marathon- complete!

I got a text on Saturday afternoon that I would not need to work on the response this weekend so I immediately threw some stuff in a bag and headed for New Orleans! 2.5hrs later, my buddy Matt met me at the expo and helped me find my bib # and packet. Funny story- when I signed up for the marathon, I must have forgotten that I was signing up for a marathon because I listed my anticipated finish time as 1:59:00... I was hoping I'd end up in the 1st corral, but they stuck me in #17. Just as well.

That night, we went out to an Italian place in Metairie, LA for dinner and I had a GREAT fettucini alfredo and fried chicken dish (gotta love the South). It was a nice opportunity to catch up with some friends and relax before the big run. At dinner, Chrisy informed me that two of our friends had gotten t-shirts made in memory of Thomas for our group of buddies to wear at the Rock 'n' Roll. Matt and I picked up our shirts (which were actually tank tops) and I thought it would be great motivation for me to wear during my marathon debut.

I didn't sleep much. Jimmy had scored us a room at the Ritz Carlton on Canal (there was a massive leak at the hotel he had actually booked) but I was so nervous and anxious (and sad) that I may not have slept at all...  a rough start! At 6:30 we left our hotel and walked to the start at Poydras and Camp St. I was worried at first that I wouldn't be able to navigate us there but there were TONS of people to follow!!! It was amazing. Even more amazing than the size of the crowd was that I ran into my favorite spin instructor amidst the chaos! It was nice to see a friendly face because, of course, I had already gotten lost and separated from my group. I felt nervous about not having pooped yet (I used to get the same way before rugby games) so I got in one of the incredibly long porta-potty lines and waited it out. The gun fired and there were still probably a dozen people ahead of me in line. You can imagine what it looked like when I finally made it to the throne. Why the fuck couldn't I have pooped at the Ritz Carlton?! Anyway, after that horrific ordeal, I hopped into one of the corrals and actually ran into ANOTHER person that I knew. Kay was shooting for a 4:30 finish and I told her I'd hang on for as long as I could. I stuck with her for maybe 2 miles. Haha.

Okay I could give you the turn-by-turn but I'm already bored with that idea.

I finished in 4:50:39, which is a pace of 11:06. I think I feel the right mix of happiness and... I don't know... hopefulness, with that being my first marathon. I'm happy that I was able to finish it and I know there are a handful of things I can do differently next time to improve myself. The first tweak I think I ought to make to my training is incorporating more strength work. My quads and glutes were tired pretty much the entire time, but I never found myself breathing hard. This tells me that it probably was not necessary for me to supplement my cardio work with spin classes as often as I did. I think I would have had a more comfortable marathon if my legs were stronger. The second tweak that I (hope I) will make is incorporating more long runs, even if it means starting my training a few weeks earlier. Having a 20-mile run under my belt was invaluable, but I think my body would have been happier if it was more used to the impact. Exhibit A is my left heel/ankle which I am currently treating with alternating hot/cold packs.

The best part about my run is that I never really found myself hitting a wall. My pace was pretty consistent and manageable and it helped that there were water stations every 1.5-2 miles because I allowed myself to walk for a few seconds at each of them. I expected my mental state to deteriorate at mile 18 or 19, but it never really did. When the miles started to feel longer and longer, I just thought about the tank top I was wearing and how important it was to honor Thomas' memory by finishing well. My pace picked up significantly when I saw all my friends cheering me on in the home stretch. I had taken so long (most of my friends ran the 1/2M and my friend who ran the full with me finished it in 3:20) that I halfway expected them to have already left for the bars. But they were there in their tank tops! I sprinted to the finish and got my medal and snacks and hugged my friends. Side note: I am so lucky to have such great people in my life.

Running my first marathon was a great experience. Here's hoping my second marathon will be even more awesome! Guess what I signed up for today...

October 28, 2012!

I wondered if it was a bad idea for me to sign up for the Marine Corps Marathon this afternoon, as I gingerly hobbled across my living room to retrieve my credit card. I think the timing will be good though. I will have wrapped up my last long bike ride 2 months prior to the MCM, so I should be in good shape and I'll probably be anxious to switch my focus from cycling to running. I think it'll work out well.

Anyway, that was my marathon experience! I was somewhat consistent with my training, dropped off the face of the running planet for most of the month of February, ate awful food, slept very little (taking three classes this semester was SOOOOO stupid), and I still survived it. Great success!

Great motivation.

CG HH-6535

It's been a really bizarre week. On Tuesday night, a Coast Guard HH-65 went crashed into the Mobile Bay with one of my friends as the co-pilot. I was called in to help manage the search and rescue and salvage operations and it has been a very emotionally-charged few days. Resources from several different agencies flooded the bay to search for the four crewmembers but the only person recovered on the first night was the rescue swimmer who was sadly declared deceased shortly thereafter. When they recovered the fuselage, the three missing crewmembers were not there. Dive teams worked exhaustingly long hours in the murky waters and were finally able to recover two of the bodies on Thursday. Thomas and LCDR Taylor were brought to Sector Mobile late on Thursday night and there was a small crowd of Sector and ATC members there to welcome them. It was one of the saddest experiences of my life, to see my friend and classmate wrapped in an American flag and carried into the ambulance. But I can't imagine not being there for that. 

Life is so fragile and precious... We Coast Guard men and women are such a small community that when something like this happens, we are all deeply affected. One of my best friends worked as a rescue swimmer with Fernando Jorge for years. Another friend of mine was stationed with Andrew Knight when they first came into the service. An award citation that Dale Taylor received as a LT has been circulating through my group of friends this week. If you get a second, please read it and consider the bravery and selflessness that is required of our aviators.   

And of course, Thomas Cameron. I had the great honor of meeting his parents and brother yesterday evening and it was great to hear everyone recount their hilarious and moving stories about Thomas. Sorely missed, he is.

I may have to work on the response tomorrow, so I'm not sure if the marathon is going to happen or not. It seems pretty insignificant to me right now. Honestly, I think I would rather work and be part of the team who gets to recover the final crewmember of HH-6535 (the flight mechanic is still missing) but I guess we'll just wait and see what happens.

My classmates set up a memorial fund for Thomas. If you are interested, please visit http://www.depositagift.com/4495/thomascameron/Welcome/registry 

Your legacies live on in our hearts

18 miles?? PIECE OF CAKE!

Just kidding, it wasn't actually that easy. I meant to knock this one out on Wednesday, but I didn't get out of work early enough to catch the hours of daylight I would need to run EIGHTEEN MILES. So I ran five and went to spin class instead. As always, Bill's class whooped my ass. I could really feel the burn in my quads as we did the sprint work and lately I've been wondering if I should just bite the bullet and buy some good spin shoes. I have the ones I use for my bike, but I don't think they're compatible with the type of clips on the spin bikes. Hmmm...

Anyway! Yesterday, I mapped out three different ~6 mile loops from my apartment. I left out a bottle of water/gatorade and some GU and hit the road at around 10am. It was very humid and the sky looked like it was fixin' to rain (aww I love Mobile) but the sun burned through at around noon. Then, it was hot. Very hot! I kept my heart rate at right around 155bpm (the upper limit of my aerobic zone) and never felt like I had to breathe through my mouth. Although this run was easy on the cardiovascular side, it felt tougher on my muscles and my joints because my stride was really short and so perhaps the cumulative impact was greater? What was weird (but kind of nice) was that the aches and pains would come and go and be replaced by a discomfort somewhere else. So my left arch (the mostly problematic one) would bother me for about a half hour, and then the pain would switch to my right hip and my arch wouldn't bother me anymore. As I write this, I wonder if it had to do with me adjusting my stride to compensate for the pain in the different parts of my body. I don't think I hurt myself too terribly bad though because I feel perfect today. No lingering soreness anywhere!

I took a break in between loops to grab some water and devour a GU. I feel good about the breaks that I took because they always came just when I was starting to feel tired or thirsty. I didn't time my running or my breaks because I wanted to focus on how my body was feeling and not push too hard- this worked out really well for me! When it was all over, I wasn't exactly tired but my muscles were definitely fatigued and I had to support myself a bit on the railing as I made my way upstairs. But yeah, today I am good as new! I think I will stick with heart rate training for my long runs... seems to be working so far.

Achy Breaky Feet

Yesterday, I planned to do my long run for the week- 18 miles. I mapped out two different 9 mile loops (to keep things interesting for myself), strapped on my heart rate monitor, set a water bottle and blueberry GU outside the gate to my house, and off I went! I tried to keep my heart rate in the fat burning/aerobic zones (50-70%) and would slow down if my heart rate approached 160bpm. Folks, I was moving slower than a swimming sloth.

Leave me alone, lady! Can't you see I'm trying to maintain my target heart rate zone?!

When I finally made it home, my knees and feet hurt but I felt great! My heart rate was low, my breathing was easy, and I was excited to knock my second 9 mile loop out of the park. I devoured the GU and slammed some watered down gatorade and I was on my way! 18 miles?! NO PROBLEM!!!

Two miles later, I was finished. My feet felt like two crushed birds, delicate bones protruding sharply from feathers in my Asics GT-2160s. I hobbled my ass back home and wondered what the fuck had happened. Two miles is a long way to walk when it hurts to walk. When I finally got home and had a hot shower, I realized that I probably hadn't given myself enough time to recover from the 1/2M this weekend. 

Today, I feel... better than ever, actually! My feet and calves are just fine, and I wonder if the stupid long run was just what I needed to flush out the lactic acid (in my feet???). I went to a great spin class during my lunch hour today and I feel confident that I'll be able to handle the 18 miler when I get back from this weekend. Stay tuned!

rest day, take 2!

I thought about working out today. I actually packed some clothes and my running shoes to get five miles in after work... thing is, my arches are still really tender from the run this weekend. So I got a pedicure and a massage instead! I went to Nou Veau in west-ish Mobile and took advantage of their stellar BCS Championship special: $74 for a pedicure and a 1 hour massage. Roll Tide!

A nice mint green pedi to disguise my icky feet!

Sorry if that picture is too gross. I know a lot of people who hate feet, but I am proud of what my feet are able to do (sustain the impact of running for miles and miles and miles and miles...) and REALLY proud of this cute nail polish color choice! So suck it, podophobes!

The massage was pretty stellar, as well. The massage therapist had me strip down to my underoos and lay under all these soft, warm sheets. The room was comfortably dimmed and the sounds of water flowing and the gentle ringing of bells just soothed the HELL out of me. I was asleep and drooling in minutes.

My sentiments exactly, Mr. Meow Meow

She traced the muscles along my spine and around my shoulder blades and found a few small spots that I didn't even know were sore. My arms, unconditioned and lacking any semblance of musculature, did not benefit much from this massage. She flipped me over and did a nice job on my shins and my quads but I have to say- overall, she could have been a lot harder on my legs. My calves and whatever it is that runs down my calves to my heels are still pretty achey and my feet, particularly my left arch, are very tender. It felt nice to have someone touching them, but I kind of wanted to feel it more. I don't know.

One thing I really like to do is use my elbows to massage my arches and the bottoms of my feet. If that sounds weird, sorry, but my thumbs just can't push through all that tough skin and tissue enough to make a difference. Maybe my weak hands are an extension of my weak arms. But anyway, elbows. They are pointy and hard and I can use them to dig precisely into each of those sore spots way more effectively than this (otherwise very talented) masseuse did this afternoon. Yeah, yeah don't knock it till you try it, okay? 

This is how I do it: I sit down as though I am doing the butterfly, or groin stretch. I adjust my feet so that they rotate somewhat towards the ceiling (this requires some ankle flexibility). I take my elbow and push it into my foot, sometimes slowly rotating in circles and sometimes just dragging my elbow along the length of the bone or muscle. I do the elbow massage after every long run and it hurts so, so good.

Foot turned slightly towards the ceiling. Elbow in the arch of the foot. Also, penguin PJs.

First yoga of 2012!

So I totally meant to run four miles after work today... but I took a nap instead. I think I'm just exhausted from the holidays, honestly. I set my alarm for 5:20 so that I could throw on my favorite pair of pants and meet Trish for 5:30 yoga at the Y.

Lululemon Wunder Under Pants- favorite pants in the world

Of course, I'm late for yoga. That's okay though, because promptness wasn't one of my goals for 2012! Maybe next year... Also, of course, it's INCREDIBLY crowded!!! People were right on top of each other in this tiny yoga studio. And yoga is probably the shittiest class to be late to because it's soooo quiet. I mean, if I tried hard enough I could probably have heard people's heart rates pick up in their annoyance with me. The spot next to Trish was ocupado so I settled for the last available free space- directly in front of the instructor, who I had never met because I had never taken yoga at the Y.

Not really a good start! But gosh, was it a great class... We started with flowing through some sun salutations and it felt AWESOME to sink my heels into downward dog. I also wasn't as weak in chaturanga as I thought I would be

Chaturanga Dandasana 

(PS- who is this BABE?!!)

We did some core/hip strengthening work which I felt really strong in. We also did my all-time favorite stretch, pigeon. It was especially sweet after my 10-mile run yesterday. Surprisingly, the hardest part of the class for me was the balance! Things I used to kick ASS at, like eagle pose, were totally impossible. I felt every tiny muscle in my feet and ankles burning for rest. I'm wondering if not doing yoga has made my stabilizer muscles weak... and if that has contributed to the pain I've been feeling in the arches of my feet. 

In the book Born to Run, Chris McDougall talks about a dude whose flat feet had caused him all kinds of running injuries. As a last ditch effort, the guy abandons shoes altogether and the muscles in his feet eventually developed to where he had a strong arch and he stopped having foot pain. He also went down a half size in footwear! Okay I might not have all the details exactly right, but I think it's interesting. 

17 miles in the Eastern Shore

Yesterday, I met up with my friend Sam at the public library in Daphne for the LONGEST RUN OF MY LIFE (seems like I'm doing that every week, these days) - 17 miles. It was in the low 40s and I felt extremely underdressed, but I figured I'd get warm in the first few miles and that it would heat up towards the end of our run. We set off to run along the Eastern Shore Trail from Daphne to Fairhope. 

32 paved miles from Battleship Park to the Weeks Bay Reserve. Awesome!

This was the first run I've done with another person, while training for the marathon- and it was an absolutely critical one to have company. And to make it even cooler, Sam is the only woman I know to have completed a full IronMan! In short, she kicks a lot of ass. 


We talked a lot about her IronMan preparation and she told me that the most crucial thing she learned was heart rate training. She explained that most people struggle with their training because they don't know how to properly pace themselves and will tend to swim/bike/run much faster than they ought to. This is the wrong way to train because it causes your body to operate at heart rate outside of the fat burning zone. Basically, your body stops burning fat because your workout requires something with a higher caloric value so it ends up burning muscle instead. This opens you up to more injury risks and causes you to feel burned out and exhausted by the end of your workout. Training in the appropriate heart rate zone forces people to move slower than they would, but it allows your body to operate in the aerobic zone which is where your body most efficiently burns fat. Sam said that if you do it right, you should feel refreshed by the end of a long workout. I can't say I've felt that way after my long runs!


Before I knew it, we had run 8.5 miles and it was time to turn around! I couldn't believe what a difference it made to run with someone else, especially someone as interesting and experienced as Sam. It was a gorgeous run and I was really enjoying myself... until right around mile 15. Sam has ITBS and it really started to bother her towards the end of our run. My aches and pains were isolated in the arches of my feet, which was annoying but still MUCH better than what I had experienced in my other long runs. Then, we both started to feel nauseous which Sam said was a symptom of dehydration. At mile 16.3 (estimation), we saw an oasis in the desert...

We crawled in and said "we don't have any money, but if you give us some lemonade we'll love you forever and come back from lunch!" and they said "Alright, ya'll!" 

We sipped our half lemonade/half water beverages and they were sooo incredibly refreshing! I felt much better and extremely grateful to the kind folks at East Shore Cafe. Thanks to them, Sam and I were able to safely make it back to the library where our cars were parked. We had to walk a little because our legs had stiffened up from our break at the Cafe, but we survived and I'm still counting it as 17 miles completed!

Today, I'm feeling a little tightness in my calves but other than that, I'm just fine. Might do a spin class with Hans this afternoon to loosen everything up. Might also invest in a heart rate monitor ;)

the longest run of my life, closely followed by the longest run of my life

So 14 miles happened on Friday. I got out of work a bit early, dashed home to throw together a playlist (highlights: David Gueta's "Titanium" (feat. Sia) and Jay-Z & Kanye "N****s in Paris"), and I hit the road, nervous for the adventure to come. It wasn't a mind game until about the 10th mile. My hips started aching, my knees felt like they were swelling up, and the arches of my feet were SOO stiff. It got worse and worse from there, but the silver lining is that I never felt like I was breathing hard. Which probably means I was running slower than shit, but HEY- it's something!

Side note- when "Paradise"- Coldplay started playing ~3/4 of the way through my run, I felt totally euphoric and like everything was going to be alright. It took my mind off the aches and pains and I felt really proud of myself for this 14-mile run (which was a real milestone for me) and for what I have yet to accomplish. 

Saturday and Sunday were a bust. I was in New Orleans eating and drinking all those calories back. Highlights- bread pudding pancakes at The Ruby Slipper Cafe in Mid City and braised lamb shank with grits at The Irish House. Incredible!! It's no wonder that I haven't lost any weight since I started this eating plan- I mean TRAINING PLAN. 

But anyway, today was the start of Week 8! With Christmas being right around the corner, I figured that I probably wasn't going to do much working out after Thursday or Friday sooooo I made an interesting (read- STUPID) change to my work out plan... and did my long run today. FIFTEEN MILES! OUCH! The first five miles were terrific. I felt loose and I was able to find a really comfortable rhythm but, of course, that nice feeling was not meant to last. Today's aches and pains were the same as Friday's but they set in a lot harder, although again I didn't feel like I was working hard, cardiovascularly. Does this mean that I need to replace some spin workouts/runs with weight training? Help! I don't want my legs to pop off in the middle of this marathon!