Ragnar Colorado

Sorry knitters, no yarn or knitting to be seen here today.  Today is about running in Colorado.  Indulge me.  

After using most of my 2012 vacation time to travel to running and triathlon events, I made Mike promise that we would take a non-sporting event vacation in 2013.  Early in the year, we were just starting to plan a week-long trip to England when a friend invited us to join his Ragnar Colorado relay team.   I was dying to do a Ragnar event so I completely went back on what I said, the England trip was cut down to a long weekend, and now instead of having visited Scotland, I can say I've been running in the mountains in Colorado at 3:30am.

I admit that it's entirely possible I need to rethink my priorities.  Maybe.

For those unfamiliar, Ragnar is a 200 mile team running event.  Teams consist of 6-12 members, and the team runs the 200 miles relay style.  So it goes something like: runner 1 leaves starting line and runs to an exchange point (anywhere from about 3-10 miles away).  The rest of the team scrambles to vans and drives to the exchange so that runner 1 can pass a “baton” (but really slap bracelet) to runner 2 who heads out for his or her mileage.  The team then heads to the next exchange.  Rinse, repeat. About 34 more times.  Everyone runs at least 3 relay legs (teams with fewer members run more often or longer distances) and the event is continuous, which means nighttime running.  So Ragnar Colorado = running in the mountains at crazy high altitude sometimes in pitch black darkness and spending 24-36 cramped hours in a van.  

And yes, something about that screamed “OMG, YES, WE HAVE TO DO THIS. SO. MUCH. FUN”.

The only problem was that my 2013 running sort of went like this:

• Winter/Spring:  Ongoing foot tendonitis problems and not running. In my head: Whatever, Ragnar is going to be awesome! 
• June: Strained left ankle and in a cast for 2 weeks.  Uh, not good, but come on, I'll be healed up, trained, ready to kick ass at Ragnar by September.
• July: Ankle still painful so still no running.  Hmm, starting to get concerned about Ragnar, but team captain switched me the to shortest run mileage position on the team so of course I'll be fine to pull off just 3 3-mile runs.
• August: Still not running.  Well, crap.   

With my ankle refusing to heal, I forked over lots of yarn money and had several dry needling treatments at a physical therapist in late August and finally started to see some improvement.  Too little too late though.  The reality was I arrived in Colorado without having run in 3 months and with still painful foot and ankle tendonitis. I didn't care.  I was determined to have my Ragnar experience.  My motto for the weekend:  tape that foot to oblivion and gut it out.

Mike and I flew into Denver on Thursday evening, and early Friday morning (Sept 6) we arrived at Copper Mountain Resort in Breckenridge.  Having never been west of Chicago, I was getting my first good look at gorgeous Colorado mountain scenery.

Our first runner went off at 8:30am.  Because of the way the team is divided, the whole team doesn’t have to be at every exchange and my van consisted of runners 7-12.  We still headed out to the first few exchange points to cheer on the rest of the team, but there was a lot of waiting around for us this first day.  I was runner #11 and finally laced up my running shoes for my first run sometime around 7pm.  It was dusk when I headed out for my 3.6 mile run, so I was suited up with headlamp and reflective gear.

A good look, yes?

I headed out full of energy.  I was running again. Wheeee!  In a Ragnar relay. Yay!  In Colorado. Amazing!  In the mountains at like 9K feet elevation.  SHIT. I. CAN’T. BREATHE.  Less than half a mile in and I was gasping for air.  And I mean seriously gasping.  My first thought had been “damn, I really am out of shape” but it quickly dawned on me that elevation was probably catching up to this East Coast flatlander.  I slowed my pace and took deep breaths and got into a decent rhythm by mile 2, which was good because by that time, dusk had turned to pitch black.  

I found Mike amidst a sea of reflective vests and blinky lights, handed over the bracelet, and sent him on his way.  His first run was short too, and the next several hours were spent hunting up food and trying to get a little rest on a gym floor at an exchange point before my van was back on and we starting driving to exchanges again.  This second rotation was tough.  Everyone stayed positive but I know I was hungry, tired, and starting to get cranky.  We all got lazier about getting out of the van to cheer each other on, and the whole event seemed to be turning from something fun to something we were just trying to survive.

My second run was sometime around 3:30am.  It was a short 2.6 miles on a bike path along a river.  I’m sure it was beautiful but it was pitch black so pretty much impossible to appreciate the scenery.  Physically, this run felt better than the first, but I'm so out of running shape that nothing was coming easy.  I consciously noted the uniqueness of what I was doing and tried to enjoy the peace and soak up the experience.   With a throbbing ankle, I pushed up a small hill at the end excited to hand off to Mike, but when I jogged through the exchange and shouted for him, no answer.  The small crowd at the exchange let out a collective “awwww…”.  Well that was anticlimactic.  Mike came trotting over a few minutes later, and I sent him on on his way.

With Mike's second run finished, our van went on “break” again.  We all got a little sleep, and I took my time changing and cleaning up at the next major exchange point where we would meet up with the other half of the team.  I felt better in fresh clothes and with brushed teeth, but I was weary of the whole Ragnar thing by this point.  Really, this is what I chose over more time in London?  My ankle was aching, my calves were full of knots, and I was not really looking forward to climbing back into the van or grinding out another 3 miles.

Daylight helped with that.  A lot.

Once the sun was fully up and we were back on the road, I got a second wind.  So much more to see and appreciate in daylight.  

My last run was beautiful.  It was along a valley between the mountains and I could finally enjoy the scenery surrounding me as I ran.  These last few miles were the toughest though.  My left foot and ankle were throbbing, and I’m pretty sure I had a golf ball lodged in my right calf so I took it easy running a slower pace on the flats and walking up the hills.  With the whole team cheering at the last exchange, I soared in and handed off the bracelet to Mike for the last time.  

Mike had a tough 8 mile trail run for his last leg, which finished at the Snowmass resort in Aspen.  The team met him at the top of a ski slope and everyone ran down together to the finish line at the bottom.  I was hobbling a little by this point and had to focus to keep my footing down the hill, but I managed to stay upright long enough to cross the finish.

 And with that, the Ragnar journey came to an end.  A few hours later….BEST. SHOWER. EVER.

Final thoughts on Ragnar?  Amazing but exhausting.  A complete blast sometimes but really tedious at others.  During the event, I said I thought I would be one and done with Ragnar (I think I had been awake for about 36 hours at that point).  But when Mike and I got home and starting looking through the pictures everyone posted, every second of the hungry, cranky, cramped minutes seemed worth it.  Yes, I was in crap running shape and running injured, but the experience was still pretty awesome.  I had to bail on a lot of events this year because of my injury issues, and I'm so grateful my body held together enough to let me participate in Ragnar.  I doubt another Ragnar event is my near future, but I think I would definitely do it again one day if the opportunity comes up.  For now, resting my foot and ankle and getting it fully healed is priority #1.

Big plans for 2014. Big. Huge. And I need two healthy feet.  Maybe I'll take up knitting in the meantime.

26.2

I am so behind.  So very very behind on this blog.  While normally I would not feel the need to recap something I did 3 weeks ago, this one is too big to skip.

 After 26 miles, the sweetest sight in the world:

SHAM-ROCK ON, BABY!!

On March 18, after 4 hours, 19 minutes, and 53 seconds, I dragged my aching body across the finish line and officially finished my first marathon. Around mile 21, I reached the ridiculously obvious conclusion that running a marathon ain't easy.  Yup, I truly learn everything the hard way.  Shamrock took every ounce of mental and physical strength I could muster.  Here's how it went down.


First of all everyone says not to set a time goal for your first marathon, which is excellent advice that I completely ignored.  I tried to not set a time goal.  I really really tried.  But seriously, I set knitting goals for myself so I think it's safe to say I'm a goal-oriented person.  No goal?  No way.  And while I told people I was aiming to come in between 4 hours and 4:15, what I really meant was: I'm going to try to go sub-4 for my first marathon.  The crazy bells in my head should have gone off when I devised this little plan, but based on my most recent half-marathon time, the omniscient McMillian calculator told me I should be able to run a 4 hour marathon, so I prefer to think of the sub-4 goal as optimistic rather than delusional.

Race Day
At 6am, Mike headed out to the half marathon, which started 90 minutes before the full, and I now had 2  hours before I would head out to my race.  I very methodically ate and stretched and got dressed.  I pinned my bib on 3 different ways and jogged around the hotel room to see which way was the least annoying.  Yeah, clearly 2 hours is way too much time.  When 8am finally rolled around I packed up my waist belt, put on my new kick-ass arm warmers, and headed downstairs to the start line.  Less than 15 minutes later the crowd was off and I was starting my watch.

The first 10 miles went pretty much according to plan.  I kept a steady pace between 9-9:15 min/mile.  There's not much to say about this part of the race--I ran, I looked around at people, I thanked volunteers, I cursed cow bells occasionally.   For the first couple of miles I ran near a woman whose shirt read:  3 marathons, 3 days.  Some runner behind me asked her about it, and sure enough she had run a marathon on Friday (I didn't hear which one), the National Marathon in DC the day before, and Shamrock was her third in as many days.  I seriously didn't know whether to bow down in amazement or cuff her upside the head for being just that crazy, but of course I did neither and kept running.

Around mile 9 or 10, I got my first inkling that maybe this whole running a marathon thing wasn't going to be a walk in the park.  The course turned onto the hard concrete boardwalk and into headwinds.  My knee began aching, and I started to feel a little tired.  Tired?  Already?!  Not a good sign.  Yet did I adjust my pace?  Nah...I had that goal time in mind and all.

I knew Mike and some friends would be looking out for me around mile 12, where we turned back onto the road and started up toward the half-marathon course, so that's where I set my focus.  When I passed them, I got a huge boost from the super loud cheers of my friends and perked up a bit. I felt like a million bucks again!  Soon enough I crossed the 13.1 timing mat right on track for that 4 hour finish.

Then my race started to go downhill. 

We were now running into some headwinds, but I stayed focused and was determined to push hard through the next 3 miles since I knew the course turned around mile 16 and the conditions should be better.  I gritted my teeth and kept going.  Even though my pace dropped to about 9:30 in this stretch, I was passing people like crazy--in retrospect that really should have been a clue that maybe I was working too hard, but I knew that I'd be fine once I got out of that wind.  I was so wrong.  So very wrong.

We finally turned out of the wind but my quads were throbbing by this point.  During training I had various ailments--calves, achilles, hip flexors, and knees all acted up at some point, but quads?  Never.  I ran 18 and 20 mile training runs over hilly terrain and never had any lasting quad pain.  Here I thought I was going to be in great shape with all my hilly runs, but nope, it was on the pancake flat Shamrock course that my quads decided they had had enough of this whole marathon thing. Somewhere during mile 17, I took my first walking break, and by mile 18, I abandoned my race strategy, gave myself permission to forget about that ambitious 4 hour goal, and set my mind to just finishing the damn marathon.  I can't begin to explain the last 8 miles.  I was tired and they were hard.  I know, I know, that's pretty much the least profound thing you can say about a marathon but that's all I've got.

I trudged on smiling at cheering crowds and photographers hoping to disguise my overwhelming desire to collapse. My pace continued to plummet as walking breaks became more frequent, and I tried to not let my heart sink when the 4:15 pace group passed me.  Just. Keep. Moving. Forward.  And then finally--FINALLY--I turned back onto the boardwalk and saw the beautiful "FINISH".  Of course about 2 seconds after I saw it, I realized it was still about a quarter mile away, which at that point seemed like a very long way.  I've never finished a race without picking up my pace and sprinting to the finish.  After 26 miles, there was no sprinting, barely an increase in speed at all, but I put aside my aching legs and blistered feet and finished with a huge smile waving to Mike and my friends, who let out another awesomely loud cheer.

"HOLY CRAP I FINISHED A FREAKIN' MARATHON!! GO ME!!!"

 I would really like to say that's what I thought when I crossed the finish, but truthfully, it was more like, "Thank freakin' God this is over".  As I was staggering forward I saw....my MOM?!  My parents had driven up from Atlanta to see me cross the finish line.  It was both a huge surprise and not surprising at all, but either way, it was awesome.  I gave my Mom a quick hug and then continued through the finish chute, collecting my medal, a sweatshirt and hat (Shamrock did not skimp on the swag), and a huge shamrock-shaped cookie with green sugar that was the most delicious thing ever (gluten-free, sugar-free diet? Whatever, I had just finished 26.2 miles, so I was eating that sugar cookie!)

When I reached the end and found Mike and my friends, I asked where I could find my Dad, thinking my parents had surely told Mike they were coming.  That got me some strange looks and my friends exchanged concerned glances that clearly said "get her to medical, she's hallucinating".  I eventually did convince Mike that my parents really were there and I had actually spoken to my mother.  Before I went on the parental hunt, it was suggested that I wade into the freezing cold ocean as sort of a post-race ice bath.  Now several of the people I was there with are uber-experienced triathletes so I was going to follow their advice.  I slipped out of my running shoes and peeled off my socks, got my first look at my poor blistered feet (I will spare you the details), and headed out into the frigid water.

 

My verdict on the post-race dip in the cold ocean?  Good in theory and except for the numb toes, the water did feel nice.  But having to brace yourself against crashing waves when you've just run 26 miles?  Ouch.  With my "recovery" bath over, I wanted to finally find my parents.  I was too tired to think through looking for them (and my blistered feet weren't so easy to walk on), so Mike tracked them down and I was finally allowed to sit on the beach.

Love you guys!

All those patches on my Dad's jacket?  Most are from his many many marathon finishes. I've got a long way to go to catch him.

So there you go--Heather's first marathon in a nutshell.  My only regret is that I couldn't let myself go into the race without a time goal or at least a more forgiving goal.  Having such an ambitious goal meant I probably pushed a little too hard in the first half of the race and then crossed the finish feeling like I didn't do a good job.  Now that I've had some time to think about it, I'm super proud of myself and my 4:19, but I wish I had crossed the finish line with that feeling instead of realizing it days later.  Even with the slight disappointment, my marathon was amazing and I can't wait to do it all over again. My Dad told me that at the end of every marathon he ran, he always said "never again".  All I could think during those last 8 miles was that I knew I had a better race in me.  Apparently, I'm not a one and done kind of girl.  My feet are still healing, but I'm already bouncing around ideas about a second marathon in the fall.

But until then, yarn, fiber, and all things knitting. Promise. Well except for that whole half-Ironman thing in June...

November Wrap-Up

Along with most of 2011, November has flown.  It was definitely one of my more productive knitting months (yay for setting goals!).  While I feel as though I should be able to boast more than 2 finished projects, considering both of those projects were started well over a year ago, I've decided to just be thankful that they have permanently vacated the WIP drawer and move onto December and my ambitious goal of finishing all remaining 5 WIPs.  Part of me wants to laugh out loud at that goal.  The other part is downright determined.

Speaking of determination, this is also my first big test on the marathon training schedule (last week was an easy week to recover from the Annapolis Half): 7 miles Tuesday, 4 on Thursday, and 15 (?!) on Saturday.   Seriously, 15.  Gah!  The 7 miler went well yesterday and 4 should be fine tomorrow, but Wednesday is cross-training day on the schedule.  I just dragged myself in the door from work and errands and would like nothing more than to settle down on the couch with my sock-in-progress, perhaps with a puppy cuddled next to me, and do nothing but knit for the rest of the evening.  But I'm not going to do that.  I'm going to go climb on my bike trainer and stick to the training schedule.

So sadly for now, the bike trainer trumps blogging about my November spinning project.  It started with 8 ounces of polwarth fiber beautifully dyed by Two if By Hand.

The rest will have to wait until tomorrow.

The Next Big Thing

I was so geared up Friday night for the Annapolis half marathon because I had a very specific goal:  finish under two hours.

 

I came home with stiff tired legs, a big smile, and a nice feeling of accomplishment.  I stopped my watch a little late, and my official time was 1:52:26.  While I would love to think I finished a half marathon in that time, my watch also reads 12.71 for distance.  Uh, that's supposed to be 13.1.  Everyone I talked to had roughly the same distance so it seems that the course was a little short.  Even if I add an extra four minutes to my time to account for the difference, I still would have come in around 1:56, well under the two hour goal.  Accordingly, race photos show me with a big smile as I crossed the finish line.

A day and a half later, and I might still have that same smile.

A performance I feel good about at the Annapolis race also brings with it some nervous excitement for my next big athletic endeavor. A few months ago, I started considering the idea of training for a full marathon.  I had never aspired to run such a distance (of course until last year, I had never really considered running a half either), but with Mike gearing up to start training for his Ironman triathlon next summer, I'm motivated to do something big.  Something that requires a lot of work and dedication.  And for whatever reason, the half-Ironman triathlon I'll be doing in June didn't seem to be enough (yeah, that just sounds crazy--I have no explanation).  I focused my attention on the Annapolis half to see how I felt at 13 miles before making any decisions about aiming for 26.2.  Feeling good and having a strong performance at Annapolis sealed the deal.  Training for the Shamrock marathon on March 18, 2012, officially begins next week. 

I haven't quite figured out details, but I'm fairly certain a yarn/fiber incentive or reward should be worked into my training program.

Anticipation

I feel like I've knit a good bit this week.  The evidence, however, does not support that statement.

I was so completely bored with with this project, I considered giving up and relegating these mitts to the frog pond.  As soon as I bound off the first mitt, I cast on the second, and my enthusiasm has finally started to pick back up.  I'm still clearly inching along, but at least I'm enjoying the knitting now instead of cursing every stitch.

I've taken a bit of a break from knitting this evening, as I'm too preoccupied with pre-race excitement to think about much else. I'm bouncing around the house eagerly anticipating a bright and early morning when I'll be running 13.1 miles at the Annapolis Half Marathon.  I've been gearing up for this race ever since my somewhat disappointing end to triathlon season about six weeks ago (two flats and cramping calves did not quite translate to the finish I was hoping for).  Unlike my first half marathon last year, I know I can run the distance.  Last year I was nervous; tonight I'm just feeling psyched and ready to go.  This evening I brought home some new running gear and have spent the evening trying on possible race outfits and gathering my supplies. 

Bring it on Annapolis!

Never say never

As a kid growing up, I watched my Dad finish marathon after marathon.  By the time I was a teenager he had run 20 marathons.  He tried to get me involved in running, but it never took.  For pretty much my entire life, I jogged sporadically for exercise but never seriously.  Three miles was the farthest I worked up to, and I never had much enthusiasm to try to push further.  Until this year. 

A little over a week ago, Mike and I flew down to Orlando, Florida (Disney World!), and on October 2 at 10pm, I started jogging with a crowd of over 12 thousand at the Disney Wine&Dine half-marathon.  A little after midnight on October 3, I finished my first half-marathon--13.1 miles!

Mike and I pre-race

It was so much fun! The course took you through three Disney parks, and there were bands and characters along the way cheering on the runners.  We ended in Epcot for a late-night party, and got back to our hotel sometime around 4am.  The whole experience was a blast from start to finish, and I can't explain how excited I am about this accomplishment.  It's huge for me.  A year ago, I would have never believed I would be able to run this distance.  I ran more slowly than I hoped and missed my target time by about 10 minutes, but I could care less.  I finished a half-marathon, running the entire race (except planned walking through the water stops), and that's all that matters.

I spent the next several days pretending I was Minnie Mouse.

It was a much needed vacation from home, from work, and I admit, even from knitting.  Despite great intentions, I did almost no knitting.  I think I needed the break.  I'm ready to make all kinds of progress now.  Let the fall knitting begin!