Ragnar was a Norse god

A few years back I ran the Ragnar New England with NDH and several of our friends.  It was one of the most awesome running experiences ever, and I've been dying to do one ever since.  On Tuesday night, I was given an idea.  Someone made a post in a facebook group of mine, asking for an extra runner to fill in. I jumped at that shot, and told her I could do it.  And then I waited.  And waited for her to respond.  As I waited, the idea got bigger and bigger, and I really wanted to do this.  It seemed like such a random adventure - oh, right, I should mention the race was 3 days away! It seemed like the type of adventure I could really get on board with right now. So, I found the Ragnar DC facebook page, and located a different team in need of runners, and as of late last night I was their latest teammate!

As much as I loved New England Ragnar, it was a bit of a situation.  I was co-captain (NDH, we did do awesome), but it was stressful.  I was very concerned about logistics, and everyone being happy, healthy, safe (also, on time, in the right spot, following the rules).  Add to this, my own nerves about the actual running, some extensive sleep deprivation, and the fact that our team nearly lost a runner on the second to last leg of the race, and then entered Gillette Stadium dead fucking last. Let's just say, there were tears.

What I'm most excited for about this Ragnar is....none of that.  I'm not in charge.  There will not be exhaustion-exaggerated-personal-drama.  There will just be running, through what hopes to be some ridiculously beautiful scenery.  And hopefully a group of new friends when I'm done.  We're basically BFFs already, as all day they've been referring to me as SuperStar.  It's like they know me!

I'll be trying to live-blog/update as I go, so please check-in, it'll be nice to hear some friendly encouragement.

So here goes something.  Tomorrow, Ragnar number 2.  

Inspiration

I received an email from my old running group in Austin this morning with a link to this video called "My 120 pound journey". It was such a touching video. I emailed it to Jenni immediately.It was inspiring to me as a runner. Although I have never lost a pound from running, I still believe that running improves my life in so many ways. Now if only my damn knee didn't hurt, and I could go for a run.

Need encouragement

It is almost 10 pm in my world, and I have planned to to a seven mile run tomorrow morning. I am already making excuses. This does not bode well. Help!

Team Hard Coretex takes on the Metro Triathlon

Meet the team, VC is up first with the 1500m swim, then KW with the 40K bike, and then my turn with a 10K run. We are all of the consensus that our individual legs are the easiest - which I think means we are a great team!!  Follow along for a semi-live blog of the event.

12:20am - VC and I return to her house to realize that she has left her swim stuff at her office. She headed off to retrieve it while I went to bed.

5:25am - my alarm goes off, and results in only minor confusion. A flurry of getting ready, making breakfast and otherwise prepping after 5 hours of sleep. 

6:02am - and, we're off! We've heard from KW and she's off too!

6:27am -we've arrived, parked right next to KW, and head with the masses  to the start.

6:45am - we've been body marked. I'm not feeling confident in the organization of this event. Its smaller than the Austin one, and there seem to be less rules. I have concerns that there ARE as many rules but they haven't told us. 

7:17am - swim briefing. VC is ready to go!!

7:32am - VC is off!! Team Hard Coretex  is officially racing!! KW and I think VC is totally crazy and awesome. GO TEAM!!  KW and I are off for the bathroom and to prep for the biking...

7:44am - VC has finished her first lap, of two! 

8:01am - first transition over. KW is off on the bike, with only minor problems with the timing chip. Sadly, she wants it on her wrist, but they need it on her ankle!! VC finished in an amazing 29 minutes. We're off to an excellent start!

8:20am - I feel ill-prepared and nervous. I've made my mental list of things I need to do to get ready. First of which is figure out how to tape my leg, because I'm finally admitting to some shin pain that should be dealt with. Thank goodness for the kinesio tape I got in my San Antonio Half Marathon bag!!

8:56am - VC is changed, I've affixed my runner number, and used kinesio tape for the first time! We're now sitting on a grassy knoll watching the elite men who have already finished the biking. Two words - eye candy. Also, they are so fast. So. Fast.

9:08am - VC and I have made it back to transition, and I ask her if I have time to go to the bathroom. KW has given us a 9:30 early geusstimate of her arrival, and VC knows I'm prone to pre-race anxiety, so she rolls her eyes and says "plenty!"

9:19am - KW has entered transition and realizes we are not aware of it. She yells "TEAM HARD CORETEX!" and I instantly panic. I'm not wearing my belt, my head phones are tangled, I don't have the gps on on the phone, and I havent taken my pre-racing endurolytes. ACK! While I rushed off before fully congratulating her, this was HUGE! She was so fast, and so early, I think she even surprised herself. A great, great, great, first cycling race for KW!

**Format change** This bit must be done by mile, and not minute!

Mile 1 - I started off looking like a real tri-athlete, I was fumbling to put myself together while on the move. I was discombobulated and unprepared, and I felt like I was on the brink of colossal failure; did I even have everything I needed with me?! It really was what a real triathlete must feel like, not a relay triathlete, who has all morning to prepare for a single event. During this mile I saw the lead runner heading the other way, about to finish up. I believe it is important that I mention I was on the course BEFORE the lead runner finished. This is how amazing my teammates were.

Mile 2 - I'm feeling awful. I think team events are particularly hard on me, because too early I start being angry at myself for letting everyone down. I mean, I had 4 miles to go and I was already mad at my performance. I had finally gotten into a bit of a groove, but I was already feeling tired and over-worked. Does not bode well

Mile 2.5 - I check my watch, and do some quick mental math. Holy Moses! I'm not even to 25 minutes yet. No wonder this is feeling challenging. Redoing some calculations, I believe my first mile was sub 10-minute (and included at least one walk break), which means I was mo-oo-oving (at least in YJP terms!)

Mile 3 - I slowed down some, but have still crossed this at 31 minutes. Which makes me feel better for feeling tired, but makes me feel like I may have used too much too soon to make a good time for the end.

Mile 4 - This was for sure my best mile. Not my fastest, but the best feeling. I was ale to stop thinking about things and just run. I was running on my toes this whole mile, and felt great. Why is it that I need a THREE mile warm-up before I stop criticizing myself and start enjoying the run?! It's ridiculous.

Mile 6 - Yes, I'm not sue what happened to mile 5 either, but rest assured that there was running, walking, and cytomax! When I passed the mile 6 sign, point two miles to go, I was concerned that I was dragging it. By this point, I'd let the entire race pass me by, hadn't I?! I managed to eek out passing ONE woman. I'm guessing she had already passed me, so I really didn't make up any ground. I rounded a corner where some finishers were walking back my way. They stopped to cheer me along, and it was exactly what I needed. I ran it on in, greeted by the cheers of VC and KW on my way!

In the end, not my best 10K time, but still a run to be proud of. I grabbed a finishers medal, a bottle of water, a banana, some strawberries, a piece of pizza, and some weird electrolight drink with special vitamins in the cap, and sat on the grass to stretch. We stuck around in admiration of the badass people who won awards. There was a 17 year old boy who did the tri, also the winners had sub-hour bike times and runs of like...35 minutes. amazing.

11:47 am - Team Hard CoreTex was also amazing, winning first place in the women's relay division. This is all credited to VC and KW's crazy badass-ness, keeping giving us a substantial lead to start off with. Even though I let most of the race pass me by, I guess I drew the line at the relay members, as they mostly stayed behind me.

12:25pm - We've returned to the cars, with our medals, wine, and gear only to find out that in the excitment of the morning, VC has left the lights on. But, this is no roadblock for Team Hard CoreTex - the three of us are quickly able to jump start the car and head on home!

1:46pm - We have returned to VC's house, Winner's Wine in the fridge, and are basically useless. I will now go stare at the wall for a bit, and then shower.

a delightful day with an awesome team!! Yippee!!
Song that rocked my run: Keep On Keepin' On by Jack Ingram

i am the winner

Yesterday morning I got up at 5:15 am and got ready for boot camp, day2. I was tired. I had come home and gone to bed at about 1am, which was FAR too late for me, but with all my friends deciding to up and move out of the city, there is a lot of hanging out to be done. But, I was up and getting dressed - and off to meet the group at Auditorium Shores.

I want to back up a second and just recap my "running" for the internet. I'm not "a runner", or at least I don't feel like one. I'm not fast. I have to work hard to pull out an 11 minute mile. There I said it. I walk every 5 or 6 minutes. EVERY five or six minutes. And I long for those walk breaks. And sometimes I walk sooner (and longer). So, the image of "runners" in little shorts just cruising around all over creation - that's not me. I love to run, but that doesn't make me "good". I have, somehow, built up some distance endurance. So I'm no longer scared that I can't make the distance of a half marathon. And, I've overcome the soreness that lasted for TWO DAYS after my first half marathon. I can now return to normal the next day, or later that night. So, I'm definitely not the beginner I was. But when I hear people say things to me like, "it'll be easy for you, you're a runner" - I feel like I've tricked everyone. It's not easy for me.

Boot camp starts with a warm-up run. We were meeting at the South First Street water coolers, and our warm-up run was to head west on the trail to riverside, east on riverside back to the entrance to the First Street parking lot, and back to the coolers. A short little almost a mile loop. There are 9 of us in that group, and at least 3 of us all took off right at the same time, the other 6 not far behind at all. In the first minute of this run, I was ahead of the pack. I wasn't busting out a fast pace, although I have a horrible time pacing myself. As the run went on, instead of people catching up to me and passing me, my distance in front grew. When I returned to the water coolers the coach said to me, with a smile, "you're the winner" - and then she went back to discussing with the other coach some plans for the day.

It was when she said that that I realized the sad truth. I'd never won. I'd never even been first to finish a run, in any group, with anyone. Heck, all through Ragnar I'm not even sure I ever PASSED anyone - and we all know I was passed at least 10 times in one leg. So, as insignificant as it seems, finishing first out of a group of 9 during a 1-mile warm up run...

I was the winner.

Running Rewind

I did it! I got up this morning at 6:45, and I headed down to Town Lake, and I set out on a 5 mile run. When I got to Town Lake, I parked at TxDot - homebase for many weekend runners. The loop heading west (from Congress to Mopac) is 5 miles. And the entire loop is 10 miles (from Mopac to the Longhorn Dam), so I was faced with the first decision of the morning. West, or East? West is the more familiar run. East is prettier. West has many more runners/bikers/dogs. East is quieter. So, East I went.

I consistently missed my mark for the first 24 minutes, running 5.5/1.5's instead of the planned 6/1's. It was around this time that I started reflecting on what running has become for me. It's a lot of numbers. Tracking miles, and minutes, and minutes per miles, and walk breaks. It's a constant battle of trying to one-up myself. And while there is nothing wrong with wanting to get better, I think I've lost sight of the big picture. I never started this to become some elite runner. I'm never going to win any prize for being a running phenom. The fact that I run should be the point. I think my closest friends and family are still waiting for this running phase to end. And I'm continually shocked that there are people who only know me as a "runner".

So, I let go of the watch. I stopped tracking minutes and miles. I started thinking about all the positive things. I'm healthy and I live in a place that is safe and beautiful and full of a community of people who are passionate about running. I was up early, and out running. And, in a short-ish amount of time (2 years) I've had some wonderful running accomplishments - 3 half marathons, 4 10Ks, one of them part of a team triathlon, a 12-person 200-mile relay, and some of the greatest running buddies I've found (here's looking at you LDH, R'OD, Boston T.Pod).

I gave myself a break for the rest of the run - I walked when I was tired. I stopped for water when I was hot. I ran slower when I needed to. And while I was fighting with two annoying problems (poison ivy on my neck that made me want to DIE, and the headphone issue that really needs solving), the rest of my run was delightful.

And when I finished, I remembered something that my Yoga instructor always says, "Remember, that where you are is exactly where you are supposed to be". It was not the fastest of runs, but why did it need to be? I haven't run in a while, I don't have a race coming up, I haven't been eating as a runner, I haven't been hydrating. It was just the attitude adjustment I needed.

In the end, turned out to be 6 miles! Gold star for 6 miles!

Terry Fox Run

For me, a key component in my motivational strategy involves training for something. I have been looking for runs in and around the Sackville area, and there are quite a few. In fact I was having a hard time making a decision. That was until this morning when I saw the site for the Confederation Bridge Terry Fox Run. Terry Fox is a Canadian hero who attempted to run across Canada after losing a leg to cancer. He called his journey the Marathon of Hope. He also just happens to be from Vancouver and just happens to have attended my alma mater, Simon Fraser University.

Every year in mid-September, there are Terry Fox runs held all across Canada to raise money for cancer research. I spent my childhood participating in these runs at school, but have lapsed in participation since high school. This year marks the 30th anniversary of the Terry Fox run, and I am going to renew my participation by running 12.9 km across the Confederation Bridge from New Brunswick to P.E.I. to raise money for cancer research. Both of my paternal grandparents were taken by cancer, so this is a cause that is near and dear to me.

You can sponsor me here http://my.e2rm.com/personalPage.aspx?registrationID=910099

Once upon a time in Texas.

Once upon a time in Texas there were two girls, let's call them Jenni and LDH. These two girls ran together often and encouraged each other to achieve running goals that they thought were not possible. It was magical and wonderful. Then one of those girls had the audacity to graduate and get a job a million miles away. And now neither of them has a full time running buddy to be accountable to at 6:30 am when staying in bed seems like a much better option than running. That is where this blog comes in. Although Jenni and LDH cannot pound the pavement or the trail together anymore, they can run together in spirit. And then they can write about it on blog. And they can encourage each other to keep running because running saves lives. Well, at least it saves us from losing our minds in the insanity that is academia.