Half Marathon Day!

Well, it certainly wasn’t pretty, but it’s over! And I finished!

Me, Kellie, and Esther post-race

I’m not going to lie – it’s been a rough afternoon. I’m pretty bummed about my final time. I ended up alternating walking and running for much of the latter half of the race, which definitely was not my original plan. And as many of you know, when I set goals for myself and fail to achieve them I am not exactly the most pleasant person. My less than stellar performance was particularly upsetting for a couple of reasons:

- This was my first race post-surgery, and I was expecting it to be my best. I no longer have an excuse for poor performance. My heart rate stays in check (and actually did the entire race!), so in my mind there is no reason I shouldn’t have kicked the race’s @$$.

- I have been diligently training for months, and performed better in training runs than I did today. My 10 mile run was a couple weeks back and I felt amazing during and after, and managed to run the entire thing at my goal pace.

- I am supposed to run a marathon in November. How can I run the marathon if I can’t even finish a half marathon?

But in the spirit of trying new things (like this blog!), maybe it’s worth trying to find the positive in this situation. I did finish a half marathon today, which is not something everyone can say! And I didn’t cross the finish line last (which I actually was concerned about, though it was probably unfounded)!

I’m now back in New York, where I'll be for the summer, and am thinking the change of scenery and new running routes will be a welcome diversion. I'm going to treat myself to a few days off from running- give my body, and my mind, a much needed break. 

And I’ll go from there. I’ve got a marathon training schedule set and ready to go. So I’ll stick to it, and hope that today’s race was just a bump along the way to the full marathon.

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12 miler?

Today was my last long run before next week’s half marathon. To say it was hard is probably the understatement of the week, maybe even the month. It was my slowest run yet, and I even had to walk part of it. I’m pretty bummed about it, but hey I covered 12 miles, and 12 miles is 12 miles, and that’s a lot! There were a couple factors working against me, but hopefully I can get them (or at least some of them) ironed out in the next week.

For starters, I seem to have inherited my mother’s tendencies towards sweating. It’s like some sort of “Pavlovian” response. I put on my gym clothes, I step outside, and already I’m dripping in anticipation of the exertion that is about to come.  I’m pretty sure that by the 3^rd mile today I had already sweat through my shirt (thank goodness for Lululemon- if I were wearing a cotton shirt it would weigh an extra 20 lbs and I certainly don’t need to add anything to slow me down!).

We left early this morning – met at 8:15 to begin the 2+ hour ordeal, in hopes of avoiding the heat. No such luck. It’s a gorgeous, sunny day, but sadly gorgeous, sunny days do not make the best running days. I much prefer cloudy and cool, heck even a light mist is nice. Next week’s race starts at 7am and as of now the forecasted high is 71 so hopefully we’ll get a little reprieve (though I realize trusting the weather report is perhaps not one of my smartest moves).

Maybe the biggest lesson I learned today is the importance of hydration and fueling. Given the early start time I rolled out of bed precisely 25 minutes before we were scheduled to leave- enough time to put in contacts, brush my teeth, shove some banana in my mouth, and wash it down with a swig of water. Turns out that while my banana + water routine works for my weekday runs, which are between 3 and 5 miles, it just doesn’t cut it for a 12 miler. I felt pretty burnt out early on, and had no energy to keep pushing forward. My legs felt like they weighed 2 tons each. Fortunately I had some beans on me and shortly after eating them, and drinking some Gatorade, I felt like I had a lot more energy. I was even able to push through and run the last mile. I’ll consider today a lesson learned – wake up early, eat something of substance, and drink some extra water (especially important given the sweating tendencies referenced above). I can’t say I’m excited for a 5:30am pre-race wake up, but if it means finishing the race without walking then I’ll take it!

Despite all the challenges, I made it back home and upon returning to my apartment made a beeline for the refrigerator, from which I promptly removed any sort of cold beverage I could find – water, Gatorade, and chocolate milk (apparently the protein + sugar combination is well suited to help runners recover from long runs)! I will now begin the arduous task of replacing the gallons (yes, gallons) of liquid (and salt) that escaped from me this morning.

I’m keeping my fingers crossed that with proper hydration, fueling, and race day adrenaline I’ll be in good shape for next week. (I also have an outlet shopping trip planned on Thursday, and there’s nothing like some retail therapy to help motivate me for Sunday!).

Welcome to Yog On!

Never in a million years did I think I would ever write a blog. Why would I want to spend my free time writing about my random exchange at the dry cleaner, or that annoying person on the T? And who would even want to read such a thing much less? But perhaps my initial thoughts were wrong. Maybe those people who say “never say never” are actually on to something.

Finding a fan base seems to be the easier of the issues to tackle. If all else fails, I know at least my Mom will read the blog, and will print it out and give a copy to my Dad to read while he sits on the couch watching Seinfeld reruns (love you guys!). And while I don’t have any intention of writing about my latest experience at the Pearl Street laundry, I do intend to document my marathon training. Running a marathon is something I have dreamed of doing for as long as I can remember (well maybe not exactly, but more on that later) so it seems like keeping a record of it is a great idea, especially since I have no intention of ever running 26.2 miles again.

This marks my first official blog post, and over the next 6 months I am planning to keep you all up to date on the trials and tribulations of gearing up for my first marathon. I am officially registered for the ING NYC marathon on November 4, 2012. Since I am asking for support from so many of my family members and friends it seems only appropriate to somewhere prove to everyone that I actually am doing this.

As a child I very much preferred reading a book to any sort of physical activity (as anyone who knows me will attest to). Sometime around middle school I decided running was the “in thing” and I wanted to be part of it. I remember being very excited that one day I was able to “run” a mile in 13 minutes.

Once I got to college and my consumption of jungle juice skyrocketed (jungle juice is also known by a variety of names, but in its most basic form is grain alcohol mixed with kool aid and served in a trash can at frat parties, and yes, it is every bit as disgusting as it sounds), I decided perhaps running would be a wise decision. Turns out jungle juice is not exactly ripe with nutritional content. So I registered for my first race – the Blue Cross Broad Street Run, a 10 mile course through Philadelphia – and attempted to ward off the effects of the jungle juice.

Over the years since I’ve run an assortment of races – another go at the Broad Street Run, a half marathon in Boston, a half marathon in Minneapolis, an odd 10k, and maybe a 5k or two. While I enjoyed participating in these races, every race I participated in I deemed my last. For at any time during the race my heart rate could instantaneously spike to 235 – 250 beats per minute, making it challenging to breathe, let alone run. I would get dizzy and feel generally awful. And so while I looked longingly to my marathon running friends, I knew this was just a pipe dream for me. I didn’t want to spend months of my life training, and devote hours to running, only to be disappointed by the results, or worse, unable to finish the race.

I had lived with this problem my whole life and had visited the cardiologist on and off for years, but they could never figure out what was wrong with me so I just carried on. It wasn’t until I got to MIT that everything changed. Every single person that I know hates MIT medical with a passion, but I am eternally grateful to them. After just a single visit they confirmed what I perhaps knew all these years – I am not normal! One look at my EKG and the doctor knew that I had Wolff –Parkinson-White with symptomatic supraventricular tachycardia (SVT). Or in people terms, I had an extra electrical pathway in my heart, which sometimes caused my heart to beat too fast, hence the crazy episodes I had while running.

Long story short, I had surgery in January to fix my heart (all done through veins in my legs so there are no visible scars, and the recovery was quick), and now my heartbeat doesn’t get trapped in the never ending loop that caused my 235+ heart rate. By the time I went for a follow up visit in February the doctor deemed me “normal” and even told me he never wanted to see me again. It was the best news I could hope for!

So with a clean bill of health and no more threat of SVT, I set out to conquer one of my pipe dreams – running a marathon. To test out this “new” heart and ease into my training I signed up for a half-marathon in Boston, the same one I ran years ago, but had to walk because of my SVT. The race is next Sunday so stay tuned for an update!