Salt Lake City Half Marathon

Okay, so many months ago I registered for the SLC half marathon. And while I dream of running the race, finishing and still being able to walk, I have not really been training for it and it is down to the wire. Like everything else I do I have procrastinated my training and pretty much ignored the voice in my head counting down the days until I die...April 19th. In an attempt to justify to myself why I should not run the race I emailed my friend Julia, whom I have never met, but who has inspired me because she is a MACHINE. It has almost been a year since I started reading her blog and dreaming about running a race.

Julia's Running Blog Julia's Bog


The following is my email to her Sunday night...


MY TRAINING IS POOP.


Well, my dear mentor, my training is practically non-existent. I have a mile high pile of excuses, but the truth is I just haven't had the discipline to get to the gym and run. The roads are finally clear so I am going to start running here. I have to be truthful, I might not make the half marathon, but I will at least do a 10k if I am not ready. I'm such a loser for putting off my training. I have been trying to get into the gym and at least workout, but it hasn't always been running and I have slacked off big time. So, here I am recommitting myself to get out and run, to not cripple myself because of my fear of failure, and to just take it a day at a time with the goal at the end being my health.

I love you and and hope you have a great week.

Erin



Here is her reply:



Erin!
I am so glad you emailed - and am so glad you used the word "poop"! That is my favorite word and Jona has been known to use it as well. That is hilarious.
Training is never poop. The lack of training is never poop. You are a busy mom, who's supporting a busy husband, who lives in a very cold state where it's incredibly difficult to get out in the first place. I look up to you so much for wanting to run and getting out there on any sort of level. While I pretend my life is busy and stressful, it is nothing compared to having the responsibility of raising two beautiful children. So cheers to you.

So I have a few thoughts, well and a few sub-thoughts of those thoughts. :) So take them purely as suggestions and let me know what you think.

• You've already signed up for the dang thing. If you have to walk every single last second of it, it's still a major accomplishment. There aren't too many people who will voluntarily get out of bed on a Saturday morning and walk 13.1 miles, let alone run it.


• Try a walk/run plan ... any ratio you want for your training and even race day. Run 5 minutes, walk 3 minutes. Run 9 minutes, walk 1 minutes. Walk 1, run 1. Whatever feels comfortable. I know a lot of people who use this and it works wonders for them. Have you tried it before?


• I've put together a calendar for you - just a suggestion of a calendar! I based it on the fact that you could run 2-3 miles comfortably right now. With my training this time, I know I've really benefited from having some sort of "to do" everyday, whether that's an off day or a tempo run. It does have you increasing your weekly long run by two miles every weekend (4 this weekend to 10 miles by the April 5) with a two week taper period.


• I love what you said ... the goal is your health. You have amazing perspective. No need to feel stressed about it. No guilt, no anything. Every minute running or every second in the gym goes towards feeling good. I could learn a lot from that. :)
  It will make it hard to shoot for the 13.1 if you feel by any means that you have an "out". Does that make sense? I constantly battle with this. If I haven't totally committed to something, I will think up every single excuse in the book to not do it. For me, once I've paid that registration fee, I am in. No more outs. For you, I feel like there might be a point where you have to decide whether you are really in or out of the half marathon (not now, perhaps in a week or two when you have to do longer runs - but BEFORE the really long runs). Because once those long runs come and you haven't committed to yourself, there really won't be anything pushing you out that door on your 10 mile run, you know?
  


• I am really excited for you either way. A great little trip to Utah to see friends and be at a really cool event. I'd love to do some sort of virtual training where we can check in on each other's runs for the week/day, whatever and see how we are doing. I love the support, even from far away!!
  
  Hope that isn't too much. Have a good night!
  

Julia

And like a great mentor and example, she left me no wiggle room to get out of my commitment. She wrote me very specific encouragement and suggestions and even went as far as to put together a...


Procrastinators Training Schedule For the Out Of Shape Runner that didn't train for her half Marathon with the 12 week program so now you have to use the 5 week program.



Here it is. Click to open it if you want to Run this thing with me. I am recommitting myself to running it. Anybody in?



And to Julia. Thank you! I love you! And I appreciate you not cutting me any slack. I think I'll start calling you Julian!

Excuse me officer?

So the other night I was running down Rich Lane. Rich Lane is a pretty busy street for Blackfoot, but like most of Blackfoot, it doesn't have any sidewalks. I noticed that there were flashing lights behind me and I laughed to myself thinking that I was glad I wasn't the one getting pulled over. (I've been pulled over 4 times by the same officer on Rich Lane and never ticketed ~ ya, I'm pushing my luck.) Anyway, the lights finally passed me and to my surprise, this big police truck pulled in front of me and came to a stop. I thought to myself, "this couldn't be for me...what would the officer say...'excuse me mam, you are simply just running too fast'!"

Well, sure enough, the officer pulled ME over, while I was running, to tell me that I needed to wear something other than black to run in. What? Me wear something other than black? Doesn't he know that black is my signature color...that it is slimming, and that I'd rather be hit by a car than wear any other color than black?

Apparently he couldn't see me...I still think the real reason is because I was running to fast...It's a bird...It's a plane...It's...

Score 4!

Today's Post is totally inspi(red) by my new favorite person Kristi.

Warning: Reading her Marathon Story could possibly make you cry, inspire you, cause you to exceed your own expectations of yourself, and embarrass yourself in public. Here is the link to her Amazing Marathon Recap!

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So today I was reading my feeds and I read about a new friend on Marathon Mommies , hopefully you checked out her story because it is very inspiring. Anyway, I knew that I had to do a long run today, but of course I was dreading it and nervous and putting it off. After reading Kristi's blog and feeling apart of her success, I knew that I had to get out there and work towards my goal.

My Goal: To Follow Through Running the Thanksgiving Day Race that I entered myself in and actually Run it!

So far my training has not be ideal and I've been pretty nervous for the Race. Let's be honest, the race is only 4 miles. At one point in my life this would have been an everyday run...but not now. Running Four miles to me feels like ETERNITY. The most I have ran without stopping is 1.5 miles. There was one day that I thought I ran 2.5 without stopping, but then I traced my run in my car and I was way off. Anyway, after being inspired by Kristi I decided that I would push myself to run the loop around Jensen Grove twice. I got changed, grabbed my ipod at drove over to the Loop.

Starting out was not ideal. I noticed that the wind was insane and that I only had one little sliver of battery life left on my ipod. I started dreading the run. I warmed up with a 1 mile brisk walk and started justifying why today might not be the day to run the loop twice. The ipod was holding up and I started listening to some good tunes. When I was warm I started running. At the time I didn't think anything about my starting point until half way around the loop when I was trying to see how far I had run. I was looking for the stinky outhouse. Gross! For the rest of the run all I could envision for my big finish was the stink public outhouse. Anyway, I just kept putting one foot in front of the other and was almost half way when I took a look at the mileage sign for the loop. Wow, one time around the loop was 1.8 miles. I was trying to run it twice. I hadn't planned on running 3.6 miles and quite frankly didn't even feel like it was possible. Again I started thinking of the triumphs that Kristi felt as she overcame her obstacles and I somehow kept going. As I ran past a couple walking their dog, they waved to me and said, "Wow, you are cruising." I loosely translated this message into "Erin, you are a MACHINE" and gained confidence and drive as I passed the stinky out house for the first time.

The wind was really blowing hard. As I ran North it was behind me and pushing me, but as I ran South on the loop, there was a good 0.8 mile stretch that the wind was pushing against me so hard that I couldn't even hear the tunes on my ipod. This made me feel like a bulldozer and a really tuff chick and I started thinking to myself, "I am going to do this!"

As I slowly approached my Finish Line the sun had set and the Outhouse was glowing from about 0.5 mile away. It looked like a lighthouse and again I chuckled to myself that I was running towards a bathroom. When I reached the outhouse, my big finish line, I realized that I was about 0.5 miles away from my car and without thinking decided to give myself one final push and keep going. As I got closer to my car I started thinking of Kristi running down the streets lined with people giving her high fives. I may or may not have lifted my right hand and pretended to give a supporter a high five! And then I may or may not have proceeded to use both hands to blow a huge kiss to all my fans, followed by the Rocky Run with both my arms raised above my head as I reached my car. Wow! 4 miles without stopping once. I couldn't believe it...I was so impressed with myself, I did it...and then to my horror, I heard a few snickers and right by my runway as I may or may not have been doing really embarrassing things, I saw a group of young skater boys laughing at me. Oh well...it's about the fame...not the shame!

So here is my picture (Thanks for the idea Kristi) showing off my mileage. I know it isn't much to you runners out there. But for me, today was a huge success. Thanks Kristi.

 

Please also notice that I had dinner simmering in a pot behind me. Two new accomplishments today. I ran 4 miles without stopping and I cooked dinner. REAL DINNER!

Peace Out!

Weekend With Nana

What a surprise! How fun to have Nana surprise the kids and come for a visit. Here they are baking cookies. She and I even snuck away together and went running. Only three weeks before our Thanksgiving Day Race. I'm Nervous! Thanks for coming mom, it was a blast!