Rough Runs .... Make Us Stronger

Man, this run was rough. REALLY rough. Last week's 3 miles wasn't easy, but it wasn't rough. This one jut plain hurt. It was more than the hills, my legs didn't want to cooperate. Portions that were suppose to be easy were so difficult, I couldn't even slow my running pace. I had to walk. I don't want to walk on a training RUN.

I was demoralized.

What do I have up my sleeve for next week? Add on to weekly mileage and hill repeats in Mount Lee on Saturday. I'm also doing something this race- I'm weight training and cross-training. I had started weight training in the winter to build strength and definition. Finally, after months of prodding from friends "what's your next race," I found this one. There are easier halves for sure, but I kind of like

doing something that scares me a little bit. 

It was so rough, I was running 100-200 yards before I had to walk 50 yards. Bleh.

I'm better this. 

Well, I wanted to be better than this. Not every run can be great and I've had my share of rough runs, but man. This was not fun. I want to get back to where 10 miles feels great.  These training runs can't keep feeling like this. 

In training, you don't want to increase your weekly mileage more than 10%. But, at some point, often early in your training, you're going to have to make more than a 10% leap. That was going to be this week. It was my goal to run 4 miles... jumping a mile from last week's 3. A 10% jump would put me at 3.3 miles. I ran 3.5 with a 3/4 mile cool down. (The cool down was up a quarter mile from last week to compensate for my shortcoming.) I also rationalized that .5 is .2 more than a 10% jump, so really I was doing okay.

Part of me is wondering how I'm going to accomplish the 5,000 feet elevation gain in my trail half this November. The course looks a little something like this:

The other part of me, the wArrior part tells the worrier to simmer down. I'm 25 pounds lighter than I was at my college heaviest. I might not have the cardio stamina after my first marathon, by I'm the fittest I've ever been. Hell, I SURVIVED BRAIN SURGERY (and recovered so well because of running)! Logically, I know I can do this. There are 5.5 months to train and prepare. And, on days like this Saturday, on the slow days, I'm becoming better at reading a trail... looking out for potential hazards and learning how to move my feet. (Yes, you can't do a fancy road race shuffle/grape vine thing to dodge objects). FOCUS ON CORE. Core strength and solid low arms  (where I don't scrunch my shoulders) will help get me through the 13.1 miles. "Running on tired legs is good," I remind myself. "You'll certainly be tired by the end of any race.... and this race in particular."

At this point, I'm not training for time; I'm training to finish. (Looking at the history of this particular trail half, most finish times are north of 3 hours.)

I did get an ego boost when I was half way done with my run and turned around to go back to my car. Running was easier because I was running DOWN HILL! That flat I was running on was not flat at all. It had a grade that was slight and un-forgiving. Then I remembered; I was running in Reseda. I was on the portion of the road that would take me to the Nike Missile site. One of the many Nike Ajax projects that was defense during the Cold War. This particular location contained ground-based radar that was designed to detect and track hostile aircraft, and to guide the anti-aircraft missiles that would be launched from nearby Sepulveda Basin.. So yeah- If it's high enough to launch missiles, you better believe there are hills.

Granted, the hills I was on had a low grade and weren't as steep as the ones closer to the site. These low hills are nothing like I will face in November, but as mileage and endurance increase, you better believe I'll be taking advantage of the merciless hills on the way to the site and all that The Santa Monica Mountains Conversancy, Topanga Park and National Parks offer. 

But everyone's doing it.

I did it! I did a cleanse. Now, I can say I'm an official Angeleno. Living/working in the city it seems like everyone is on a cleanse or has done a cleanse. You compare notes, talk about how long you did it, benefits of cleansing etc. Friends were concerned about a completely liquid and gave me alternate modalities. I combined what my old roommate and trainer suggested along with the Clementine Cleanse. I stuck to the exercise method laid out by roommate/trainer and leaned up. I was happy with the results, but less happy with the month-long diet after.

I’m struggling with that diet. I have more slips than successes. In general, I do better when I’m given suggestions for success rather than a strict diet. The strict diet makes me like an obstinate child. I'm sad... AND I know a chocolate chip cookie recipe by heart. Ok, I'll make a quick half-batch. This is no way to get to my rhythm skinny.* (Rhythm skinny, a term I've given ballroom dancers who do Latin styles in skimpy outfits.) One friend delicately pointed out, "Rhythm Skinny"was a goal in the beginning of the summer. The gentle reminder helped me reframe that I was trying these limited diets for myself rather than doing it for society or someone else. But, with heartache that is too deep to describe for a fitness & exercise blog, staying on track and honoring my original goal has been more difficult, especially when I know the chlorate chip cookie recipe by heart. Besides, dieting is no fun. My family doesn’t diet well. We do best eating sensibly and the exercising. I’d rather do that. Focus on physical things I like to do, rather than deprivation.

Exercising and eating while working for yourself is tough. I was pumped about producing a horror short with a very talented director. But, since he didn’t feel comfortable signing a contract guaranteeing me pay, I’m walking away.  I can work for myself, investing time in my own projects and have a better Return On Investment of time. In exciting news, an oncologist I’ve worked with approached me to help build his neurogenetics center, so when posed with the question: Would you rather produce a horror short or help find a cure for cancer, my answer will always be: Help find a cure for cancer.

The next couple months will be busy. October has 2 weddings and at the end of the month I have my dance showcase where my routine is nearly full bronze with some silver patterns thrown in. I have a 10k in November and then holiday races. With the new projects and a wonderful relationship coming to an end, my heart and mind are all over the place. I’ve been using the Hal Higdon off and on, but I needed a better focus. I’m nearly starting from square one again. It seemed appropriate to bring out the big guns and use the training schedule that was specifically designed for me by my first coach. The early miles are short, but he has lots of cross training built in.  (The cross-training will be great for ballroom dance and/or weights.) While Ryan had to move to MSP for work, I’m loving using this. I feel like I have him looking over my shoulder. This with a modified diet program from my former roommate and Italian trainer, I feel rejuvenated. Everything will have to be recalibrate. I'll have to remind myself while it's okay to be sad, sugar will not be the million dollar pill to make everything okay. 

The Running Place

I got out of my car at the Sherman Oaks/Van Nuys Park like it was nothing. I didn’t expect anything miraculous. I’m undertrained and I have been struggling with my runs.  I keep meaning to print out a new Hal Higdon training schedule. I keep meaning to sign up for a new race to give me something to push for. I have friends running Boston, Big Sur… running. They have races on the books.  I am pushing myself with the business I launched with my producing partner, keep pushing myself with ballroom dancing… to understand Cuban motion, isolation, relaxing my shoulders et cetera. I have been terrible about running. I didn’t expect anything special about my run.

As soon as my feet hit the packed dirt, it was like I was home. This is the place where I logged all those short 3 mile runs during my first marathon training. This is where I did my first 5 mile run and this is the place that I ran with family at my side during my brain surgery rehabilitation. 

I love this place.

And no matter how tired I get, this place, “The Running Place” all you have to do is get to the next turn, the next light post, the next water fountain before you give yourself another goal to strive for. Unlike road running, I wasn’t coming up with excuses to stop, I just kept going. If I got tired, I slowed my pace. These early runs I’ve run without a watch. I will continue to run without a watch for the next couple weeks.

I don’t have a race on the books. I’m simply running for the joy of running. To supplement with days I don’t dance. 

I still have the goal to get into Marathon Shape, but having cardiovascular strength supersedes everything.

This place, is home. I will be printing out the Hal Higdon training schedule to put on my fridge. I will do a modified week one until I am ready to plunge feet first into a training schedule.

Seasons of Love

Leaving Providence St. Joseph,
December 23, 2010

As I sit here on this December 23, I reflect on the past year. These last few weeks have been filled with touchstones at the very least— The MRI showing the sudden collapse and near disappearance of the residual brain tumor came nearly a year to the day from when I was diagnosed with a two-inch brain tumor.  I let December 15 slip away like a bad dream and aside from wishing a co-worker a happy birthday, the day passed without incident.  The first days I was in the ICU, despite my doped-up state, I knew it was important to stay calm and not move much so I would affect my ventriculostomy, causing my CSF to drain too much. And while I was there, in the early days, I kept singing to myself lines from a DC Talk song, “I want to be in the light as you are in the light.  I want to shine like the stars in the Heavens… all I want is to be in the light.” And, staying in the light is something I crave and helps me get through some of the more difficult times. The days from December 15, 2011 quickly passed by me as I was spending time with family, skipping from holiday party to holiday party and traveling home to see the rest of my family and meet my adorable niece.

No snow this Christmas,  nonetheless
I get to run by this converted
milking  barn on training runs.

Today felt like it called for a little more reflection. I woke up in the room I grew up in, rolled over and turned off my alarm. I looked at the calendar and mused, “hey, one year ago today, I woke up in a hospital and was discharged in the afternoon.” Other than having passing thoughts about where I was last year, the day was pretty much like any other day before Christmas. Then, the family piled into the cars to go on our training runs.  I had intended to do somewhere between 2 and 3. When I got a four-corner intersection, I chose the road with the least amount of hills and started down it. I just figured I’d keep going ‘till I hit about 1.5 miles. I then figured I’d run to the next road. It wasn’t fast, and ultimately, I only logged 3.6 miles when I got back to the cars, but it was a very exhilarating 3.6 miles. Between getting a cold just after Thanksgiving and then these holidays, getting any mileage in always feels like a miracle. As much as it pains me, I’ve re-jiggered my schedule again and I am settling into Hal Higdon’s NOVICE program. I’ve run one half-marathon doing something like this, and I know I can do another one. It feels like I took a giant slide backwards after Thanksgiving, I’m giving myself the grace that I would urge my friends to give themselves.  

So, it’s been a year since I was discharged.  I am still not used to people calling me a miracle or learning about strangers praying for me or meeting someone new and having my story touch them, causing tears to well up in their eyes. It has been quite the year. Reflecting on what the year has meant and everything that has unfolded.  I couldn’t put it better than Jonathan Larson who wrote the Broadway musical, RENT and composed “Seasons of Love.” 

Thank you all for being part of my seasons of love.

It's Just Like Riding a Bike

Sports have never been my forte. Even the simplest childhood activities were difficult.  I always marveled at my baby sister who would careen around the yard on her bike with mud splattering up her back when she would ride through puddles. Our parents pleaded with her to stop ruining her clothes. It was only then that she started riding her bicycle in a swimsuit. When weather would turn to snow, we would ride our bikes in the barn. For someone who already had difficulty turning her bike, the proposition of turning a bike in the 10 foot wide aisle contending with obstacles of hay, wheelbarrows, dogs and a sister, it seemed insurmountable. I’m not sure if I was ever able to deftly maneuver around all this without stopping, standing and pivoting the bike below me.

The Midnight Ridazz at one of their night-time cycling events.

Several years ago, I purchased a bike. It's nothing fancy, just  a regular bike from Target. Despite my best efforts to pedal and stay erect, it seemed that whoever came up with the adage “It’s just like riding a bike” should be shot.  Riding a bike as an adult is not as easy as it was when I was a child, and considering I had a very difficult time all those years ago, my frustration only continued to grow each time I would take my bike out. I had spent some time looking for the optimal size bike and settled on a children’s bicycle. I considered ways to make it easier, like getting the brakes reversed so I would be able to use my left hand on my back brake. (Apparently, getting brakes reversed is a benefit of growing up in a small town because the bike shops in Los Angeles refused and went as far to say that changing the brakes to do this in the states is illegal.)  Once I had the bike and made my peace with having to brake with my right hand, combining pedal movement, forward momentum and staying upright was tough…. I would wake up early on the weekends and take my bike out before the cars started revving their engines and the roads would be filled with the din of LA traffic. Each time I took my bike out, I would get marginally better… but only marginally. That is, until today.

Tour de France map.

Still lacking in confidence to ride with the big kids down the road, I peddled up and down the dead-end road by my apartment. Bigger than lacking confidence, I lacked something else, that two-inch brain tumor. You world be surprised how much easier bike riding is without this thing getting in the way, misshaping my brain and causing it to swell. The only thing swelling now is my ego. The speed was slow. The distance covered was not vast. I have now realized that stories kids come up with while riding or phrases they tell themselves like “crisis averted” come from near misses with bushes or luxury cars.  Today was a step and each time I take the bike out, it will get easier and easier.  As the laps increased my grip on the brake loosened.  I’m not in a hurry to get out there and commute to work on my bike, but the idea of one day being able to ride several miles with friends just ‘cause will become as easy as running 10 miles with friends. Both of these are far away right now… after looking at all the Hal Higdon half marathon training schedules, it seems that the best one would be with cross-training built in. This program will not only get me to my next half marathon, it will turn me into a cyclist. I don’t expect to join the local club the Midnight Ridazz, but adding one more thing into what I can do is pretty exciting.

I never thought I would look at several laps on a dead-end road as anything remarkable, but on today, on my first bike ride since brain surgery, it is a huge victory.

Sharing Brain Tumor Guilt

I visited to my old office yesterday. I did not anticipate the deep need to reconnect with friends and old coworkers and their need to reconnect with me. I arrived at 1 o’clock and left after 7 pm. During my time there we talked about life, running and current creative projects. I met new people who knew my story. I had learned that one good friend there (who is also a running buddy) was instrumental in getting a prayer group organized while I was in the hospital last year.  One fellow he introduced me to is interested in running a half-marathon. We encouraged him to run the Inaugural Rock n Roll Pasadena Half-Marathon. Then my friend caught me off guard when he said, “Sarah is a miracle. Look what she can do and she had a brain tumor. If she can push forward, you can do this too.” I’ve joked over the past months with friends about having a brain tumor and that they can't say they can't do something if I can do that activity with a brain tumor or post surgery.  Most recently, I quipped at one friend (who was lamenting she signed up for the Malibu half marathon and didn't realize it had so many hills) "You have to do it. If I can do it with a two-inch brain tumor, you can do it." Yesterday showed me that my tumor and story are apparently are large enough for friends to share and guilt people they meet into achieving their best.  While I want to inspire and help people reach into their souls and dig down to find what they can do, I did not expect the ripple effect this would have on my friends…  them pointing to me a benchmark for what success and drive can be… what is possible with the power of prayer and grim determination.

The grim determination got me through a lot- it’s why I was adamant to get physical therapy multiple times a day once I was stable enough to have it, and it’s why I needed to get out and run as soon as I did. The half-marathon 6 months post-op was a need. The attempted half in October was an epic failure, but a good lesson. I have been running for fun and getting better about making it a priority and shifting workouts to get them in before a long day of work. I did some research for a new running friend and found a training program for her. After joking around last Saturday and telling her she better get on it and train to do the Pasadena Half Marathon with the running group this February, I realized HOLY SMOKES THE HALF MARATHON IS 12 WEEKS AWAY! While my paradigm has been continually shifting, I must shift it again. I have to stop running for the sake of running and letting heat/cold/time (name the excuse) get the best of me, and I need to TRAIN. The program I found is not too different than what I had laid out for myself, but it’s from running guru HAL HIGDON.  That said, the Sunday after Thanksgiving is exactly 12 weeks from the half-marathon I have already committed to. I want to have the best experience possible while pushing myself physically and mentally. The question of the next marathon still lurks in the distance, but getting to a marathon as in life, I have learned, is about a series of successes and setbacks- it’s all about how you handle them and push forward.

A Bump in Training

Last week was a particularly difficult week. During my lunch break, I would go out to my car to take a nap.(Somehow the 8-9, sometimes 10 hours a night I was sleeping wasn’t enough.) When I got home from work, I had all I could do to cook and eat dinner before I’d collapse in a lump on my couch. This is far from what is on my running schedule.

I knew coming back after surgery would be difficult, especially when my surgeon said, “you’ll either have the dexterity of a one-year-old or 3 weeks after surgery you can do 10% of what you used to do.” I figured while I’d probably make everyone around me miserable, I could get through “having the dexterity of a one-year-old.” The idea of being able to only do 10% of my normal activity was frustrating. Since I was doing 20 miles a week, the 10% resulted in two miles a week!

Once I was discharged from the hospital and feeling better after my surgery, I dug through my running archives and pulled out my first training schedule- the one that was taking me from non-runner to a marathoner. It was a 33-week program designed specifically for me by my running coach.  After my first meeting with my coach and running a couple miles with him, he combined his know-how with a modified Hal Higdon program to develop this schedule for me. The schedule got me through my first 3 5ks, 2 half marathons, and one marathon. I figured, I did it once, I can do it again; and my muscle memory will help get me there.

The marathon is by far too industrious for me to do at this time given working over eight hours a day at a desk tuckers me out. On the road to running a marathon, my first goal is to run a half marathon. But this blog is about getting in shape to run a marathon. From my experience, you need to be in two types of shape to run a marathon: physical shape to keep your cardiovascular and muscular systems in check to keep you going through those 26.2 miles and then the mental shape to keep you plugging away when you want to quit once you hit the wall and/or you’re feeling a little fatigued.  At this time, I do not have either. The half marathon will be a good way to get me back into the corrals and closer to be in the physical and psychological shape that you need to be in to run a marathon.

I have realized that since work is my own long run, I need to modify my schedule yet again. I will focus on day on day off running… concentrating on abdominal strength and moderate lifting when I’m not running. (I still need to be judicious with my choice of exercises since my neck was cut into during surgery and it doesn’t have the same strength it did, and I’ve found even girly pushups hurts it.)

While not the ideal way to train, the surgery has essentially given me a clean slate to see what different types of training will do. I had resisted abdominal and core training earlier since being those muscles were neglected, the exercises were difficult, but I know these are essential to keeping you going through the longer miles. A strong core will also protect your body on the whole. Prior to my December surgery, my goal was to run a half marathon in October 2011 in a sports bra and pants. This goal is too soon given my circumstances for my original plan of an October race. Concentrating on the core and arms is essential for any runner.