Marathon

My silver birthday

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The good news is that I didn’t spend the first few hours of this birthday in the ER. Instead Paul and I took the kids out for sushi. The restaurant had a nice, quiet atmosphere with live classical guitar music. I had a glass of Riesling and we all sampled each other’s sushi. Two out of three kids liked sushi. I once heard that two out of three ain’t bad. Ha ha. I bet right now you are thinking that I am a really sophisticated, classy, and perhaps elegant woman. If that is what you want to think then you better stop reading because Saturday night I was in the mosh pit. 

Saturday night? Well Saturday night I played the birthday card. The birthday card is something that I bring out the couple of weeks before or after my birthday, okay okay pretty much the whole month of July. I think that birthdays became such a big deal for me because as a kid my mom went out of her way to make me feel like a princess on that one day of the year. My autistic brother went to grandma’s or aunt Grace’s for the day. He wasn’t the center of our universe or talked about for that one day of the year. Since my birthday fell in the middle of summer I could take friends swimming, have a sleepover up north, or go mini bike riding. 

Back to Saturday night, I talked Paul into seeing a metal band with me. Paul likes classical music. No, not classical rock. I am talking about Beethoven and Bach here. Pretty wild guys in their day, but not ours. We also dragged our pastor along. Makes confession a lot easier. No, seriously, he has an appreciation for the music. This was a pretty crazy crowd. Not a quiet crowd like the one we had at the Metallica tribute concert. Who would’ve guessed? We hung out in the back, moving out of the way when average sized bouncers dragged out surly drunk fighters. Three quarters of the way through the concert I wanted to get in where the action was. Even though the little voice in my head told me to stay away because I couldn’t risk getting hurt before the marathon next month. I imagined someone crushing my foot as I inched my way into the third row, the music beating into my chest and my hair feeling the static of the vibration. The adrenaline rush, the anxiety of passing out, feeling surrounded by people yet all alone, enjoying the music. The guy two over started punching someone which edged me over into the mosh pit. The guys there moved this weak, fragile, old (strong , marathon trained, young) lady out of the way. But that happened Saturday night when I was still 40. 

Another year of life with lots of things checked off my bucket list this year and  just as many added. Another birthday under my belt!

Marathon training, week 7

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I didn’t feel like running 18 miles today, but I did it. I don’t feel like writing a blog today, but I am doing it. I had a good 3 hours to contemplate why I feel such a lack of motivation. Everyday is not a picnic and fireworks, although this time of year it probably should be. I think some of it has to do with my parents selling my grandma’s house at the end of this month. I am going to help clean out her house tonight. Even though grandma has been gone for over six years now, this seems like the final goodbye to my childhood comforter. Coincidentally, I just found out today that my longtime running partner and one of my best friends will be moving out of state the end of this month as well. 

I did decide over the past couple of days that after running the marathon I want to stay half marathon conditioned. I will probably throw in a couple of 18 mile runs in there to keep my foot in the marathon door. There are not a lot of opportunities in my climate to run marathons in the winter months. 

Glory days

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Earlier this week I took my middle child out with some friends for his 15th birthday. As I was paying for them to get in, the woman behind the counter asked if any of the boys were over 18. Over 18?!?  I know some of the boys are sprouting mustaches, but still! Honestly, that made me feel a little old. A few minutes later the song Glory Days came on the radio while I was watching the boys do flips off the high dive. This ignited a thought in the blogging lobe of my brain. These are my glory days right now. Hey, who said that middle age can’t be the new adolescence? 

When I was in middle school, I tried out for cheerleading. I was the only girl that didn’t make it. The high school choir director was the middle school cheerleading coach. For some reason, she never liked me. Tryouts were on an evening that I was sick, no exceptions. So I had to come in to tryouts with a fever. Right now I could save face and blame the failure on the fever, but I sucked. Then I was homeschooled between 8th and 10th grade. When I came back to high school as a junior, I was far behind in sports. But sports was never my passion at the time, music was. 

What I really wanted to do was join jazz choir. I didn’t even audition. Despite having a three octave range, I lacked confidence. The choir director cut my solo for solo and ensemble saying it wasn’t good enough. But maybe she wasn’t a good enough teacher to make this song bird sing. While I was homeschooled, I wrote my own music and sang it on the piano. I could hear a song and be able to pound it out on the piano and sing it as well. My dad yelled at me though, saying I was making a horrible racket. I wanted to join the choir in college, but feared I wasn’t good enough and never tried out. At my last high school reunion after rocking the karaoke machine a spouse of a classmate said I must have been a star in choir. I am so glad that my oldest daughter is a three octave choir star. I don’t want to live it through her, I want to still be able to live it myself. 

In college, I commuted to school while living at home about half of my college years. Mom still needed my help raising my brothers. I also became a caregiver for two other disabled people. No new sense of freedom or keg parties for me. Now my children are almost raised and I have a new sense of freedom that I never had before. I am going to make up for the lost time. I love running and decided that I am going to run a marathon. Things are going great, they really are. I figure that I have about a ten year span to finally have my glory days. I am a few days from my 41st birthday. I am not sure I can keep up this marathon pace forever. I am at a major crossroad here. Should I keep myself in marathon condition after the marathon next month or cut back to a half marathon pace? Will my body burn out faster at an extreme level or will I be able to have a longer “run” overall if I cut back the stress on my body? Something to think about on my run today. After today I will have a total of 33 miles in for the week and I feel better than I ever felt in my whole life. 

The morning after the 24 mile run

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Good news, I’m still alive and can walk after yesterday’s first 24 mile run. My toenails are all intact. How do I feel? Tired! My body’s alert system is going off. Sirens blaring, something is wrong. Beep, beep, beep. It took me three hours to fall asleep last night equaling about four hours of sleep. I have been struggling with insomnia for over a week now. I was a little nervous that I wouldn’t be able to walk today. I am throwing my son a birthday party sleepover tonight and taking them to the beach this afternoon. I want to swim and play in the water with the kids. My son is 15 though and would probably be happier if I just dropped them off. Not going to happen!

I also haven’t had much of an appetite. Is this normal?? I burned off around 3000 calories, ate about 500 calories yesterday which puts me about 4000 calories in the hole. I can feel the definition of my rib cage, my bones poking me at night. I weighed in at 123 lbs this morning. I am 5’7″. I really don’t want to dip below 120 lbs. With the 4th of July coming up this weekend maybe I am worrying for nothing. I will probably pig out just like everyone else. 

Have a good day! See you tomorrow. 

Marathon training, week 6

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I am breaking one of my rules here. I am blogging after having a beer. Sometimes after I have a beer or two I tend to share all of my secrets. But I guess I really don’t have to worry about that because you know more than most of my best friends already. Giggle. To tell you the truth, I am celebrating! I ran my first 24 mile run today. Woo hoo! I am not going to lie to you and say it was easy. It was a really hot day, so I ended up breaking down and walking at mile 8. I felt like I was going to puke or pass out. A couple of weeks back after I ran the 10k, I saw a man pass out while running the race. He didn’t even catch himself. He landed right on his face .07 miles from the finish line. They wouldn’t even drag the poor guy across the finish line. I had images of the man passing out in my mind at mile 8. Plus at mile 6, it was so hot that I took my honk if you’re going to hit me shirt off. Here I am passed out on the side of the road and I won’t even getting a honk before they hit me. Geez. 

I almost talked myself out of running 24 miles. I wasn’t sure I could do it. I spent about four and a half hours staining my deck yesterday. I woke up with sore legs (what?) and a sore back. What am I thinking? It is hot out. Am I crazy? I admit I am a little crazy, but crazy is better than boring in my book (blog). It took me about five hours. I walked about three miles of it, but finished strong. I think it helped to take a twenty minute break in the A/C after the first twelve miles. I have a three mile speed training and short six mile run planned for the rest of the week. When did six miles become short?!? I am not sure that I will want to do another marathon. I hate speed training, but probably like the half marathon distance the best. I am just happy that I was able to run 24 miles today even though my brain did not want to cooperate.  

Marathon training, week 5

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I am tired already. I come up with a lot of my blog ideas while running and apparently develop my ideas best between 3:30 AM and 6:00 AM. Yesterday I woke up at 3:30 AM, laid in bed until 4:00 AM, got up, wrote my blog, tried to go back to sleep without success, and decided at 5:30 AM to go for my 18 mile run before the storms moved in. It was humid in the morning, the last few miles I think I was getting a little dehydrated. Every muscle in my body hurt, even my feet cramped up and a toenail was bleeding. 

I saw a deer on my run, we eyed each other up a little but decided we would not be running partners or adversaries. On the last mile, another runner was coming towards me along with a truck with a trailer on the back. To make things more suspenseful, there was a black cat in the middle of the road. The cat ran in front of the truck escaping by a couple of inches, the runners were safe as well. 

Today is my day off. I took my daughter in this morning to get her wisdom teeth out which has been rather uneventful. I remember getting mine out when I turned 21 after being in a lot of dental pain. All is remember is crying hysterically and getting bloody drool all over my roommates car. On the last day of recovery, I met my husband on his birthday. It has been almost 20 years since I got my wisdom teeth removed. How ironic that after having my wisdom removed, I made one of the smartest decisions in my life. 

Two more days of training this week, then my first 24 mile run next week. Yikes!