most of them were just people I knew from the bar. And it’s funny to me now that I have running friends. Friends I’ve made through running, that I never would’ve known otherwise. Kind of like my drinking friends, who gathered often to drink, there’s never any need to make too much of a plan with running friends. We get together and run.

Although Wednesday was a long day for me, I felt better than I had in a long time when I finally got home. I’m going to get with the coach this week and have him modify my training schedule so I can give myself a little push. But really I like not having a goal other than to run until I can’t run anymore.

Tuesday starts my virtual half marathon with Marathon High. I’ll have seven full days to complete 13.1 miles, which should be pretty easy. I’ll have to run what I can during the work week, but I’m going to challenge myself to complete as many of the miles as I can on the weekend.

And I hope that I can keep up here more regularly now that I’m back in real training.

Yesterday, after talking to my friend Lauren about how we’re doing on dietbet (me: fatter; her: skinnier), my husband took me out to dinner at an Italian restaurant. Where I ate basically three small loaves of bread in olive oil dipping sauce and half a stromboli.

On the way home, I told my husband, “It’s not that I feel bad, I just don’t feel good.” And sure enough, I was awake before three this morning paying for my dinner. If you know what I mean. I was exhausted, but I survived it, so I took a sick day. I just took a shower around 11:30, and I’ve taken out the trash and gotten the mail, but otherwise I’m convalescing today.

Yesterday wasn’t all a wash, though. My local running group opened registration for this year’s 5K training program. So I signed up immediately! I’d been going back through the training at the gym, mostly to try to gain some speed. I’d been doing so much HIIT with the trainer that I started to worry I couldn’t run a mile any more! And considering how unbelievably good the program was for me last year, and how many people I met that I wouldn’t have known otherwise, I was already considering redoing the training.

Last year we started in October to prepare for a 5K in December. But this year we start toward the end of August. So it is going to be really hot, sometimes maybe even dangerously so. But that’s one of the benefits of the group: Training with coaches who know what they’re doing and who know how to help you make the fewest mistakes. Plus, when I told Lauren about it, she told me she would volunteer again, which is how we met anyway! She stuck with me while I learned to run! Then she asked me to be on relay team for the half marathon.

Today, for the first time in more than a year, I’m not wearing a fitness tracker. I like my new Vivofit, mainly because I can see a countdown to my step goal. That’s really fun. But Vivofit is also really lonely after being with Fitbit for so long. My husband said he likes that I haven’t been using the Fitbit because now he always beats me in the daily steps. But today I did what I should’ve done instead of ordering that Vivofit two weeks ago. I upgraded my Fitbit.

Today is Prime Day on Amazon and, as a long-time Prime member, I was able to get a Fitbit Charge HR and a $25 Amazon credit. I can’t explain, though, why the Charge in the small size was $5 more than the large. The Charge has an adjustable wristband like a watch (not like the wristband on the Flex with the awkward metal bauble), so I measured my wrist and decided I could wear the large on its last notch. (WHY can’t I say the same for my belts? I mean, other than I don’t wear a belt because I’d rather eat three loaves of bread and a stromboli with as little inference as possible.)

So now I’ve got to decide what to do with my old Fitbit and my old, but very new, Vivofit. I asked my mom if she and my dad would use them, and she gave me her standard answer: Maybe! Because they are going to totally, totally start using their local rec center!

And, of course, I got my Kindle edition of “Go Set a Watchman” yesterday. After 20 years of pining for a first-edition Harper Lee, it never even occurred to me to actually order the real, live book. Until yesterday when I was trying to sync my old school Kindle and I thought, “There’s got to be a better way!” And I just realized I’ll have something from Amazon on the doorstep every single day this week.

Don’t ask.

Well, OK.

Fitbit, arriving Friday

Go Set a Watchman, arriving Thursday

Toddy Brewing System, arrived Wednesday

Body Back Buddy, arrived Tuesday