My words for the week

Marathon Training Week 16 Recap

I am rarely at a loss for words, but for some reason I've been staring at this blank page for a half hour trying to figure out what to say about this week. This week was awesome running-wise. This week was amazing socially, and this week was surprisingly satisfying work-wise, so why do I have writers block? Maybe it's the rain, maybe it's because I have a Monday off work, or maybe it's just because...Monday. Oh well, instead of day to day, I'm going to recap this week with words that have been repeating themselves quite often lately.

LOST
I've written several times on this blog about my directional ineptitude. It's comical to some, but it actually really frustrates me sometimes. I don't like running in new places because I'm sure I'll get lost. On Tuesday I needed to run four miles. I also needed to meet up with my friend Jenn that day to get her the jersey I picked up for her at the Duathlon last week (she had the flu and couldn't compete). I devised what seemed like the perfect plan, I would take the train from my office to the Twins stadium, I'd meet her near her office and then run the 4 miles back to campus. Well, the "getting on the train to the stadium" part worked great, but from there my inability to navigate myself out of a paper bag kicked in and I took a mini-tour of downtown Minneapolis before finally figuring out I walked in the opposite direction from her office. I finally found her 15 minutes later, about 20 steps from where I got off the train in the first place. We walked back towards her office (in the right direction) and she pointed me toward the river, which if I was lucky, was going to connect me to the path that goes directly back to Dinkytown. It did, eventually, I only had to ask one person for directions! I finally got my bearings and had a nice speedy run, even if it was a little chilly. My apologies to Jenn if you didn't have time to eat lunch before having to go back to work! As for me, I will live to get lost another day, and at least I got a selfie with Rod Carew out of the deal:

RECOVERED
Wednesday I met with my PT for possibly the last time (at least for my current issues). When I first made an appointment with her for my knee and ankle pain over a month ago I was in a really bad place mentally. I had just come off a horrible long run where I pulled a hamstring and had persistant pain in my right knee and ankle. I was sure that my marathon training was over.  Thankfully Catherine has the patience of a saint and the understanding of a runner. She immediately concurred that I had been training way too hard, and told me my form, cadence and glute strength needed a lot of work, but that all was not lost. She gave me an easy to follow and easy to manage plan to get myself back from the brink and I'm happy to say that at my appointment this week she was confident that I am on the right track to be able to enjoy a lifetime of running (barring any stupidity on my part!) I skipped my 9 miler that day, mostly because I ran out of time, but also because I didn't feel like I needed it. I've come a long way from the rule-follower that was the old me!

INSPIRED
I don't know that this is the appropriate word to describe what I felt on Thursday, but since words are not coming very easily to me today, I'm gonna stick with it. Thursday would have been my Dad's 88th birthday. It's been just over three years since he passed, and I think about him often, especially now as I close in on running my first marathon. I think about how proud he was of all my accomplishments, but maybe more so of my athletic ones, and how I would love to be able to share this milestone with him. My mom, sister, best friend from college, Michelle, and I were planning to celebrate his life that evening, but first, a run. I wanted to meet up with the lunch group at Mill City running, but got a late start from my office. I ran there as fast as I could, but I just missed the group. The clerk in the store said "They just left, you can catch them", I just smiled and said "Okay, sure" as I ran out of the store, knowing full well I'm not a "catch up with the group" kind of runner. I did actually see them, stopped at a light a few blocks ahead of me, so I decided I would follow them and see what happened (you know this is a big step for me if you read the "Lost" paragraph above). They ran a couple more blocks through Nord East, and then turned on to the pathway at St. Anthony Main, an area I actually am sort-of familiar with. The weather was absolutely perfect and there were a TON of people out on the trails. I lost sight of the group shortly after that, but I didn't care. This was the first time in a long time that I was just content to run. I didn't have my ear buds in, so I had no idea of my pace or distance. I didn't have music to keep me company, but I was enjoying the sounds of birds and the wind in the trees, and hearing snippets of other people's conversations, trying to imagine what they were talking about. Normally not knowing how far or how fast I'm going makes me a little crazy, but today it was freeing, just running, not thinking about my plan, or the marathon, or catching up to anybody or running away from anything. It was perfect. After the run I got back to my office and got ready to meet up with some women from the Maple Grove MRTT group for dinner and then the Another Mother Runner party at Mill City Running. I discovered Another Mother Runner about a year ago when I had looked up "women's running books" at the library. The book "Run Like a Mother" was on the top of the list, so I figured I'd give it a try. It was eye-opening, inspiring, and so on the money, I couldn't put it down. I followed that by going out and buying "Train Like a Mother" and devoured that one as well. The authors, Sarah Bowen Shea and Dimity McDowall were just like me, women who weren't born to be runners but discovered that even though their lives are crazy-busy, they just HAVE to fit running in. They get it, that parenting, working, running, racing, it can all be a piece of the puzzle, even if you sometimes have to cram those pieces together! Dimity was going to be at Mill City tonight to meet the AMR "tribe" and sign copies of their new book, "Tales from Another Mother Runner". I couldn't wait to meet her and just be surrounded by the amazing energy that comes from being in a group of women runners. We met for dinner at Ginger Hop (go there right now and get the Yellow Curry, you can thank me later). This was my first time meeting many of the women from the Maple Grove MRTT and we made fast friends, the connection of parenting and training, and juggling it all is a strong bond. And even though I was so excited to get to the party, I admit that I could have lingered over dinner all night with these ladies. Alas, we did have to get to the store, so we settled our tabs and headed out. The place was already pretty packed when we got there. I connected with a couple of my Strava friends (women I follow on my running app) and even got to chat for a bit with Olympian Carrie Tollefson about Grandma's Marathon (she'll be filming her show there in June). The atmosphere was wonderful and by the time Dimity came out to sign books and take pictures, I felt I had already gotten a lifetime of inspiration from the other women in the room. As she started speaking to the group I realized the time, I still needed to meet up with my family for my Dad's celebration, so I stayed for a few minutes more and then quietly snuck out the back. It was an uplifting day, topped off by spending time honoring my Dad with my favorite women and a lot of laughs!

The Maple Grove MRTT contingent with Dimity, hard to miss her, she is one tall drink of water!

The "Tony T-Shirt" crew, celebrating my Dad wearing some of his favorite T-shirts!

COCKY
Friday I headed to the Y to swim while Kayley had practice. I had planned on just duplicating my workout from last week since I was a little mentally exhausted from the day before. But when I got there Coach Carole (Kayley's coach who also happens to be a good friend) introduced me to Dave, a guy she does Masters with who also happened to be in for a swim tonight. Dave convinced me to do a workout with him and we were joined by another Masters swimmer, Tom. Carole assured me that they were "my pace" even though I figured they'd have to really dog it for me to keep up with them. We started with a 300 warm up, then did 12 x 50 kick/swim, swim/kick. The first four were on 1:00, second four on :55, last four on :50. Then we did 4 sets of 100 pull, 50 swim 50 swim. The 100's were on 1:35 (FAST) and the 50's were on :50. Then we finished with 10 x 50, the first 5 were "five-breath" the second five were "four-breath". I made most of the five breath ones, but only made one four breath one...my lung capacity ain't what it used to be. Part way through this set Kayley stopped and looked over at us and started trash talking me to the guys. "My Mom is so fast, she's going to totally beat you!" I had to smile, she has a lot of guts talking me up to two pretty beefy guys. But, it definitely seemed as if they were losing a bit of steam so I put my head down and went for it. Now, I am guessing maybe they held back on those last few 50's but I did beat them....can't disappoint my kid you know! I finished up with a 100 cool down for 2300 total yards. It ended up being a lot of fun...I will never doubt Coach Carole again!


DETERMINED
Saturday I got up early once again to meet the MRTT group out at Elm Creek for my long run. I had 14 miles on the plan today and there was a group meeting at 6 who were willing to do 12 of them with me! I have started to get used to getting up at the crack of dawn for these runs, but I still don't know that I necessarily "like" it. Thankfully, Sara, Jen and Jennifer made it worth my while. We started out in the chilly dawn and fell into an easy pace, talking about our upcoming races (Sara and Jen are doing the half marathon at Grandma's and Jennifer is doing a half IRONMAN in July!) and our future goals. Sara said this was her summer to learn to be a "duathlete" and next year she wants to become a "triathlete" even though she is not a great swimmer. I told her about my friend Brandi who was deathly afraid of open water but overcame it to do her first triathlon last year and that I was confident she could do the same. Before we knew it, we were a loop down . We decided to wait at the parking area for the rest of the group who were coming at 7 and picked up Sherry for our second loop (the rest of the group were running at a faster pace, so we fell in behind them). We opted for the 7 mile loop this go around since Sara and Jen wanted to do 12 and Jennifer wanted to do 11 (Sherry just wanted to run :) I was glad to be running with women so confident in their sense of direction or I never would have attempted to go a different way. I continued to feel strong even though this loop seemed significantly more hilly to me. I fueled up at mile 8 and slowed down a bit. Sara and Jen pulled ahead a little and Sherry and Jennifer stayed back with me. We hit the 11 mile mark and Jennifer told us she was going to walk it in. Sherry and I made it back to the chalet and saw part of the other group was in the parking area. I said good bye to Sherry and kept going, determined to get that last 2.5 miles in before calling it a day. As I was just rounding out of the parking area, Sherry called "Linda, come back" I ran back and she called out, "They are going out for more, join them". I thought, she must be crazy, I'm 11.5 miles in, I'm not going to keep up with them! But Morgan, who is 17-weeks pregnant, assured me she wanted to run SLOW! So I headed back out with this little band of women, who started out at a 9:15 pace. Morgan and I quickly decided to slow down and fall back and finished our last 2 miles with lots of talk about babies and how Morgan is still planning to race Grandma's half marathon with her doctor's okay even though her husband thought she should skip it. I mean, between Morgan and her determination to run through her pregnancy, Jennifer's determination to run a half Ironman before she's even run a half marathon, and Sara's determination to become a triathlete some day, I just can't help but be inspired and humbled by these women. I got back in the car, not necessarily excited for the rest of the day. We had planned a lot of outdoor-sy things for the first day of the long weekend and rain seemed to be inevitable. But, I shook that feeling off quickly...there was no way this day was going to be anything but awesome after the amazing start it had!