Thursday, January 03, 2008

Carlsbad Can't Come Soon Enough

I am weary, people. Weary of running. Or rather, weary of marathon training.

I have been training on and off for a marathon since July. Because of several major life changes (e.g. moving across the country, starting a new job, buying a house on the west coast, managing our places on the east coast, blah, blah blah),
my target marathon date changed from November, then re-scheduled for December, and now January.

That's more than six months of 12-20 mile weekend long runs, whether I wanted to run them or not.

Running lately has been a struggle mentally, as well as physically. And I didn't want to project my crankiness about our sport onto you.

So that's one reason why you haven't heard from me lately.

Last Saturday, I ran 19.5 miles. I logged the first 10 in my neighborhood, and the remaining 9.5 when it got dark and the temps dropped 20 degrees, in the Caltech gym. Boy, was I happy to finish.


And my scheduled 8-miler today turned into a 4-miler because my hamstrings were still tired from doing a 6-mile tempo run on Wednesday night.

But here I am. But with holiday photos! The first one is from Christmas. We did a White Elephant gift exchange, and one present I picked turned out to be a juicy bone. That's why Nelson, our chocolate-lab mix, looks so interested in the picture. At the far left of the frame is E.'s mom, who is laughing.

The second photo was taken after E., his mom, and I played tennis on Christmas Day, on a sunny and balmy afternoon. Apparently, playing tennis on Christmas is an E. family tradition.

The third is of me and my grandmother looking at the Rose Parade floats a couple of days before the actual parade. And the fourth photo is of the float sponsored and created by my new company. Cool, huh?!

10 comments:

  1. You got it all done and that's what counts. Carlsbad is almost here and then you can be a not runner for a while - until your need to run becomes overwhelming :-)

    The Rose Parade is cool.

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  2. I love the Rose Parade. I get up no matter what to watch it the first time on New Years Day, even though they rerun it all day long.

    Hopefully the taper will ease the crankiness (maybe, just maybe).

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  3. 19.5 miles, huh. I feel like such a slug. Your dedication, including the 26 mile training run in HI, should stand you in good stead in Carlsbad. Then you can take time off and relax and be lazy for awhile. I took two months off after my NYCM. b/c I'd been at it too long. Thanks for the comment.

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  4. I admire you for sticking with it despite the kind of life changes that would likely force a lot of folks to bail. It'll soon be over and you can run whenever you want. Or don't.

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  5. I so feel your pain. I've been thinking of posting something similar too :-)

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  6. Great pics.

    Typing in Tahoe right now. Man oh man -- snow snow snow! Flying home tomorrow. I didn't run a single step, sadly. But safely!

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  7. Sounds like you're ready for a running break! I think a lot of us runners get to a point where we need to take a step back & focus on other things in our lives & let running take a back seat for awhile. You can return to running feeling stronger & more motivated.

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  8. how do the elites do it? putting in all those miles week after week? Stick a fork in you, you're done! (Well, soon!)

    Great photos btw. looks like you had a lovely holiday.

    BTW, your husband and I are planning quite a night tomorrow.

    :)

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  9. I can't find your e-mail address (damn hotmail!). Did you want to get together while you're down here next weekend? We could meet for pasta near Carlsbad or closer to my place.

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  10. That's a lot of miles, you're going to race awesome!

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