Final LA Marathon prep

I spend a lot of money on appointments at my sports chiropractor. This basically goes against my New Year’s Resolution #2 to be more frugal, but I think the results are with the expense. My right knee hasn’t been quite right since the Disney World Marathon in January, and it’s been particularly unhappy since the San Diego half marathon on Sunday. (I guess that’s what happens when you earn a new half marathon personal record!) But after seeing the chiropractor this afternoon I am feeling much better. Having your muscles manipulated is a painful process, but it’s amazing how effective the treatments can be. And it’s a good thing too because the LA Marathon is this weekend and I can’t say I’m all that prepared. I didn’t maintain my fitness level for a while after the Disney World Marathon due to illness and injury, and I’ve only completed two runs longer than 13.1 miles in the last two months. My 18 and 20 mile runs went well, but that might not translate into decent performance on a 26.2 mile course (as I learned on January 8th). I’m fairly confident that I can successfully finish the marathon on Sunday, but I’m definitely not as well trained as I was for the first one. Fortunately I’m planning on running with one of usual buddies and we have very modest time and pace goals. Neither of us is in peak condition right now (we both have knee problems) and we have no reason to push ourselves to go any faster. There’s always a possibility that she’ll send me ahead after a while, similar to what’s happened in our long training runs, but we’ll just have to see how it goes. The course isn’t the most runner-friendly and the weather isn’t going to be all that pleasant either. The forecast for Sunday is improving, though, so maybe we’ll be OK. During this last week of marathon prep I’m taking it easy, but still staying active. Tonight I went to a boot camp class at the gym which thankfully consisted of only upper body and core exercises. I definitely couldn’t handle a lot of lower body work right now. I’m going to complete my last few (very short) training runs over the next three days and then rest as much as possible on Saturday. I’m nervous about running the LA Marathon in five days, but I think I’m ready! Well, as ready as I can be.

Monday night placeholder

It’s Monday night and I really should be getting ready for bed, but instead I’m sitting on my couch attempting to write a worthwhile webpage post about the last few days. Unfortunately I just haven’t been able to find enough energy to keep my blog updated lately. Not that I’ve had much free time to even consider writing with my ridiculous work commitments recently, but I was hoping that having a long weekend away from the office would finally help me churn out a few entries. (Often I mentally compose posts at completely inopportune times to document them – like while I was running the San Diego half marathon yesterday – so many of my brilliant ideas are lost forever.) I did spend some quality time with my laptop this weekend, but nothing much came of it. I think my brain was just too weary after the last few weeks to be able to formulate more than the few coherent sentences you’re reading right now. And they took longer to write than I’d like to admit. I haven’t slept enough in quite a while and I’ve been on the go for far too long now. Luckily I have a little bit of a break coming on the work front, but with the LA Marathon next Sunday morning I still have important fitness obligations I have to fulfill this week. (Of course today all I did was go to Disneyland with my friend and her daughter, even 5 hours of walking was a break for my aching knee after the race yesterday.) I am in serious need of some time to relax. I have a plan so we’ll see if I’m able to execute it this week. If I am successful I’ll be able to let you know how it goes in a new webpage post soon!

Thank you, Old Navy

“The other day I realized that some of the new pants I ordered from Old Navy recently (during a 50% off Labor Day sale online) were feeling loose. Not like I’ve lost a full pants size yet, but I might be getting there. Will I be disappointed if all of my brand new pants don’t fit in a month? A little, but I’ll be much happier being smaller and lighter than I’ve been in about a year and a half. And running will be easier too.”
10/2/16 webpage post

“It’s official – my pants are too big. This morning as I was getting dressed for work I slipped on a pair of my favorite pants – olive green skinny jeans from Old Navy. I ordered them just a couple of months ago, about a week after I started my Nutrisystem diet. I was so excited to have started losing weight that I treated myself to some new clothes to celebrate. What I didn’t think about was those new clothes being too big for my shrinking body a few short weeks later. Even though I knew I’d been making great progress, I was still shocked when I buttoned my pants this morning and discovered how loose they are in the waist. Really baggy everywhere but the legs (this runner’s legs are muscular!). Not quite unwearable yet, but they’re getting close.”
11/9/16 webpage post

A couple of weeks ago Old Navy was having a 50% off sale on jeans. Based on the fact that most of the pants from my pre-diet days no longer fit me properly I figured it was the perfect time to restock my wardrobe. It was so satisfying selecting a smaller size when filling up my shopping cart. I’ve lost 17 lbs (and counting) since September and I look damn good. Especially now that I’m a size 4 again. Due to the very timely sale I went a little crazy and bought six new pairs of Rock Star jeans and pants to replace the ones that I can’t wear on a regular basis anymore. About a week later they finally arrived at my door I eagerly tried on every pair. The purchases were mostly a success because I decided to keep five of the six pairs. I’m so excited to have more items of clothing that fit me at my current size rather than pulling the same couple of pairs of jeans out of the drawer day after day. Variety is the spice of life, as they say. Last night I tried on all of my old size 6 pants to decide whether any of them were worth keeping. Due to the less than superior construction of Old Navy garments every one fits a little differently even though the tags all have the same size printed on them. I’m not quite ready to donate all of the old pants yet, especially my beloved corduroys (winter will last a while longer here in LA), so I’m going to try throwing them in the dryer to see if I can shrink them just a little bit. Not that I have any place to store both the old and new pairs, though. I know it’s a first world problem, but I’m really going to miss my favorite purple pants if I have to get rid of them!

Surf City half marathon 2017

Before I write about more recent events I’d like to go back and cover a couple of happenings from earlier this year. I can’t believe it’s been nearly a month since the 2017 Surf City Half Marathon, which took place on February 5th. That Sunday morning was perfect running weather, cloudy and cool, but unfortunately my running form wasn’t quite as perfect. I was still recovering from my lovely cold/flu/bronchitis combination so my breathing wasn’t what it should be to run 13.1 miles, and my training had fallen off sharply for that reason. But I needed to restart my fitness regimen somehow, and I was feeling much better than even a week earlier, so I arrived for the half marathon with cautious optimism. Before the race started I chatted with a friend about our time goals (I just wanted to finish!) and took a picture with my running group. I was nervous, but ready to get started. And the first few miles of the course were great. I even passed my friend who is usually a lot faster than me around mile 4. That was a surprise. (In her defense, she’d been fighting her own illnesses throughout January as well.) Training for the Disney World Marathon had gotten my body into pretty good shape, and I hadn’t lost all that much in the way of fitness in the month that followed. I did remarkably well for a number of miles, but by mile 10 I was gasping for breath. No surprise after having bronchitis, really. My pace wasn’t suffering too much, but trying to recover during my walk breaks was a losing battle. I passed my running group’s cheer squad and told them I was ok, but couldn’t breathe. The other runners around me overheard and thought I was trying to be funny. They all laughed, but I was being serious! With only about a 5K to go I pushed myself to finish without slowing down. And I did! My official time for the half marathon was 2:37:46 which wasn’t bad, but wasn’t great either. Not that I’d been expecting much. I was happy to have averaged a 12 min/mile pace for the whole distance. After getting my medal I grabbed a carton of chocolate milk that I’d been looking forward to all morning, and chatted with a couple of friends at the finish line before driving home. Even though it wasn’t my best half marathon showing I was still encouraged. I knew I was only going to get faster and stronger with renewed health and consistent running in the weeks to come. And with the LA Marathon fast approaching I needed all the help I could get.