chicknamedchuck

According to the Long Beach Marathon webpage, I have precisely: 80 days, 6 hours, 36 minutes, 47 seconds until race time!

Gulp!

I’m 5 weeks into my marathon training and it’s going well.  I’m excited and anxious and often, surprised.  A few blogs back, I wrote: “One of my favorite things about running is that I surprise myself” and more and more these days I’m finding that’s the absolute truth.

In yet another blog, I wrote about my mid-year’s resolution to shift my focus from quantity to quality–from mileage to speed.  And so I dove into my first marathon training plan, which includes different types of running workouts (all of which are completely new to me): hills, time trials, marathon pace runs, strides, speedwork, tempo runs, Yasso 800s…

Again, gulp!

But, really, it’s going well.  I have 11 weeks and 438 miles of training to go before I’ll run my 5th marathon–the 1st for which I’ve openly and repeatedly declared a challenging time goal for myself: Break 4 hours!  So like I said, there’s excitement and anxiety.  Oh yeah, and surprise.  As for that…

I’ve been following my plan To. The. Letter. …until last Friday when I woke up with a sore throat that rapidly progressed into a horrendously awful summer cold that had me laid up for three solid days.  Saturday, Sunday, and Monday, crawled by, miserably slow, as I toted around my box of Kleenex, downed Sudafed every 4 hours, slept, whined, coughed, and slept some more.  And I didn’t run at all.

Three days without running was the longest hiatus I’ve had in months, so when I woke up on Tuesday, finally able to breathe (out of one nostril, at least!), I ignored that overly cautious, health coachy voice in me that said: “Take it easy, Meg!” and off I went.

I was barely 100 yards from my house when I felt that euphoric high of getting back: the fresh air, the wind in my hair, the freedom between each stride and each breath.  I didn’t have a plan, a route, a goal, but decided to just run whatever distance and speed felt good, knowing this would be an “easy run” for the books and I should aim for my plan’s easy run pace of 10:00/mile.

And so I ran, nice and easy, smooth and strong (and probably grinning from ear to ear, thrilled to be free), but when I stopped for water at the park, 3 miles in, I was shocked to see my time was just under 26 minutes.  I was also shocked at how phenomenal I felt, so instead of turning home, I headed for the ocean, reminding myself: “Take it easy.  Remember, this is a recovery run.”

I ran along the ocean, around the bay and back home, picking it up for the final two-tenths to bring it to 6.2 miles in… what’s that?… 52:49!!!!

In the words of my Nana: “I almost dropped my teeth.”

I came in the house and excitedly shared the news with my dog, Sully, who was jumping for joy and wagging his tail all over the place.  He was so thrilled for me.  Okay, maybe he was just happy to be licking the sweat off my calves…

What’s so thrilling about 10K in 52:49, you ask?

Well, if you noticed my 10K PR on my profile, it’s 55:47, so, that’s, like, pretty flippin’ awesome to have smoked that PR during an “easy run.”

Also, along with my mid-year’s resolution blog, I set a few race goals for myself, one being to: “Run a 10K in less than 52:00,” which would be 8:23/mile–my BQ marathon goal pace–which felt like a super ambitious, pie-in-the-sky, dream-of-a-goal, when I declared it… but I did it anyway thinking: I’ll get there one day…

Nope, I didn’t quite hit my goal this week, but I certainly could’ve if I’d tried!  Instead, I almost, accidently!, hit that goal while out for a blissful Tuesday easy run after three days of sickness…

Huh.  Surprised myself, yet again.

Two days ago, my hubby and I settled on doing the Rock ‘n’ Roll Las Vegas Marathon on 12/5 and I elatedly wrote it on my calendar (in pen!), mapped out my training plan, and started telling everyone I know: “I’m running Vegas, Baby!”

…but I couldn’t stop thinking about other marathons.

I continued to obsessively check and re-check marathonguide.com.  It’s like I was secretly hoping a new marathon would pop up and it’d be right outside my front door–the magical marathon where all my dreams would come true: ultra-fast, a guaranteed Boston-qualifier, and one I couldn’t second-guess myself out of doing.

When I hopped onto the website for the Portland Marathon (on 10/10/10, which is so ridiculously cool!) and read that it’s almost full, I got all jittery and panicky thinking: “OH NO!  What if that’s the one I’m supposed to do?!”  And it dawned on me:

I really want to do a marathon in October.

Do I have some kind of weird intuition going on that October is my magic month?  Am I simply obsessed?  I’ve admitted time and time again that I’m addicted to racing.  And signing up for marathons is, like, the best… but I just really really reeeally wanna do two more marathons this year.  Vegas is rad, and all, but I want another!

Why, you ask?  And why, if I want it so badly, have I not signed up?

Although my marathon PR is 4:13:20, I know I have a BQ in me.  Shaving 33 minutes off your best/fastest/hardest marathon effort… Now, that’s intimidating: cue reason #1 why I’ve tip-toed around marathon sign-ups.

Also, all four of the marathons I have done, I’ve run with my hubby, so there’s a part of me that’s completely terrified that if I run a marathon without that marathon mainstay that… well… I’ll completely bomb!  And voila, we have reason #2 for October marathon anxiety: I’m superstitious!

So what’s a girl to do?  Well, if you read my blog title, then you already know the happily ever after: 

I signed up for the Long Beach International Marathon on 10/17!!!!!!!!

• Long Beach is only two hours north of us, so that solves the travel/airfare/financial dilemma.
• I’m following my “BREAK 4:00 OR BUST!” plan and will aim for shaving 14 minutes off my PR (that’s a whole lot less intimidating than 33 minutes, eh?).
• Jared–the gosh, darn, bestest hubby in the world–will spectate (for the first time!) and I will wear my big girl panties, facing my fear of running a race without my lucky charm.
• I’m thinking some solo long runs will do me good, helping build some mental toughness.

Most importantly, I will continue to chase down a dream that once-upon-a-time sounded absolutely CRAZY: me, the unathletic, noncompetitive, artsy kid, qualifying for Boston… What?  Yep, crazy is the best word for it.

Then again, I wholeheartedly believe in the truth behind this quote because I see the truth in it every single time I go out for a run…

“To succeed, you have to believe in something with such a passion that it becomes a reality.” (-Anita Roddick)

On June 6th, at the finish line of the Rock ‘n’ Roll San Diego Marathon, I was trembling, nauseous, and collapsed in a pile of sweaty exhaustion and joy.  Every cell in my body was fatigued and yet I was elatedly contemplating which marathon to sign up for next.

I won’t deny that I’m a little bit crazy.  I’m also addicted to racing, ultra-ambitious, and even overzealous when it comes to running because, well, I love it!  So when my husband was like: “Whoa, whoa, whoa, let’s ride the high for a bit and dive into what’s next a little later,” I did my best to put my excitement on the back-burner.

Like a child counts the days until Christmas, I pestered him: “Wanna talk about it now?  Look at this one!  Do you think we can do two more marathons this year?”  Given that I could talk running 24/7, I understand that my husband has to have selective hearing in order to maintain his own sanity, but my marathon ambitions were received with a lot of half-listening and promises that: “We’ll talk about it later.”

And so I grew increasingly impatient, anxious and a wee bit sad with the realization that I might not run any more marathons until 2011… Until!  Yesterday morning, when I least expected it, I got the most amazing email from my hubby saying:

“I’m feeling pretty fired up to do the Vegas Marathon.”

Yay, yay, yay, yay, YAY!!!!!!!!  Registration is not yet official (that’s when I’ll get REALLY stoked), but naturally, I have my training all mapped out.  We’re considering all of our options as far as travel and accommodations and it’s looking like my first trip to Vegas will include a runner’s high and a race medal, baby!!!!

I make these declarations on a weekly basis and I could probably fill an entire book with “my favorite things about running,” but today’s is this:

I surprise myself.

On Sunday, my husband and I ran the Coronado Independence Day 15K.  In the past couple years that we’ve gotten into running, we’ve been all about conquering distance.  We’ve done 4 half marathons, 4 marathons and only a couple 5Ks and 10Ks.  This 15K distance was completely new for us, and I had no idea what to expect (or hope for) from myself.  This was also my first week of marathon training and according to my plan, I was scheduled for a 9 miler at 10:04/mile.

I didn’t set any goals for myself out loud, but my secret, pie-in-the-sky, dream goal was to run at what my plan defines as “Marathon Goal Pace” (9:09/mile or faster), but I had huge doubts and wouldn’t dare to verbalize my goal.

We showed up for the 7:00am race at 5:30, so we chilled in the car, tried some cola-flavored Clif Shot Bloks (NOT a fan of this flavor!), made a couple nervous trips to the bathrooms and finally, it was go-time!  The first mile was ridiculously congested, with narrow pathways, so jockeying through the crowd was impossible.  When we got to the 1st mile marker at 12 minutes, I thought there was no way I’d hit my secret goal and I let it go.

We got into a good groove during the 2nd mile and I didn’t bother looking at my Garmin until we hit mile 6–in 56 minutes!  I kicked it up a notch, realizing it wasn’t completely out of reach to finish in 1:25.  The last few tenths of a mile took us through grassy fields at Tidelands Park and one by one, I sprinted past other runners, FINALLY taking down the chick in the purple that I’d been trailing behind since the start!  I hit Stop on my Garmin and swung around to watch Jared finish, just seconds behind me!  As we walked toward the water tables, I looked at my Garmin and almost exploded with excitement when I realized I smoked my goal!

According to my ol’ buddy Garmin, I ran 9.48 miles in 1:22:23 (8:41/mile)!  “Officially,” that was 9.3 miles in 1:22:23, which is 8:51/mile but shoot, I’ll take it!!!!

The post-race party was virtually non-existant.  There were paper cups of water, orange slices and some green bananas, so we threw back some water, and stretched out on the grass for a bit while I squealed in excitement, saying over and over: “I can’t believe we did it!  I can’t believe we did it!”  ***I should also mention that I felt so GREAT, I’m 100% confident I could have held that pace for a half marathon, which would have me finishing in under 2:00, easily!

This race rocked so hard I couldn’t care less about the lack of swag, medals and post-race goodies!  And yes, I surprised the heck out of myself.