2012, I guess you weren't all bad.

Dear 2012,

It's no secret that I'm looking ahead to 2013 with great anticipation.   But as crummy as you have been in some respects, in others you have been almost stunning.  What, exactly, made you stunning?  The running.  Oh, thank you 2012 for the running!

• I raced more this year than ever before (10 races, if athlinks.com and my memory are to be believed, plus Ragnar makes 11).
• All 11 of those races were between May 5 and November 25.
• Six were half marathons.
• Three of those were on trails, which was a new thing for me.  
• I was first in my age group in the second of those trail halfs.
• I was third in my age group in the third of those trail halfs.
• (By the way, now I LOVE trail running.)
• I ran two marathons.
• One of those was technically a "trail" marathon.
• I BQ'd that there trail marathon.
• And it was a PR by nearly 17 minutes.
• And I was third in my age group.
• The marathon before that one?  Also a (then) PR.
• Ragnar was easily one of the 3 most fun things I've ever done.  Ever.
• I ran my first 50K.
• Or rather, 50K plus 2 extra miles.
• That's 33 freaking miles!  That's a lot of miles.
• I didn't love it, but I will do another.  
• Maybe in 2013?
• I ran the Torchlight run.  Just for fun, because I won an entry at a SGLRG event.
• SGLRG?  What an amazing group of people who helped me to be a faster happier runner (and person).

We all have different ways of coping when bad things happen.  We can eat.  Drink.  Act out.  Retreat.  Talk it out.  Keep it in.  I did a little of each of those things.  But the very best thing I did was run (okay, maybe the second best thing I did was run).  I ran with people and I ran alone.  I ran with friends and with strangers (who became friends).  I ran as therapy.  I ran in tears.  I ran with smiles.  I ran through heartache.  In the end, I outran the heartache.

The point is that I decided self-pity and inaction weren't my thing, and so I just...ran.  All that running, it took me places.  

In 2013, it's taking me to Boston!  

So 2012?  Thanks, I guess.  You doled out some unexpected things.  Some good, some bad, but I learned a lot about myself in the process and I honestly wouldn't change a thing.  I hope to be able to say the same thing this time next year, but for different reasons.

And 2013, I await you with open arms.  And hopefully, with very fast feet.  In fact, here are the feet, today, in training in Ballard:

xoxo

Ericka 

Giving thanks (better late than never).

News flash:  They weren't kidding when they said the holidays would be hard!

I've always been (mostly) an optimist, and yes, also a teeny tiny bit naive.  For example, I actually thought maybe I was different, that because I was working so hard and doing all the right things, perhaps the conventional wisdom on navigating life during and after divorce didn't apply to me.  But they—my divorced friends, the interwebs, my therapist, etc.—were all right, of course:  All of the "firsts" I've experienced so far in the year following the breakup of my marriage have been downright hard and emotional as hell.  The first anniversary un-niversary, first of any holiday, first birthday, first vacation, first whatever...they're all hard.

It doesn't help that the long Thanksgiving weekend has always been a big one for me, coupled as it usually is with my birthday.  And of course, we spent last two years in Hawaii, and probably would be there right now if it weren't for The Sideways.  Not surprisingly (to everyone but me, apparently), the transition from the holiday and birthday traditions of the past 10 years to this life that I'm building without any newly forged traditions was more of a shock than I bargained for.  It all snuck up on me earlier this week, and since then, the tears have fallen in almost equal measure with the November rain (which has been record-setting at times, for those of you not in Seattle).

So on Thanksgiving morning, I tried to come up with a list of what I was thankful for so that I could put it up on Facebook along with everyone else.  At the time I was so down in the dumps that I was hard-pressed to come up with anything other than that I had "much" to be thankful for.  But today is a new day, and I know I do have many, many things to be thankful for.  Here they are, the big and the small, the important and the unimportant, the shallow and the deep, in no particular order.

• I successfully trimmed 30 of 40 cat toenails this morning
• It's almost 2013!
• My parents
• Qualifying for the Boston Marathon.  Shut. Up.  I still can't believe it!
• Truly the best friends in the universe
• Chocolate
• Anything coconut
• 2012 election results
• My metabolism
• BQFFs
• Texts and emails from friends on Thanksgiving that were exactly what I needed
• Short hair
• Tall boots
• Damp forest trails
• Peonies
• My three running groups and the awesome runners (and friends) I've met through them
• Beer
• Yarn
• The fact that I can run anywhere, anytime
• Rediscovering Too Beautiful to Live
• My health
• Living in the moment
• Sweaters
• Writing out my feelings
• Running out my feelings
• Yoga
• Murphy, Lucy, Cooper, and Stella
• Music
• My career, my firm, and my colleagues
• Laughter
• Two and a half months of "firsts" left to endure
• Living just across the street from this (admittedly taken months ago, but still):

And I'm thankful that I've come to terms with the fact—once again—that this process will be hard, and that it will take time (lots of time) and work to come out of it whole and, hopefully, a better person.  The good news?  Time cannot be stopped and I'm on the right path and doing the right things.  I'm satisfied, even happy, with the progress I've made in the past nine months.  And I look forward to taking this same picture next year, reflecting on the time that has passed, and realizing just how far I've come.

In the words of a wise and wonderful friend, everything is learning.  And I have a lot to learn.  Bring it on.

Tunnel Lite Race Report (or, how I BQ'd a training run)

>>Warning:  This is a race report disguised as a blog post.  If you’re not a runner, it will undoubtedly bore you to tears.  If you're a runner, it will also undoubtedly bore you to tears.  You’ve been warned.  Proceed if you wish.<<

"How long have you wanted to run Boston?"  

I've been asked that a lot lately.  I remember sitting on the couch in what was probably the summer or fall of 2008, reading a Runner’s World article about Boston while the ex cooked dinner, and saying aloud "I want to qualify for the Boston Marathon.”  Problem was, I had yet to run more than a half marathon.  In fact, I had always said I would never, ever run a marathon.  I didn't let that stop me though.  Over time and a few marathons later, my confidence in my ability to qualify waned a bit (caused in part by the tighter qualifying standards that robbed me of a precious 5:59 that I thought I needed), but my desire and determination did not.  Like many marathoners, Boston has been my Holy Grail since that day in 2008, and I planned to spend my running life trying to find it, even if it took me until I was 80.  Which I honestly thought it might.

Fast forward four years to the present.  This year has been a challenge to be sure.  I'm not kidding when I say that running has been my salvation, and training for all the big races I've done has eased me through every rough patch I’ve hit.  

So at the end of August, on a whim, Erin and I decided to run the Tunnel Lite Marathon as a training run (for our then-upcoming 50K)/scouting race for the July 2013 version of the race, thinking that in July 2013 we would make our run for Boston.  A funny thing happened on the way to that training  run.  You see, I've met a lot of new runners since I moved to Green Lake, too, a lot of them very dedicated and very fast.  They, along with others like my coach, Cheryl, my best friend and running buddy Talena, and my marathon and long-distance trail running buddy Erin, all seemed to think I could take that training run and qualify.  These runners started to tell me things, things I wasn't sure I was ready to believe.  Things like:  “You are fast.  You don’t give yourself enough credit.  You can run higher mileage.  You can run faster.  You are already running faster.  You can do it.  You can qualify for Boston.  You should try.  You just might qualify at Tunnel Lite.  You will qualify.  I know you will.”  Those runners gave me something I had been missing:  not just the confidence that I could run fast enough to qualify, but that I could do it now, not next July.  Their confidence in me gave me what I ultimately needed, confidence in myself.  

So with that, here’s the actual report.  (Sorry, I warned you.)

Tunnel Lite Marathon Race Report

I started off the weekend poorly (race-wise) and great (fun-wise).  I had way too much fun Friday night and got only 4 hours of sleep, but it was worth it every lost hour.  I tried to sleep in Saturday morning to make up for it but just couldn't, so crossed my fingers that I would sleep well the night before the race.  I gathered all my gear together in one place so I wouldn't have to think about anything Sunday morning.  They were my Tunnel Lite Marathon secret sauce.  My bag of tricks.  My dragon-slaying kit.

Saturday evening was the SGLRG Rooftop BBQ Part Deux, so I baked my latest offering, and, promising myself that this time I would only have two beers and actually eat something, I headed up to my roof.  Just like last time, it was a ton of fun. I had a great time, savored my two beers and my pre-race meal, and stocked up on all the good race juju people were giving me.  Then, like a good runner girl, I toddled home to my apartment at 8 pm, made sure I had everything ready, set four different alarms, and went to sleep.   I slept well, no tortured dreams of races gone bad, no waking up every half hour to make sure I hadn't overslept, just a good, restful night’s sleep.  (I haven't had a bad pre-race sleep in a while, so perhaps those nervous days are over?!  That would be awesome.)

I was awake before all four alarms, had my coffee and chia, applied my sunscreen, packed up my gear, and headed off to the ferry to pick up Erin.  We have a designated "spot" at the ferry terminal, and I waited for her there in the dark, cranking my "Happy" mix from iTunes (yes, I have a Happy mix, and yes, it makes me happy).  Erin arrived, and we headed for the hills again, this time to conquer 26.2 miles and the Snoqualmie Tunnel.

[I should back up here for a moment.  The week before, as part of my taper, a smart, thoughtful, experienced runner gave me a gift by suggesting I run the tunnel so I knew what to expect on race day.  So for my taper, I did six miles down, and six miles back, all on the course, and including the tunnel both ways.  For that I will always be grateful, because it absolutely took all of the fear of the unknown elements away.  I knew what the tunnel would be like, I knew how my Garmin would behave, and I knew that the course was indeed downhill after the tunnel.  Someday I will do the same thing for another runner, pay it forward, give a gift like I was given (because I wouldn't have thought of giving this gift to myself).]

Look!  It's me!  And a tunnel!

We were the first to arrive at the start at Hyak, beating even the race director.  Most of the runners were bussed from the finish to the start, so Erin and I had the parking lot and the bathrooms to ourselves.  It was pretty cold, definitely in the low 40s, but a clear morning and with little wind and no smoke from the fires east of the mountains.  We killed some time before waiting in line for all of 2.5 seconds to pick up our packets.  Lars (Erin’s boyfriend, fellow endurance athlete, and our Sherpa for the day) arrived, having run the crazy difficult Volcanic 50K the day before, and took photos and hung out until the start.  Erin reminded me we hadn't warmed up as planned, but by then it was too late, and we were sent off down the John Wayne Trail toward the tunnel.

As you enter the tunnel and the daylight fades behind you, you can see, 2.25 miles away, the pinpoint of light that is the exit.  It starts as just a tiny speck, growing until finally you return to daylight, coming out from under the entirety of the mountain that makes up the Snoqualmie Pass ski area.  (I tried not to think about all that rock weighing down on a 100-year-old drippy, dank tunnel!)

I had my heart rate monitor on, and from my race-pace run the prior Thursday, knew that I needed to keep my heart rate around 176-179 to be hitting the right pace in the tunnel because as soon as you enter, the satellite signal for the Garmin is gone.  I made a pace band for a 3:42 marathon, which meant 8:28/miles. Running in the tunnel is deceiving; it feels like you're going much faster than you actually are, but we were hitting the times each mile, and my heart rate was where it needed to be.  Even with the cool temperature at the start, the tunnel felt much warmer than the week before during the trial run because they say the temp is a steady 50 degrees year round.  It was also much easier to run in the tunnel this time because the many runners with lights made it much brighter than just two runners with two lights.  The tunnel miles went by very quickly, but then there were only 2.25 of them!

As we approached the exit I pulled off my extra shirt and my headlamp and put them in the bag provided by the race (to be transported to the finish), tied it up, and tossed in on the pile.  I glanced back and saw that Erin was about 20 yards behind.  I slowed a bit, hoping she would catch up, but the next time I looked back, she still wasn't with me.  We had discussed running our own races if need be, and I had a pretty aggressive plan, so I decided to stick with it and hope she would come up eventually, but it wasn't to be.  

Instead, a mile or so down the road, I met Jodi from Moses Lake.  Turns out she was trying to qualify for Boston too, and she was in my age group so needed to run 3:45 as well.  Her Garmin was acting up, so she decided to hang with me because mine was working and I had a pace band, and we had similar pace goals. We ran well together, though I did try to hold us back a bit because the downhill can lure you into a pace that is impossible to maintain over 26.2 miles.  See, e.g., my Winthrop Marathon finishing time.  Whoops! Anyway, I felt like I was going a bit faster than I wanted to, but it wasn't anything that seemed too dramatic, and when it was, I always slowed down.  Some doubts crept into my mind even before we hit 10 miles, and I started to question whether I could hold the pace for another two hours and twenty minutes.  But I kept the doubts to myself, and planned to keep up the pace for as long as I could and let the chips fall where they may.  (This, I believe, is the Go Big or Go Home theory of racing.)  These doubts revisited me several more times during the race, but every time I chose to stay in the present moment rather than worry about what might happen down the trail.

Around mile 13 we stopped at the aid station and refilled our water.  Because this was the "lite" version of the race, the aid stations were unmanned; just folding tables with water and Gatorade and cups and Gu set up on the side of the trail, with a Rubbermaid container a bit down the trail for all the garbage.  Because there were few runners, we were the only ones there and were able to quickly fill and go.  I had my Chia concoction that morning, so I wasn't taking in much fluid, but when I'm chia-fueled it doesn't seem to matter.  If you don't know about it, Chia is the distance-runner's best friend.  I also wasn't eating as much as I probably should have been, but again, Chia fills in the gaps and I figured I was fine to eat less, as long as I managed to eat during the last 6 miles when the going was sure to get very tough.  Miraculously this didn't come back to bite me in the end.

Just after the aid station at mile 13, there was an access road where Lars was waiting for us.  I told him Erin wasn't far behind, and off we went to finish the second half.  The course itself was lovely.  It passes over at least three very high old train trestles, with beautiful views up to the mountains and down to the valley.  The leaves were starting to change, and for the most part, there was a hint of fall in the air.  I can see where the fall version of the race is better than the summer version, because a lot of the race would have been in full sun in July, but in September due to the different position of the sun, it wasn't bad, and the overall temp was lower.  It really was just about the perfect racing temperature.

Jodi and I continued to run well together, hitting the miles on my pace band pretty close to even (sometimes slow, sometimes fast, but on average, seemingly perfect).  She was waiting for her husband to show up by bike for a good portion of the race, and he finally did come up to us about mile 17.5.  He rode with us for a while, and Jodi dropped back a bit so he could ride alongside her.  From behind me, I heard him tell her what ended up being a great mantra for this race, and something that helped me later on:  "Remember, there's only today.  There's no tomorrow."  Or something like that.  So very true for me!  While this race was intended as a training run and scouting expedition for a potential BQ in 2013, I was still there to give a 2012 qualifier a try, and in that sense, there really was only today.  If I didn’t make it, if I left anything out on the course, I knew I would regret it.

Around mile 19, the sound of Jodi and her husband talking slowly faded behind me.  I started passing people.  Actually not people, I started passing guys.  It's way more satisfying to pass guys at the end of a race.  Actually, at any time in a race.  Sorry, it’s true.

Though I was still concerned about being able to hold that pace for the rest of the race, I started to get excited.  With 7 miles left, I had my coveted BQ within reach (I remember thinking “Oh my God I am on pace to BQ!” and sort of freaking out).  At this point I was hitting my miles faster than my pace band pace, which meant that if I kept it up, I should finish faster than 3:42.  I told myself to calm down, because a lot of blowing up can still happen with 7 miles to go, and it was too soon to celebrate.  My quads were pretty shot by then, and my right IT band was super tight, enough so that I was getting concerned.  But I told my legs they were stuck with this so they might as well get used to the pain.

At mile 21, the course turns off the John Wayne Pioneer Trail and onto some local North Bend-area trails.  With 5 to go, I started to get excited again, and almost felt like I was flying, but that feeling was short-lived.  Suddenly the trail started to feel like it was going uphill, which was a concern because at that point I was really counting on the gradual downhill to last to the finish.  I needed it to maintain my overall pace, and a check of my Garmin showed I was definitely getting slower.  It did level out and eventually head back down, thank goodness.

Around four miles to go, I was talking (out loud, crazy-lady style) to myself.  "Only Today" became my mantra.  I said it in time with my breath.  I started to figure out how much more time I had to suffer through the pace.  Just over 34 minutes.  I can do/survive anything for just over 34 minutes.

At three miles, I figured it was just a cruise around Green Lake.  I can do that.  Just 27 minutes.  There's Only Today.  My legs were painful, immovable tree trunks.  I told them, aloud, that they had to do this.  My legs and I, we had a BQ in our grasp, and I wasn't letting it slip away now.  They couldn't fail me.

Then there were two miles, and just over 17 minutes.  I started to say the minutes aloud.  17 minutes.  17 minutes.  17 minutes.  Then 15 15 15 minutes.  My legs were so trashed, I felt I could hardly move them anymore.

Finally!  One mile to go, just over 8 minutes.  And, aloud, "[OMGF] I am going to qualify for the Boston Marathon!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"  At this point I was far enough ahead of my time that if I had to, I could even walk (briskly, with purpose) and still qualify.

Not long after, I could see bright colors in the distance and realized I was looking at the finish line!  I was surprised that I was able to pick up the pace, but I really just wanted to be finished at that point.  I looked at my watch for about the 850^th time that morning, and saw that it was still under 3:40!  Holy crap!  I pressed on.

With about 200 yards to go, a runner who had already finished was walking back out along the course.  He hollered the usual runnerly encouragement one yells to another runner nearing the finish, and I did a spastic jumping happy dance and yelled to him “I’m going to qualify for the Boston Marathon!!” and he responded “well go, go, and finish strong!”

I hit the cone-lined finish chute, headed toward the most awesome finish line ever (Home Depot buckets, sand, poles with Caution Do No Cross tape, and blue, green, yellow, and white balloons strung between), looked down at my watch, and realized I had done it.  It was so surreal, and I couldn’t believe I did it.  In fact, I still can’t believe I did it, even with my "Confirmation of Acceptance" card currently hanging on my fridge.

I was thrilled to see Lars, because an accomplishment like that without a friendly face isn’t nearly as fun.  After I stopped hollering that I had just qualified for Boston, I commenced my second happy dance/poorly timed high-five:

The nice people around the finish line all congratulated me and seemed to share in my happy spazziness.  I realized I hadn’t picked up my medal, so I grabbed that and checked with the race director to make sure he got my time.  (Yes, I really did that.)  He confirmed that I had finished in 3:39:49.  I didn’t even think about it until later when Erin mentioned it, but I am now in the 3:30s!  Take that, Paul Ryan!  I set my (now-broken) PR of 3:55:46 in June at the Newport Marathon, and managed to beat it by 15 minutes, 17 seconds, and completely bypassed the 3:40s!  In the end, I was faster than my needed qualifying time by 5 minutes, 11 seconds.  I didn't need any of the 5:59 that the Boston Athletic Association had taken away.  And I came in third in my age group.  Woot!

A few minutes later, Jodi finished, qualifying with just over a minute to spare.  After the hugs and more celebrating, I thanked her, because I’m not sure I could have done it without her.   I call Jodi my BQFF.  She is such a great person, so encouraging, and so generous, too; she and her husband asked me stay with them in their suite in Boston.  Another gift, meeting her on the course that day.

Not long after, we saw Erin coming down the chute at 3:58, beating her most recent marathon time in Newport.   We cheered her in, and celebrated some more.

It truly was a great day.  Beautiful weather, great course, friendly people, running friends new and old, a PR, and a BQ!  Even though I was hopeful at the start and knew I would give that race everything I had, I honestly didn’t know that’s how the day would end. 

The following Monday morning, registration for the 2013 Boston Marathon re-opened for all qualified applicants.  Because I qualified by more than 5 minutes (BQ -5:11, as the cool kids say), I would have been fast enough to register the prior week.  And yes, I got in, and will be toeing the line in Boston on Patriot’s Day, April 15, 2013.  I'm already saving up for all my Boston Marathon branded gear, which I will proudly wear all over the damn place.

And now, because this was all so unexpected it looks like I'm going to need a new goal.  I think perhaps I'll try to BQ again at Boston.  Because, why wouldn't I?

On running and lady parts.

For some reason this gem keeps coming to mind lately.  

Long ago, maybe in 2000—yes, I did suffer from ADA (Adult Onset Athleticism)—I was dating a runner training for his first marathon.  At the time, I couldn't really comprehend running 26.2 miles because running just one mile nonstop on the treadmill at Harbor Square in Edmonds was cause for serious celebration.

This runner (let's call him Joe) was the opposite of the runners who have encouraged me so much in recent months.  His main observation, upon hearing I wanted to start running?  “I don’t think you’re suited for running.  Your boobs are too big.”  Really, he actually said that!  I would say I have no words, but we all know that is not the case.

Good thing I didn't let that particular boob get in the way!

Blue Moon. Meh.

As I'm sure you've heard, we get to see a Blue Moon tonight.  Well, four Blue Moons ago, I got married.  And back then I thought that was a pretty cool factoid.  Now I prefer to think of a Blue Moon only when it's a beer and I'm drinking it.  Or even better, beer cupcakes! 

Cheers everyone!

200 miles to feel like a kid again.

Ragnar has been on my bucket list for a a while now.  With all the changes in my life this year, I decided it was a perfect time to try something new and outside my comfort zone.  When I put out the call to the universe that I wanted to run Ragnar, it was answered almost immediately by Lars, Endurance Junkie Extraordinaire, who hooked me up with the best team I could have asked for.  I learned a lot racing for 28 crazy hours in a van with 5 strangers, not the least of which is that you can still feel and act like a kid at the ripe old age of 41.

This post is nearly impossible to write, because Ragnar defies description.  If it's true that pictures are worth 1000 words, they will still only give you a tiny bit of the flavor of what it's really like.  But I can tell you that distance runners are all pretty awesome people, and when they get together and have a party, they do it up right.  Even if the rest of you think we're nuts.

Washington's installment of Ragnar is a 200-mile relay race, from Blaine on the Canadian border to Langley on Whidbey Island.  Once your team starts, it runs constantly, all day and night, until each of 36 legs are done.  Regular teams consist of 12 runners in 2 vans, each running 3 legs.  (Ultra teams do the same thing, but with half as many runners.  Lars, mentioned above, was on an ultra team.  Talk about crazy distance running!)  Our team, Misters, Sisters, and Blisters, started at 9:15 Friday morning.  Van 1 ran 6 legs, one runner at a time, until Exchange 6, where our van, Van 2, took over for 6 legs.  Repeat that twice more, though all kinds of weather and at any hour of the day, and you have completed a Ragnar.  I was Runner 9 with 15.5 miles:  6 "Moderate" miles, 2.7 "Easy" miles (starting at 1:49 a.m.), and 6.8 "Very Hard" miles.  Those are Ragnar's descriptions, and they were fairly accurate.  Others had much more hellacious mileage, with massive distance and hills in each leg.  I can't quite wrap my head around those, but I think I could tackle a longer, harder set next year if asked.

At Ragnar, team names are important, irreverent, and hilarious.  Costumes are optional, creative, amazing, and based on the way some of the costumed runners were walking, they can also chafe pretty bad.  But because there are prizes, chafing costumes are apparently to be endured for the duration, judging by the Green Costumed Chafing Guy I saw several times walking with a decided hitch in his stride.  There was a team of fictional villains, a team of space-related characters, a team of men in dirty underwear, and so many more that I can't recall because my brain was on overload.  Vans are decked out in varying degrees of awesomeness, and with 388 teams, there are well over 700 of them on the roads.  As I drove home from the race, I found myself scanning the road for Ragnar vans.  Sadly, I didn't see any.

Spending 28 hours (more than that if you count travel time to and from the race) in a van with 5 people I barely knew was going to be a stretch for me because I have always felt awkward and shy around people I don't know well.  But I've been working hard to let go of my mostly imagined limitations and trying to judge myself less for just being me, so I tried not to give it a second thought.  It was the right thing to do, because I had an absolute blast.

My Van 2 teammates are amazing people!  Strong, tough, entertaining and spirited, every step, every mile with them was an adventure.  I swear I had a smile on my face the entire time (except maybe when I was running that last leg), and I don't recall laughing that hard in what seems like forever.  I learned a lot listening to them, and hanging out with them gave me a lot to think about and frankly, to aspire to.  Starting out, nobody on my team knew about my divorce.  Everyone in my van was married (two to each other), and so I felt a bit of an outsider from the get-go, especially because they knew each other to varying degrees before the race.   Being myself around new folks doesn't come easy for me (so much easier to be a clown!), and it's especially difficult now, because this divorce seems to loom so large, at times it seems that's all that there is to my life.  But at Exchange 12 when our first legs were finished, I was walking back from the locker room with my teammate Wendy, and rather than hold back, I let her know what was going on.  (Mostly I did this because she said "that guy is checking you out" and I was all "really?  yay!")  At dinner, when she and I were talking about it, I told everyone else.  I didn't feel judged and it wasn't as hard to share as I thought it would be.   Over and over I've found that there is support out there, you just have to open up and be ready for it.  In addition to this, I learned some Ragnar-specific lessons:

My body can do amazing things and take me to amazing places when I ask it to.  I've never been a night owl, I'm usually asleep by 10, and during Ragnar I was able to run crazy fast (for me, anyway) in the middle of the night with no thought in my mind other than getting to the exchange as fast as I could to hand off the slap bracelet to my teammate Shawna.  (I ran that leg, in the middle of freaking night, at 7:55 pace.  Granted it wasn't even 3 miles, but it was 2 in the morning!!)  And though I felt pretty crummy during my final leg, I toughed it up and down the hills as fast as I could because I didn't want to let down the team.

I can sleep anywhere:  in a tiny way-back seat of a Suburban packed full of stuff, and also on a yoga mat on a crowded gym floor surrounded by other teams'  racers snoring in my ear.   Perhaps the most important lesson:  If you sleep during Ragnar, you should be prepared to have very unflattering pictures taken of you and posted on Facebook.

You can never use the porta potty too many times.  Even the yummiest Lara Bar tastes like crap after eating energy bars nonstop.  Jelly Bellies are the bomb, as is chocolate milk.  Coffee is a necessity, as are baby wipes.  Bathroom humor is pretty darn funny on no sleep (seriously, our team name turned into Misters and Sisters on Shitters after a particularly rough morning).  28 hours go by so quickly and are so crazy intense that it was already hard remember things the very next day.  Running 3 legs in 28 hours is hard, but not as hard as a marathon.  It's also way more fun than a marathon.  I always, always go out too fast at a race, even a race with three legs.  At 2 am, the misty air in Anacortes smells heavenly.  It's easy to forget to hydrate when you're having fun.  I am really competitive.  Whidbey Island is beautiful.  There really is such a thing as the post-Ragnar blues.  Hanging out with a bunch of people who were strangers no more is good for the soul.

And finally, distance runners are really cool people.  As I surveyed the post-race gathering, watching the ongoing antics of the teams and the happy exhaustion on all the runners' faces, I realized that running is truly important to me.  And because some things are that much better shared, it just might be a prerequisite that my next serious relationship is with a fellow runner.

Because runners are that cool.

Note:  Most of this post was written the day after Ragnar.  It's so rewarding to look back on what I wrote a month ago and see how my feelings about The Sideways ruling my life have changed.  Back then, it still loomed so, so large.  Now, not so much!  Life, she is getting better all the time.

The Sideways

Saturday marked six months since my life went sideways (hereinafter referred to on this blog and in general as “the Sideways”).  Time is kind of crazy.  It feels like it's creeping along, going nowhere fast, and all of a sudden six months have gone by but it really feels like twice that.  A lot of healing can take place in six months if you’re willing to put in the work, and yes, it’s straight up work to recover from something like this.  But from where I’m living life right now, things look a lot different than I thought they would back in February. 

The most surprising thing is that I’m happy.  I didn’t think it possible so soon—and there’s part of me that feels guilty about it (Oh Catholic guilt, ye are dependable and have such staying power!)—but I’m not going to deny it.  At times there is still sadness, and tears, and looking back and thinking What if? (a waste of time, unless you choose to learn from the answers), but overall, I can officially say I'm more happy than not.  And that is crazy good news.  Of course there is still lots of work ahead, but I am confident the path I'm on is the right one for me.

Taking stock, there are several reasons.  The support of my friends and family has been overwhelming.  I am blessed in a way that I really didn’t realize, maybe I couldn’t realize, if it weren’t for the Sideways.  In fact, I think I could say that about a lot of things now.

I also sought help immediately, in the form of a great therapist who is a perfect fit for me, and also in the form of a divorce support group.  Support groups are a new thing for me, and I was hesitant terrified to attend my first session.  (The first night I went, I had half a glass of wine to get myself out the door.  Only half.  Don’t judge.)  But meeting and talking to these other wounded people over the past months, people of every imaginable background, age, length of marriage, cause of divorce, is helpful in a way I'm not sure I can describe.  Sharing advice and stories and heartache and tears and tea and progress with these people, be they a 65-year old woman married for 29 years or a 20-something guy married for less than 1 year, has been eye-opening.  Misery loves company, yes, but it takes a village.  

And finally, there’s the social stuff, the refusing-to-sit-home-alone, getting-my-butt-out-of-the-house stuff.  To quote Coldplay, this was The Hardest Part (also a bit of a theme song for the Sideways, at least at first).  I decided very early on I wanted to meet new people and try new things.  But I’m pretty shy, and I knew it would be well outside my comfort zone.  I had one misfire, but I didn’t give up, and it's paying off.  I've run a marathon PR in Oregon and took my first weekend trip as a singleton with my cousins from Iowa.  (I survived! By myself! In a hotel room! Alone!)  I’ve taken a photography class, something I’ve been wanting to do for years.  I’ve taken a cooking class, and gone to cookbook release parties (Seattle food culture is awesome!).  I’ve done a crazy-ass, super fun relay race with 11 people I’d never before met, and had more fun in 30 hours than I can remember having in years and years and years.  (I was going to do a post on Ragnar, but gave up.  Ragnar is, in a word, indescribable.  You'll have to do it to find out.)  I've started trail running, have run back to back trail half marathons, and I'm running my first 50K in October.  Next year, I'm going to double down and try to shave over 10 minutes off my marathon PR and qualify for Boston.  To that end, I’ve joined a new running group at Green Lake and made new running buddies.  And on Saturday, I went to a running group BBQ on my apartment roof (again, terrified!) and didn’t end up going home until long after I normally turn into a pumpkin. 

See, I'm not making this $hit up!

The kid in the bottom had a "Kick Me I'm Konrad" sticker on his back.  Gotta love Seattle parents!

Making a considered decision early on about how I was going to get through this is one of the best things I’ve ever done.  It’s not easy to look at yourself, warts and all, and decide what to keep, what to reshape, what to toss out, and what to create from scratch.  But it is rewarding, and it is possible, even now.  As recently as a month ago, I felt like the Sideways was the only thing going on in my life, that it was just so huge that it was all there was of me and that I had nothing else to offer to anyone.  When I met new people, it felt like there was nothing else to talk about because it was all there was, but I wasn’t yet ready to talk about it, either.  So for a while, I didn't feel genuine, because I held so much back.  But I realized the other day, that's changed.  I'm not sure when it happened, but the Sideways is no longer overshadowing my life.  This, my friends, is a Good Thing (with apologies to the vegetarians in the house).

It is what it is. Really.

I've been doing a lot of walking lately.  I'm still running, quite a bit, but the walking is a new and welcome addition.  You see, I live at Greenlake now, which is such a wonderfully walkable place to live.  I live here because the Phinney house, and my marriage, are no longer mine, or ours.

Some of you reading this know what happened, and the rest of you don't.  Let's just say it is what it is (a phrase I've been accused of overusing) and leave it at that, because in this particular situation, at this particular time in my life, it's quite the perfect phrase.

I'm not here to overshare or rant or rage or lament my losses or failings or mistakes or regrets. I'm not here to overshare or rant or rage or lament his losses or failings or mistakes or regrets. I have more appropriate outlets for that, and hopefully he does too. What I'm here to do is share what it's like to live around the edges of this new life, tiptoe around them, because let me tell those of you who haven't been down this path before, it is particularly painful.  Life as I knew it doesn't exist.  It's both heartbreaking and exhilarating at times—though right now the exhilarating moments are outnumbered by the heartbreaking ones. But I know the balance will shift someday.

What made me decide to open up about this now, five months (and two days, but who's counting?) after my life changed so dramatically?   I don't think it was the timing, though five is my lucky number.   No, it was something about this evening's walk home.

I was walking home from Whole Foods along Ravenna and something compelled me to cross the street and walk down the middle, through the grass.  It rained today, and though it was warm and humid, the grass was still just slightly cool and damp, and I was wearing sandals.  How long has it been since your toes were tickled by cool, damp grass? It seemed to me that I hadn't felt that feeling since I was a child, though I know that isn't the case.  It felt so good it made me smile out loud, in public and everything.   And then I looked ahead of me, at the rows of trees flanking the median, the sun shining through the leaves, and I felt compelled to take a picture. And then I felt compelled to share it with you, all of it. Because the old me wouldn't have crossed the street, wouldn't have felt the grass tickle her toes or, though she may have taken the photo and posted it, wouldn't have shared the rest of the picture with you.

These days when I'm compelled to do something, I pay attention.  Historically I'm pretty bad at paying attention to my feelings and emotions, as even my close friends will tell you. I used to shut them away safely in a box deep inside, under- or unexamined.  But at this time in my life—when so much has gone, not wrong, but sideways, maybe—I feel like everything is more easily felt, more clearly seen.  And though I am still chock full of sorrow and disappointment and heartbreak that he and I are not still heading down the road of life together, hand in hand, I know that along this same road there will still be love and laughter, joy and pain, hope and companionship, beauty and emotions, embraced. And someday, with luck, a new hand to hold.

For what seems like the first time, I am recognizing and feeling my emotions.  And doing so is turning out to be a very good thing for me.

PS:  After I wrote this, I went for a run around the lake.  Emotions, as my running buddies will tell you, also make me FAST.

Screw You, BAA!

Now that the good folks at the Boston Athletic Association have decided to make my path to Boston a little harder and/or longer by changing both the qualifying standards and the registration process, I'm going to try to mix things up to get stronger and hopefully as a result, faster.

Kevin and I started CrossFit a week ago. Not only have I worked out for seven days straight, I can't remember ever being quite this sore for this many days. Anyway, just so I can look back in a month or so and see how far I've come (assuming I survive), here's my road so far.

Monday
CrossFit Day 1
After the intros and a warmup, did 3 sets of 21-15-9 (pull ups w/green rubber band, box jumps (12"), sit-ups). But I did 12 extra pull ups before we started because I didn't listen to the instructions. That'll teach me.
Result: 8:09(?), had fun, definitely love the concept. Came in 3rd to last. Not a competition, but you know me....

Tuesday
OMG so freaking sore! Got up and limp-walked the dog and ouched my way through work. Can't raise arms above head. Pushing open doors is excruciating.
2-mile run after work. Legs were fine, thankfully!

Wednesday
Still sore as hell, but less so. Lunchtime yoga helped.
CrossFit Day 2
Warmup, then 3 sets of 200m run, 10 push-press w/25 lb bar, 15 box dips, 20 v-ups.
Result: 11ish minutes, came in 5th. Running, something I can do!

Thursday
Sore but much less so than after the first night.
RoadRunner Sports Adventure race in evening, did about 4ish miles of speed work, won prizes, drank beer. Awesome.

Friday
Only a little sore. Did lunchtime yoga, aaaahhhhhh.

Saturday
18.5 mile semi-hilly bike ride from home
CrossFit Day 3
Half of class not there. 3 sets of 400m run, 20 lunges, 20 kettle bell swings, 20 wall ball (8 lb ball)
Result: came in second behind hubby in 16:19. Kept form whole time. Legs shaking like noodles afterward. Super tired and napped when I got home, then walked dog.

Sunday
OMG how can I possibly be this sore? Legs on fire, ass on fire, shoulders on fire. At least my abs don't hurt.
Somehow I managed to run 7 miles with the group. I don't quite know how, because I couldn't move for the rest of the day. Napped and ate my way out of house and home.

Tomorrow it starts again! Except I really think I'd better take Tuesday as a rest day so I don't do myself in. Loving it!

Pay it Forward

So today my photo was going to be of the breakfast Kevin and I went out for after our 8-mile walk/run.  However, due to some bad (and then extremely good) luck, I have no photo from today. 

Kevin decided to join me this week at the very last minute, and so we headed off with the group from Greenlake.  We ran the first mile with Talena, which was an unexpected treat!  Then she turned off to do her 13, and we kept going towards Ravenna and through a bunch of lovely, misty neighborhoods.  It was so awesome running with Kevin again!  We were doing 5 run/2 walk, which worked out pretty well.  Around mile 4, Talena caught us and we ran with her (and Ann and Lisa) for about another mile until we hit North Seattle CC.  Again Talena headed off to continue her long run, and we headed back toward the lake to finish up.  It was a pretty good day walk/run wise; though cardiovascularly I felt crummy, my leg felt pretty good, and even pain-free at the end, which is a great sign.

Throughout the run, I kept seeing some nice trees and such to photograph, but nothing that stopped me in my tracks it was so pretty/cool/unusual.  About 1/4 mile from the finish, as we were coming back down to the path around the lake, I felt for my iPhone and couldn't find it.  Kevin convinced me I left it at home, though I was certain I had brought it with me, and thought I had felt it hitting my hip when we first started out.  I chalked it up to misremembering, and really, they aren't light and I figured I would have felt it fall out or heard it hit the ground if I'd lost it.  Kevin offered to retrace our route with the car, but there were so many people out I figured someone would have already picked it up so I thought it unlikely we'd find it even if it wasn't at home.

We had decided to go out to breakfast, so headed to Pig & Whistle for some just-okay breakfast and football.  We got home, walked in the door, and the phone wasn't where I knew it would have been if I had left it.  We called it, and no ring.  Gah!  I really had lost it!  So I called Cheryl to see if anyone had found it in the group and she said she'd call me if that was the case.  Just then, call waiting started beeping, and it was a very nice guy who said he'd found my phone in the middle of the street while out walking, and rather than "letting it get smashed by a car" he thought he'd pick it up.  He must have been waiting for it to ring to figure out who it belonged to, because as soon as I called it he called me.  He offered to meet in front at the Latona Pub in 20 minutes, so off we went.  We pulled up, and there he was, handed it over, me thanking him profusely all the while.  What a nice guy! 

So the moral of the story is there are still nice people in the world willing to go out of their way to do something nice.  I am going to take the first opportunity I can to do the same.

However, no picture of trees or breakfast or otherwise, so instead I give you this, taken from my office window last Wednesday:

Camera Bag app, Colorcross.  I love getting in to work early this time of year, the sunrises are just amazing in fall/winter.

Status Update

I'm continuing twice-weekly treatments with Dr. Moore, and the initial huge progress I was making has stabilized.  I think a lot of the early progress was made because of my two-plus weeks of total rest, but now it's taking a bit longer because we're making adjustments that are presumably fixing years worth of mis-alignments and biomechanical issues, and I've added some running into the mix (admittedly not much).

The past two Sundays have been fairly successful 7-mile walks with "run breaks."  The first week I managed to do this in 1:38; last week, 1:30.  Last week included longer "run breaks" on a hillier route, which traversed part of the Seattle Marathon course:

It was simply a gorgeous day for a run in Seattle, the kind of day where you are reminded how truly awesome it is to be a runner in Seattle in the fall.  Today I have 8 miles on tap, and hopefully I can manage even more running. 

I'm hoping the trip to Hawaii will help get me the rest of the way to healed so that when I return I can start running with Talena again.  Our weekly girl-time runs are sorely missed!  Though she is now so fast I'm not sure I'll ever be able to keep up with her again!

Fingers crossed today is a good run!



Where there's a doctor bill, there's a way.

Just a quick (photo-less) update on my progress since Portland.  I've been going to a chiropractor for the past two weeks to see if that will help my leg/hip issues.  Until now, I have been completely, totally, almost phobic-ly, anti-chiropractor.  Something about the words "adjust" and "spine" send shivers down, well, down my spine.  But Dr. Moore was recommended to me by someone I trust, and he also does other stuff too---Graston, which is very fine-tuned massage using metal tools and paste that smells like chocolate frosting (I kid you not), Assisted Release Therapy (think hot poker sticking into sore muscles and then moving said muscles), and also Kinsesio taping.  The person that referred me warned Dr. Moore I wasn't sure about chiropractic, and didn't know if I wanted to be adjusted at all.

Flash forward to my first visit.  He spent nearly an hour and a half with me, listening to my tales of running injury woe.  He recommended a course of treatment, including starting with a minor sacral adjustment.  I was like, well, since it's not my spine or anything, okay.  So he did that, ART, Graston on my calves and achilles (ouch ouch ouchy), and taping my calves (aaaahhhh, something nice).  Since then, he's adjusted several other things (including, OMG, my L5! my neck! my hips! shoulders! scary!), done more ART, Graston to my IT bands (ouch ouch ouchier), and more taping after all the Graston.

The result?  After only 3 visits (and, well, no running for two and a half weeks at all which I'm sure helped), the nagging pain that kept me from running is gone.  Gone!  I can walk down stairs without the pain, I can run across the street without the pain, and on Wednesday, I tested it by going for a walk with a few "run breaks" with Kevin.  Without the pain!  Woot!  It's been 4 total visits now, and it's only going to get better.  I'm not sure what is having the most impact, but I'm super excited that I'm getting better.  Though every time I break into a run I find I'm still limping because I'm so used to the pain being there.  But that will go away soon, too. 

So tomorrow I'm going to go to run group, do some walking with "run breaks" and toddle on down my road to recovery.

Oh, and chiropractic?  I'm now a big fan.

2 Marathons in 4 Months = 2 Much 4 Me

Here's my Portland Marathon race report. I write race reports after major races to commemorate the day, track what went right, and remember what went wrong. Because let me tell you this about running 26.2 miles: No matter how many times I remind myself “you need to remember this for your race report or to tell Kevin” I only remember about 1/2 of all those things if I’m lucky. Four hours (or more or less) is a long time to spend inside my head trying to stay motivated, and it’s impossible to keep up the positive self-talk and also remember all the things I see along the way.

(Oh, by the way, my race reports are notoriously long but again, I write them primarily for myself, so excuse me for being wordy.) So here goes.

I had pretty low expectations due to my bad leg so I wasn't really nervous. Truthfully, marathons and half marathons don't make me nervous anymore—nothing beats the nerves I get before a half-ironman triathlon. Running-only races are a piece of cake in comparison, though I suppose when I do toe the starting line fully prepared to qualify for Boston, things will be a little different. (I’ve been reading a lot lately that people are clamoring for faster times for women to qualify for Boston, which would totally suck because, while I think I have a 3:50 (and possibly a 3:45) in me, I don’t think any amount of training in the world would get me faster than that, and certainly not into 3:30 territory. But I’ll worry about that if it happens.)

Despite the lack of nerves, I slept crappy on Friday night and woke up with a horrible headache. I picked Erin up at the ferry at 9:30 for the drive south to Portland; we made it in three hours and arrived just in time for lunch. We parked in the garage next to our hotel so we didn’t have to pay valet fees, and ventured off into the rain in search of lunch, which we found in a mall downtown. Half a sandwich and a cup of soup, plus a cookie. Yum! After lunch we headed back out into the rain to the race expo. With over 14,000 people doing the various races (reportedly 10,400ish folks doing the full and 3,000+ doing the half), I was pleasantly surprised that it only took a minute to pick up our bibs. I loved that they had our names, and mine was even spelled right! In retrospect I kinda wish it said “Ericka Erika Erica” though.

We poked around the downstairs part of the expo (I was disappointed at the lack of freebies—Seattle's expo has way more schwag and goodies), though I did buy another rain poncho so Erin could have the one I brought with me. We headed upstairs to get our schwag bag and wander around the vendor area. Unfortunately the schwag bag was schwag-free, but it did have an extra technical shirt which was a nice surprise. Erin bought a cute pink plaid SPIbelt (flat belly not included with purchase). I think I may order one of these for myself, pretty handy. After that we called it good, and went back out into the rain to do a bit of tax-free shopping. Sadly, all I ended up with was a pair of black work pants and this picture for Gina:

We wandered into the rain again to check into our hotel, where the mean lady behind the counter denied us late check out. Whatevs, mean lady! Nice room, though, with very comfy beds and nice linens. I looked at the race magazine to get all the race-time details figured out, because it was all very complicated (my biggest race before this one was 1/4 the size, and Newport was 1/10 the size!), and then it was time to head to our 5 pm dinner reservation at Mamma Mia's. We walked, past all of Portland’s famed food trucks. Kevin and I need to take a trip back for a food and drink weekend, I think. Anyway, thank goodness we thought ahead and made a reservation, because they were turning tons of people away at the door. I saw some others from our group there, too, and said hi. Good food, but our waiter was kind of a creep for not mentioning that when I ordered "meatballs" for my spaghetti (plural, as they were described on the menu), I was going to pay $3.95 each for two baseball-sized meatballs. I ate one, and the other went to the compost pile. His tip was reduced as a result. But otherwise it was a good meal. By the time we were done with dinner, the rain had stopped! I was feeling optimistic that this was going to carry on through the race.

Back at the hotel, we spent the rest of the evening getting our race gear ready, packing up so we could check out before the race (thanks again, mean lady!), and just relaxing. By 8:30 I was falling asleep over my book, so hit the lights....aaaaaaand slept like crap. We were on the street side of the hotel, and there were people out there hollering what seemed like all night. Erin says she heard people slamming doors in the hotel too, thankfully I missed that. Soon enough, my alarm rang at 5 and it was time to get up. And it wasn't raining! Hallelujah. Not much to do except get dressed, eat a piece of toast courtesy of my traveling race toaster, have some coffee, and wait. And then the rain started.

We checked out of the hotel, put all our crap in the car, put on our rain ponchos, and walked over to the Marriott to meet up with Cheryl and the group, then headed to the start in a very steady rain. It was still very dark outside (especially for being in the middle of a city) and warm, too (near 60 degrees?). Around 6:30 we parted ways with the group to head toward the B wave corral. Somehow we missed the Porta-Potties for our corral, so we went to the C corral ones instead. There were four. Four!! After about 10 minutes we weren't liking our chances of getting to the front of the line in time to pee, so we copied some other inventive souls (both male and female) and committed what is presumably some sort of civil infraction in the City of Portland. Sorry, dumpsters, but I'm sure you've seen worse. At least it was dark! That business completed, we went back to our B corral to await the start.

We both lined up behind the 3:50 pace lizard, in the off chance one or both of us had a crazy good race and could get our BQ. Not likely, but you gotta dream, right? As we waited for the start, we couldn't believe the downpour that was backlit by the race lights—I really wish I had a camera at that point, because it looked like so many vertical white streamers falling from the sky instead of just plain rain. Before we knew it the gun went off for the A wave, and just a couple minutes later we were off and running, through lots of deep puddles and running water.

I stuck with the pace group for the first two miles or so, and very early on I had a few misty-eyed moments imagining a BQ might be possible after all and just how that would feel. But although my leg felt good, my heart rate was way higher than my race-pace heart rate should have been. I knew that even if the leg held out for 25 more miles, there was no way I could sustain a heart rate approaching 95% of my max for another three and a half hours. So I slowed down and watched my BQ dream run away from me—for this race, anyway. If you're keeping track, here's what I've learned so far in writing this: I probably went out too fast for my fitness level, and, somewhere in the mile or so, I made another tactical error in throwing my poncho away rather than looping it under my race pack for possible later use. It was warm, I was warm, and I didn't think I'd need it. I also had a long-sleeved shirt I figured I could use if need be.

One problem with dropping out of the 3:50 pace group early on was that I didn't have an accurate gauge of my pace. I didn't wear my GPS unit, so I had to just run by heart rate and wait for the 4:00 pace group to come up behind me. I was surprised to find that from about mile 3 on, I was hitting 9:00 miles pretty consistently and feeling good, so thought I might be able to pull out another 4-hour marathon despite the bum leg. I was eating at 30-minute intervals as I do when training or racing, though the rain made me only go for my honey flask, because messing with my pack in the rain is just a pain in the ass. I moved onto the out-and-back part of the course, where I saw the lead male run by—he was smokin' the course, rain or no rain. Then the rest of the leaders and front-of-the-packers began to go by, and I kept myself busy watching them. I tucked in behind two gals running about my pace, until one of them slipped on a white painted traffic indicator and fell to the ground on her knee, breaking her fall with her wrist. I think she was okay (two dude runners rushed to her aid from both her left and her right, which was awesome—I'm always amazed when people are so selfless during races), but unfortunately that was the last I saw of her or her friend. I kept moving forward, still hitting the 9:00s. Near the turnaround, I started to look for Erin, because I didn't know if she was ahead or behind me (we were separated pretty much at the start again, just like Newport). It was fun to see all the super fast pace groups go by in the other direction, and how serious they looked. I wondered if I looked that serious even though I did not look that fast. Eventually, I also saw the 3:50 pacers go by and wished them well, though I did not wish I was with them still! I know when the time is right I'll be able to hit that pace no problem, but that was not the time.

After the turnaround, I looked for Erin's [she says pink, I say red] hat in earnest. And then there she was! High fives, then on I went. I think I first stretched my leg/hip around mile 11, but it wasn't really bothering me too much, just tight and in need of loosening up. As we peeled off to continue on the marathon course (where the half-marathoners headed back to the finish, lucky dogs), I was still keeping up with my 9:00 minute/miles. I saw Seujan run by me around mile 12 (I didn’t even see her face but I know what the back of Seujan looks like because that’s all I ever see of her) and said hi. She looked really strong and pulled away quickly (turns out she BQ'd again, I could learn some things from her for sure). Sometime in the next mile or so, the 4-hour pace group reached me (they were still technically a couple minutes behind me in time because they started several minutes after our wave). I decided to try to hang with them, and stuck to their red lizard like glue. I asked one of the pacers how long after the B wave they started, and the lead lizard holder said it was a couple of minutes. I managed to hang with them for a mile, but shortly before mile 14, I knew I was going to have to start run/walking because my hip and leg were starting to really stiffen up and hurt. Thankfully it was past the halfway mark, but mentally, 12 more miles of run/walk was really not doing much for my motivation. So I let the 4-hour group take off as well, and started to run 9 minutes/walk 1 minute. I was hydrating well, and once I realized this was not going to be a 4-hour race, I decided using the porta-potty was a good idea. Back out on the course, I was still eating, but I think I was starting to fall off my regularly scheduled regimen of every 30 minutes because I wasn’t concerned about time anymore but survival. I think I had some of the course gummy bears on the out and back, though. I saw a girl puking at the side of the road, and thanked my luck stars at least I didn’t have that problem. But sometime in the next couple miles, I started to get cold. I put on my long-sleeved shirt, but the arms were soaking wet; still, for a while, it kept me warm. I had to keep removing my gloves and wringing them out (over the course of the race, I probably wrung out at least a thermos full of water just to give you an idea). I was so wet, my hands were pruning up inside the gloves. The course started up the only big hill toward the St. John’s Bridge (roughly miles 16-17.5), and I decided to walk the hill. Once on the bridge I started running again, mostly because at that height, the winds were really blowing and lowering my core temp even more. I had goosebumps on my arms by then and started to get worried that I wouldn’t even be able to finish: Could my body stay that cold for 9 miles when I knew I would be walking a lot of those miles? It was a beautiful bridge and view, I just wish it would have been a crisp cool fall morning instead of a monsoon!

At the other end of the bridge, we took a right and started heading back south to Portland along a bluff above the river, edged by great neighborhoods and houses. One great thing about the course was the support, and all the dogs! Some of the dogs looked so happy to be out with their humans (the happiest creatures out there that day), and others looked like sad, drowned rats who would rather be in front of a fire. After the bridge I saw a girl holding the cutest golden retriever puppy like a baby, and bouncing it up and down in her arms. Soooo cute.

So basically from the bridge on I was just slogging it out in survival mode. I stopped frequently to stretch, retie my shoelaces, stretch, and start jogging again. At this point, I really was cold, and I knew to keep warm I had to run more, but my leg hurt so much that wasn’t really possible. The most painful part was going from a walk break back to running, which was always accompanied by the limp at its worst. Two times, two different guys passed me as I made the transition, looked at me with sympathy and what I took as admiration for my stick-to-it-iveness as they said “good job!” I was very thankful when folks bothered to motivate me in such crummy conditions. Later, I limped up behind a runner with a handwritten sign pinned to his back that said “Autistic Runner” and was very moved by that. We all have our obstacles; mine was temporary, and here was this guy doing something I imagine was not at all easy for him (not that a marathon is easy for anyone). I love those moments in a race when you see something you know won’t fall out of your head—for me there aren’t many, and this was one.

I had been maintaining a decent run/walk combo from the bridge to about mile 20, but then it really fell off. I kept doing the math of how much longer I would be out there, cold, and when I could get my space blanket. I thought of what I would do at the finish (cross, get space blanket, get race t-shirt, strip off wet shirts & replace with dry race t-shirt) to keep me going. But I never really thought about quitting—just worried that I would have to stop because I was hypothermic! (Oh, btw, I’m a wee bit of a hypochondriac but I really was that cold so that wasn’t the crazy talking.) At mile 24 I think, I was heading up a hill and heard “I like to move it move it” (a.k.a the Lemur Song) that Erin had Facebooked about before the race and had my first laugh in a long time. Rounded a corner by a brewery and they were handing out tiiiiiiny cups of beer. Bleccch! No thanks. Hit the porta-potties again to pee and warm up, I kid you not. Any porta-potty in a storm, I say. I think I had more gummy bears. By then I knew even if I walked the rest, I was almost done. Across the Broadway bridge and with one mile to go I was like, “no way in hell am I walking anymore” so I “ran” it in the rest of the way. Crossed the finish line with a chip time of 4:50:13, and although it was my worst marathon time of the three, I was still incredibly proud that I toughed it out and finished what I started, even when I figured going in it probably wouldn’t be a great day. Some pretty nifty (though not very impressive) stats are available here: Ericka's Not Very Impressive Race Results

All things considered (and two weeks later), I can say that even if it wasn’t a great race, it was still a good race. It was mentally very tough because of the rain and the pain, but I didn’t give up even though I did slow down. I’m proud that I ran two marathons in six months, my fastest ever and my slowest ever. I’m happy that I have a break in training now to heal what ails me and get back to it. I’m happy Kevin has started running again and I look forward to running with him, one of my favorite things to do together. And I look forward to my next marathon.

After crossing the finish line, I gathered the race rewards for my efforts (Portland Marathon Finisher Shirt, I can’t wait to wear you running!), and limped back toward the hotel. As I passed the Marriott, Cheryl was waiting outside and we commiserated about the horrible conditions. She had an iPad and was able to tell me Erin had finished just a few minutes later, so I knew she would be coming shortly. I went to Peet’s to get some coffee to warm me up, with my space blanket still wrapped around me for dear life, and as I left, a cute (dry) little girl said “congratulations!” and I thought yes, congratulations indeed.

I saw Erin walking by on her way to the car, where we gathered our dry clothes, snuck back into the hotel bathrooms and did bird baths with baby wipes and changed into dry clothes. The nice thing about a soaking wet marathon is you’re not sticky and salty, it’s almost like stepping out of a shower! (When I changed I did find out my foot had been bleeding for I don’t know how long (enough to turn my shoe rusty with blood on the outside!) because I have one toe on my right foot that always digs into the other. So note to self, trim that toenail next to nothing next time!) We got out of dodge and headed into Vancouver in search of food—wow, “downtown” Vancouver is weird!—ate what turned out to be the perfect post-race food, and started the drive home. The drive home that was absolutely sunny and beautiful the whole way. Ridiculous!

Pain is temporary, pride is forever, Portland is next Sunday.

I've really struggled the past month and a half with this injury, alternating between being terrified to even attempt running 26.2 at Portland because of the pain and resigning myself to sucking it up and doing the best I can.  Luckily the cheapskate in me, the one who doesn't want to just eat my $135 registration and lose out on a "free" technical t-shirt (Portland's shirts are awesome and I covet one), votes for sucking it up.  So suck it up I will.

Over the past month I've eked out a series of crummy, painful "long" runs:  15 miles, then 15.5, then 13, then today my final 10.  I can't remember the last time I did 18; I'd have to scroll down to check.  The pain moves up and down my leg from week to week; when it settles in the hip that's the least painful.  Thankfully that's where it was today, mostly due to Darian, my massage guru.  He gets one more crack at it Thursday, and then it's all up to me.

Next Sunday, I will do Portland.  I will do the best I can on that day with the cards I've been dealt.  I will walk if I need to.  I will not whine or feel sorry for myself, because I can still get out there and do it and there are many who can't.  I will still manage to have fun at my first big marathon (the others I've done have been tiny in comparison).  I will support my friend Erin.  I will finish the race.  And then, when it's all over, I will fix this injury and start planning for my next marathon, whenever it is, because I will qualify for Boston.














This was yesterday at Discovery Park.  Murphy would like me healthy again too, he misses his weekday tours of the neighborhood.

On a slow boat to recovery.

One good thing to come out of this temporary setback:  I have developed a powerful fondness for the elliptical after my epic session last weekend.  I mean, I used to consider it torture.  Now, I kinda love it.  A lot.  Odd.

Anyway, last Monday I had another massage to try to get things back to normal, and it seemed to help.  Wednesday I went to the gym in the morning and did 45 on my new best friend, Mr. Elliptical.  Sadly didn't make it back again until today, when I did 30 minutes (at a pace faster than 10/minute miles, woot!) and then jumped on the treadmill to test out the leg.  I felt a few teeny tiny twinges at first, but they went away and I ran about 2/3 of a mile before doing a cooldown.  This I can do.  I stretched, did my exercises (Cheryl, I hope you're reading this), and am now icing.  I didn't want to overdo it today because I'm supposed to do 20 tomorrow.  That's a little ambitious, so the the plan is to do 11 with the group (if I can without pain) and then make up the rest of the time it would take me to do 9 more on Mr. Elliptical---so another 90 minutes.

Today's Milepost is from my last long run with Talena, waaaaaay back on August 8, taken along the Burke Gilman near Gas Works Park.  Isn't she a cute little rascal?

Fingers crossed tomorrow goes well.

I'm back! I think.

Enough woe-is-me-I've-got-another-freaking-injury self-pity wallowing. I may (?) have to give up my BQ qualifying dream at Portland, but God willing, I'm still going to run it. If that means 110 minutes/10.8 "miles" on the elliptical in place of today's long run, so be it! I would have done longer but had to jump off so we could hit the road to the gorge and the John Mayer concert. In car icing as we speak.