Changes and celebrations

To celebrate my birthday last year, I ran a marathon. I didn't do as much this year but I was still active enough to not regret the cake I ate for breakfast. My day started way too early with a screaming 5:00 am alarm. I dragged my sleepy self to the gym and had a great workout with my trainer. Yes, she made it very special. Ow.

I had to work today (... like most days) but the day went quickly. After work Jeanette and I went for a walk around the Lafayette Reservoir. That sounds so -- so -- gentle, doesn't it? That just means you don't know the LR. There is an asphalt trail that surrounds the reservoir, 2.7 miles of uphills and downhills. It's very pretty. But we didn't just walk the asphalt, oh heck no. We took a little detour up a big freakin' hill, then up another hill, along a trail, and then down a hill. These were probably fire trails, muddy and cracked and lumpy and rutted. Our detour had our lungs puffing and our hearts pounding (thanks, pneumonia reminders!) and it felt like we had gone at least a few miles.

Nuh uh. It was a big old 1.3 mile trail detour, a whole .9 miles more than we would have gone if we had stayed on the asphalt. But what a detour! This is definitely the time of year to struggle up there. Glorious spring all around us. 360 degree views of rolling hills with a little suburbia peeking through. Amazing that this is less than 10 minutes from our office. We saw a hawk circling in the sky, a deer hiding in the brush, a turkey waddling through the grasses.

Our goal is to walk the entire Rim Trail, about 4-5 miles of trail up near the sky. With the days getting longer we'll still be able to do that after work before it gets dark and they have to send the tracking dogs after us. I'd tell you how slowly we were going but I don't want you all laughing so hard that you fall over.

Now THAT'S the way to celebrate a birthday!

As to the changes: good bye Utah Valley Marathon, hello Coeur d'Alene Marathon! After a very tough 15 mile run on Saturday I realized there was no way I'd be able to run a marathon, at altitude, with a 6 hour cut-off. That would give me no lee-way if my lungs gave out, or if I had a bad day. CdA is a much flatter marathon, at only 2500 elevation. Still higher than our sea level, but breathable. They offer an early start for walkers so I'll start then. While I hope to break 6 hours, I won't be frantic if I can't do it.

The biggest difference is I'll miss one of my scheduled/planned 20 mile runs, only getting in one 18 miler and one 20 miler. I don't really need that extra one, it's just something that I'd done for piece of mind, a mental thing. It also means I'll miss the first team training, but I've done that before too. There's an immense sense of relief with this change so I know it's a good decision. And hey, there's always the rest of the summer if I need to run another marathon!

How do you celebrate birthdays? Cake and champagne? An endurance run? Three weeks of party/run/party/run? Call in sick and cover your head with a blanket? Ignore the whole thing and beat up anyone who mentions it?

Update on training and fitness

Yeah, I was going to write about each training session. Yup, I was going to update the blog with my fitness stats. Whoops, haven't done either for a while, leading some to think that possibly I've fallen off that fitness wagon. Again.

I didn't! I'm right there on the wagon, churning along. I continue my twice weekly sessions with the trainer, continue my long runs on Saturday (or Sunday if it's a race weekend) and run or run/walk or walk 2 additional days. Some days those additional run/walks are the afternoon of the day I've trained, sometimes it's the between mornings.

My current training is, all things considered (including my improved strength, flexibility and balance), easier than the earlier sessions. Don't tell Katie I said that. I think because my miles have been so long and my races so frequent, we've been careful to not injure me. My "easy" routine is a set of wide leg squats while holding a 10 pound ball, superset with a combo mountain climber/side plank move that Katie made up the night before she sprung it on me. I was shocked I could actually do it, me, the woman who couldn't even do a regular plank when she started. Three sets of those, then into v-ups superset with this thing where I'm on my back, my feet are on a big ball and I roll it up toward me while my hips are elevated (was that clear?). I can feel those from my ankles up through my glutes. Three sets of those, then into side twists with the 10 pound ball (I do love those, I have waist definition for the first time ever), and one-leg squats (which are really one-leg sit-downs because otherwise it hurts my knee). If I speed through all of those I'm rewarded with push-ups. I'm now up to 25 girly push-ups on the floor (plus many more on the bar). If you remember, when I started I could do a total of zero girly push-ups on the floor. I'm aiming first for 30 girly floor push-ups, then I'll start trying to do real ones.

My food consumption continues to be healthy, for the most part, and I'm still logging every single bite I swallow on Lose It!, a great program. I'm less strict about my food quality or nutrition balance after long runs or during long run weekends but I've mostly managed to stay within my calories. Right now, I aim for 1500 daily calories with a 60 carb/20 protein/20 fat balance. If I've exercised I'll up that depending on how much I've burned (and mostly I aim to add protein calories), but I try to not eat every single exercise calorie. That means if I'm starving, I'm more likely to get my ass in gear so that I can eat more.

It's working since I've lost 15 pounds. My weight is now just a couple of pounds from the lowest I've been able to be since I stopped smoking in 1992. I know I can lose more since I'm highly motivated (and just a little obsessed with logging my food intake and activity), I just don't know if I'll be able to keep that weight off. I look in a mirror now and even though my pants are literally falling off, I feel fatter than I've ever been. I truly feel like I have more fat and flub and lumps and jiggle than I had before I started this, even though I have more energy, move better, feel healthier and run faster than I have in a long time. It confuses the hell out of my rational brain.

I'm not quite ready to throw out the fat clothes yet. Hopefully by spring I'll be ready for a new wardrobe, and hopefully I'll feel thin enough (or at least not too fat) to shop for it!

Early race report (without any detail)

I had a great San Francisco Marathon (Second) Half Marathon today. While I pushed (... it was a race, after all), except for the finish line sprint I never felt like I was killing myself. The result was my fastest half marathon since March 2006. I was 6 minutes faster than my best case scenario.

I guess all this "training" stuff really does work!