The MS Runner

Two weeks from today is my next attempt at a marathon.  The Virginia Beach Shamrock Marathon.  The last one (San Antonio) didn’t go too well mainly because I strained my abductor muscle a few weeks before, and they lied about having food at the start.  The one before that (Phoenix) didn’t go well because of my torn meniscus.  I still ran the full, but because I had missed a lot of training, I knew I would be hurting to do the whole thing.  But I knew that going in so I wasn’t the slightest bit disappointed.  This time, I am not convinced that I am ready, but really it’s all in my head.  I should be ready, but part of me isn’t sure.  It’s a lack of confidence in myself that I need to get over.  How can I do it?  Is there a formula, or a pill that I can take that will give me a mind boost?  I know that there are actually running psychologists that specialize in this type of thing.  Maybe it’s worth it to talk to one of them?  Has anybody out there done that?  I talk to other runners that I run with, and the successful ones all say that the first time that you get those negative thoughts out of your head, you will be fine after that.  And the only way that they did it was to battle within themselves when those thoughts would start to creep in.  They say that because you’ve done the training, you should be able to this.  Sure your legs are going to hurt.  They are going to hurt whether you keep running or whether you stop, so might as well keep running.

The racing season is upon us.  By that I mean on any given weekend, there is probably a race somewhere nearby that you can do.  A few years ago when I started running, the prices of these races didn’t seem too bad.  Now it seems like the prices have almost doubled in 5 years!  I really want to run competitively more, but who can afford it?  What has happened here?  Every race has a zillion sponsors it seems, so where’s all the money going?  There are a lot of races that are linked to some charity, but do we really know that that money is going to that charity?  And what is the percentage?  Speaking of which, there was this big push to give money to help the relief efforts in Haiti.  All you had to do was text to some number and your money was being whisked away to those Haitians in need.  But if you read the fine print, it says “or other relief efforts”.  What does that mean?  But I digress.  All I’m saying is, I want to race more without the high cost.  The Bolder Boulder 10K is $44.  Wow!  The Runnin’ of The Green 7K in Denver is $40 if you don’t sign up early.

Speaking of charities, if anyone out there can donate some money to a worthwhile charity, consider the one that is near and dear to my heart.  It raises awareness for the fight and the cure for Multiple Sclerosis. Go to this link and see what I mean.

It’s that time of year again.  No, not college football.  It’s “New Years Resolutions” time and I’m re-running a post that I did last New Years (mostly because I’m lazy).

To me, this is the strangest time of the year where most people make resolutions that quite simply, astound me.  Why is it that you have to wait for a particular day to change or do something?  “I resolve to be a better person”, is one of my favorites.  Aren’t you doing that (or trying to do that) every day?  No, I guess most people want to be shit heads until January 1st, and then they will become Mary Poppins.  “I resolve to lose weight”.   Weight Watchers love this time of year when people flock (or is it waddle) to their meetings in January, pay their money, and then are gone before March.  Most of these people are back to eating donuts instead of fruit, or fast food instead of preparing a nice healthy meal.  Then there’s all the people that join the gym.  They tie up all the treadmills for a couple of months, then they’re gone again.  “I resolve to get a new job”.  Yeah, good luck with that one in this economy, and let me tell you, the grass isn’t always greener on the other side.  “I resolve to watch less t.v.”  And do what, read?  You probably haven’t read a book in years other than that Readers Digest at the doctors office.  There are a ton of other resolutions that really crack me up, but the point I’m getting at is MOST people won’t change, or simply can’t change.  If you’re a crank ass, you’ll always be a crank ass.  If you’re a fat ass, you’ll always be a fat ass, and so on.  I’m not saying that this is always the case, but it’s a fact in most of them.  People can change, but it’s very hard work and they give up.  The ones that do stick it out, are the lucky ones.  My resolution every year is always the same.  “I resolve never to make any resolutions”.  Every bad habit or every change in my life has occurred when I’m prepared to make that change.  Most people aren’t prepared mentally to make a change on January 1st, and they fold under pressure.  Make a plan and stick to it and don’t commit to the pressure of a drop dead date to do it.  When you’re ready to change, you’ll know it.  Good luck, we’re all counting on you.

The San Antonio Marathon was this past weekend, and although I knew it was going to be a tough one because of the time I missed due to injury, I was hoping that I could still get through it.  It started out by getting to the shuttle bus area at around 5:45.  When Jason and I got there, we both were amazed at how many people were here.  But it was really worse than we thought!  The line wound around to the front of the building, then you came back towards the buses, then you turned and went away from the buses again, and then finally coming back to them.  It was like one of those lines at an amusement park or the security line at the airport.  I’m guessing that at that time there was around 6 or 7 thousand people there trying to get on the bus.  And more kept coming!

We finally got on a bus and headed out.  The ride was maybe 15 minutes long and then they dropped us off.  I’m looking around for the start, but I don’t see anything.  Mostly I see people going to the gas station to go to the bathroom.  There were luckily some other people that were walking along so we followed them.  And we walked, and we walked.  Where the hell is the start??!!  After maybe a half a mile, we see the start, and by this time it’s 7:15.  It was an hour and half from when we got to the shuttle area to the start.  So now I’m looking around for the food because they advertised that there would be bagels and banana’s at the start, and I hadn’t eaten anything that morning.  We get to the area where the tents are set up, and all we see is a table with raisins and apples.  That’s it?  We look around some more.  Nothing.  I’m doomed.  There’s no way I’m going to run a marathon with only raisins in my stomach.  We get in line for the bathrooms, and luckily that didn’t take very long and we make our way to our corral area. Where the port-a-lets are was at corral 30, and we had to make it to corral 7.  We are walking up there when the National Anthem starts and we end up at corral 9.

Once the race starts, I feel better about everything, and I feel good.  Hmmm….. maybe I can do a full marathon.  It’s funny how you think that after only running a half mile.  My plan was to run to the water stations and then walk for a minute.  So Jason and I are starting off together and his knee is doing good.  We do 9:45 the first mile (a little too fast, but not bad) and then we hit the water station near mile 2.  I get water and start walking, and Jason takes off.  I walk for a minute and then start running again.  After awhile I see Jason and I’m catching up to him.  This is not good.  I was doing around a 9:15 pace and I was catching up to him.  I catch him and ask how he’s doing and he says he doing all right, so we run together until the next water station where I get water and walk for a minute.  Jason keeps going so once I start running again , he is out of sight.

One thing that I forgot to mention, it’s 67 degrees at the start and 98% humidity.  Not ideal conditions to run in.  After 3 miles, I’m already wearing out.  Between the heat, humidity, and no food, this was not not pretty.  But I keep going on and the fact that there were so many people, it made it nice to run.  At around 6 miles, we pass by these houses and the people there were handing out Guinness beer.  So of course I had to drink one.  At mile 8 (or 9) we are going running in downtown San Antonio and going right by our hotel.  I had no clue that the race went this way.  Next thing I know Jason is raising his arms in celebration and I look over and there is Diane and Megan!  So seeing Diane gives me some instant energy and I feel good again, but it doesn’t last long.  I think it was less than a mile after that I hit the water station, and Jason goes on ahead.  My knee at this point is hurting a little bit, and I feel real sluggish.  After my minute walk, I start running again, and I see Jason up ahead and he is pulling off to the side.  I catch up to him and ask how he’s doing.  Yes I know, dumb question.  His knee is really hurting and he says he’s not going to make it.  I tell him that I don’t think I will either, but I’m not sure.  I leave him there in the ditch (I hope someone will help him out of there) and I head off.  But it wasn’t long before I got that feeling that I had to go to the bathroom.  This is the “dreaded” bathroom break and I can’t just go behind some tree.  I come up to a water station and there are 6 port-a-lets there.  One is open and I go in there.  No toilet paper.  I go into another one.  No toilet paper.  In fact, all 6 were out of toilet paper.  Not good.  At this point, it hurts my stomach to run.

The next thing I come up to is the break for the half marathon and the full.  If I go right, I do the full.  If I go left, I do the half.  I’m on the right side of the road and thinking that a miracle could happen and that I could still do the full.  I’m sure there’s a port-a-let up here soon, and there are plenty of water stations.  YOU CAN DO IT!  Luckily, I come to my senses and at the last second, I go left.  Thank goodness I listened to my brain and not my heart.  After a little bit, there are some port-a-lets and they have toilet paper!  Wahoo!

I finished the half and thanked myself for not attempting to do the full.  There will be more marathons (I hope) and this one I’ll be able to look back on and say that I did the right thing.  Jason and I will hook up again and we will finish one together.  Now if I could only get Michael to do one too…….

I ran twice this past weekend, and knock on wood, it was all good.  Saturday I did 6 miles, and I did feel like I hadn’t run in quite awhile.  Actually it’s been 2 weeks, but it felt like 4.  My cardio sure wasn’t up to snuff.  Then the real test was Sunday.  I knew if I wasn’t fully healed, I would be hurting on Sunday, but I felt fine so I ran 4 miles.  The last mile was with my dog Miles.  I think he’s almost ready to take the next step and do 2 miles.  I’ll try that next Sunday.  Hard to believe but my marathon, The San Antonio Rock and Roll Marathon, is in 2 weeks.  I know that I won’t set any records, and I’m really hoping I finish!  My plan right now is to do the run / walk system.  I’ll run for 2 miles, walk for 1 minute, and run again for 2 miles, etc, etc.  Jason just told me this weekend that he is having some major knee problems.  I think it’s all the mileage he is piling on, and he’s just not used to it.  So I told him to take the week off from running and either do some elliptical training, or ride the stationary bike.  We’ll see what happens with that.