December Currently

I'm feeling like I want to write but have no ideas, so I'm borrowing these currently prompts from Michelle for a December edition of my current mood.

reading: Paul Tripp's daily advent devotional, but other than that nothing. A few months ago I thought I was going to make a reading comeback. R had the day off school, and I took us to our local library to get a library card and check out some books. I got three and read them all in 2 weeks! It was amazing! But I can only handle one hobby at a time, and I have too many hobbies and not enough time left over at the end of the day between when I finally crawl out of F's room and when I crawl into my bed.

drinking: I'm trying to focus on increasing my water intake. When I was training for the marathon, I felt like I was constantly thirsty and could never get enough. Now I have to remind myself to drink water and often forget until lunchtime.

rejoicing: that the USPS found my lost package! I ordered some scrapbooking stamps from a company that was going out of business and having a sale. The package was scanned as delivered but wasn't, and I was super sad because it's not like I could get my stamps. They were sold out forever. I put in a request through the USPS website, and they found and delivered my missing items within two days! Oh the things you find exciting as an adult.

annoyed: that F is in a phase where he pretty much cries unless I am holding him. He's attached to me and only me, and it's cute but also annoying because I can't live my best life carrying 28 pounds on one hip every second of the day.

thankful: speaking of carrying babies, I'm thankful that the chiropractor helped my back pain. I'm not one of those people who thinks going to the chiropractor will solve all problems, but the three times I've gone in my life, he certainly has solved my back problem. Last Thursday I got down on the floor to crawl out of F's room (he cries if he sees me leave, so I crawl out every single night), and when I stretched my arms out, I felt my back twinge and then blinding pain so bad I had to lie down on the floor for a minute before I could get the rest of the way out. I went to the chiropractor on Tuesday, and there was so. much. popping. Truthfully I find seeing a chiropractor mildly terrifying, but he popped back whatever it was, and I'm feeling much better.

watching: last week I watched While You Were Sleeping twice. It's my favorite movie of all time, and the best Christmas movie, and I love everything about it.

buying: my love of gift giving haunts me every holiday. I truly enjoy finding the perfect gift, but that also means I'm very picky, and it causes stress when I can't find anything that feels right. Yes, a gift card is easiest and everyone likes money, but I don't like buying people gift cards. Though I never mind getting them!

checking: for at least a week I was checking the tracking on that lost USPS package, but now it's here and I can move on to my next thing to be bothered about.

listening: to Christmas music or Toddler radio. The kids, specifically F, love having songs on while they are home, so we usually have Pandora playing something throughout the day.

thankful: for three healthy, creative, fun children. The kids are a lot right now. They are loud and kind of aggressive with each other, and we have our fair share of emotions, but I am honestly loving this stage too. They are so fun and always saying something that makes me laugh.

loving: our Home Chef meal delivery boxes. We get one box a month, and they are so fun. We haven't had a meal yet that we don't like, and the estimated time is almost exactly how long it takes to make. The last time I looked at my account it said I have 3 free boxes I can send to a new member. Let me know if you want one, and I will email you the link. Not sponsored, but loving was the prompt, and we just ate our Home Chef meal tonight and it was so yummy!

surprised: that it's almost the end of the year. I know it's cliche and everyone says it, but I honestly do not remember a year that has gone so fast. It felt like every time a new month started, it was just a few days before it was time for the next month. 2020 was super hard and weird and felt long to me, but I blinked and 2021 is almost over. I don't understand.

Chicago Marathon Race Recap

I sincerely appreciate everyone who followed along on my marathon training, wished me luck for my race, and congratulated me on my finish. It felt a little bit like I took all of you on the journey with me. 

Marathon training took over our life for a while, and I definitely had a week of "marathon blues" after the race. It has been strange going from running four times a week, constantly thinking about when and where my runs would be, times and paces, and anxiety and anticipation leading up to traveling to Chicago... to being done and over. I have only run a few times in the last 3 weeks, and I miss being so active and running toward a goal, but I love not having to scheduling a long run in my weekend, and I like having my evenings free.

The night before I flew to Chicago, I reread the recaps I wrote of my previous two marathons, both in 2013 (April and December). In both of those races, my goal time was 4:30, the same goal time I had for the Chicago Marathon, and my times were 4:14 and 4:15. In both of those recaps, I broke the 26.2 miles into chunks of miles: feeling this way during miles x-x, feeling this way through miles x-x. Basically for both of my 2013 marathons I felt really good through the first 10 or so miles, just having fun, feeling good, and the miles went quickly. The end got hard obviously, but I beat my goal time and felt positive about how the races went. 

I tried to tell myself that my main goal for Chicago was to have fun and finish the race, and of course I wanted to do those things, but secretly I assumed that this race would be similar to the others. Realistically, I know that makes no sense. I'm 8 years older than I was when I ran those. I've had 3 babies since then. My life is so different now; my body is different. But I truly feel like I trained harder for this race than I have ever trained for a race. I ran more often, with more varied types of runs, and the majority of my training paces were at or better than a 4:30 marathon pace. I felt like a 4:30 marathon was a lock, if not (if I had an amazing day) getting close to or beating those previous times.

Some days as a runner, you're really feeling it. You find a groove, and even a hard effort isn't too hard. You look down at your watch and realize the time has slipped away, and you're farther than you thought. It's a good day to run. Other days, for a million different reasons or no specific reason at all, it just feels hard. Running isn't fun. It's work, and you never quite feel like your feet ever lift off the ground.

The long story short of this marathon recap is: my 2021 Chicago Marathon felt really hard. It just wasn't my day to show off all my months of training and run fast and have fun and feel like the miles (at least those first couple) were flying by.

We passed the start line, and I wanted to run slower than my goal pace, because my plan was to start off slow and get faster as the race went on. I wanted to finish faster than I started. 

And I did start slow. The problem was that the slow pace still felt fast, and it felt hard.

I passed mile 3, and I said to myself, "This is going to be hard. My only goal is to finish." At mile THREE of a marathon. Not good.

The miles did not fly by, and the whole thing felt like work. Several times throughout the race I tried to pick up the pace, and I honestly thought I was running faster, but looking at my splits, I really wasn't. I can't even break up my race recap into parts like I did the other two, because the whole thing just felt the same: hard, counting mile by mile.

The only time during the whole race where I felt like I was in any kind of groove was the last couple of miles. I did manage to get faster at the end like I wanted and came in with a negative split. A negative split for anyone who doesn't know is when you run the second half of a run faster than the first half. My first half marathon time was 2:22, and my second half marathon was 2:15. 

Finish time 4:37

I ran toward the finish line and heard them call my name! That was really cool. The guy was only calling out random names every so often, so it just happened to be me, and that was exciting. I crossed the finish line and got teary eyed almost immediately. I felt so proud of myself for doing this and so happy to be at the finish line and getting my medal.

I went through the line and got some food and drinks, and then I texted my family to ask what the app said my time was, because my watch was all messed up. When they said 4:37, I started crying again, but this time it was because I felt really sad. It probably sounds silly to say that I finished a marathon and then felt sad about my time. Just finishing is a huge accomplishment, I know. But I had been training for months and months, and I was so disappointed because I felt like my race day did not reflect the work I'd put in over all those hours of training. I felt super frustrated that it felt so hard the whole time.

So yes, I sat on the ground in front of Buckingham fountain in Grant Park in downtown Chicago, and I cried because I finished my marathon seven minutes slower than my goal time.

I won't lie: I spent the week following the race being mopey about those seven minutes. Jordan can tell you this is the truth. I just overall felt bummed. I'm sure I annoyed people. I was annoying myself.

But it's been three weeks since the race, and I can now tell you that I am able to see things in a much more positive light. First, although I didn't hit my main goal of 4:30, I did hit my C goal of 4:45. Second, I did finish the dang thing, and based on how I was feeling so early in the race, that's something I'm very proud of.

Third, and much more fun and exciting: my mom, dad, brother, sister-in-law, and baby niece were an amazing cheer section! They were able to see me 5 times during the race, take pictures and videos, and it definitely lifted my spirits. It was so fun to have them there! Jordan and the kids watched the live stream of the race at home, and they saw me cross the finish line and have my name called. And the rest of my family was tracking me and asking for updates. I am so thankful for such a supportive and encouraging family. I absolutely could not have done this without Jordan being so supportive of my running hobby.

Was it the perfect race situation where I crushed my goals and felt like I had a great day? No, it wasn't. But what I have been reflecting on over the past couple of weeks is that one race day doesn't have to define me as a runner. I can choose how I think about this race, and how I talk about it with other people. I can choose to stay disappointed in my time and how I felt during the race, or I can choose to be proud of all that I accomplished through this entire training schedule. 

I trained for and ran a marathon without getting injured once during the process.

I paid attention to my diet and water intake leading up to the race and didn't have any GI issues during the marathon.

I flew to another state to race in a world marathon major, and I finished in the top 50% of 26,000 runners.

I ran a negative split.

I remember setting a bucket list goal in 2010 to run a half marathon. It felt like so much.
And now I've finished my third full marathon. Thanks so much, again, to everyone for the congrats and the well wishes. I appreciate it so much. Definitely a weekend I'll never forget!

"In running, it doesn't matter whether you come in first, in the middle of the pack, or last. You can say 'I have finished.' There is a lot of satisfaction in that." 
— Fred Lebow, NYC Marathon co-founder

Marathon Training Recap

I''m finally sitting down to type out a few thoughts about the past months of marathon training. 

I ran my first two marathons in 2013 (April and December), so while it's not my first time to run a marathon, it's been 8 years and 3 babies, and it feels so much different. Another aspect of this run is the fact that I have never legitimately traveled to run a race before. I bought a plane ticket and a hotel room, and Chicago is a major world marathon with elite runners from around the world, so it feels different than any other race I've ever done.

Over the last couple of weeks, as I neared the end of this 18-week training cycle, I've been thinking a lot about why I wanted to do this. The truth is, I don't have a great answer. There isn't one specific reason but rather just the desire to set a goal and push myself really hard to see if I could get there. And the other reason is Chicago. It's always been a bucket list race for me, and I'm so excited to be back in one of my favorite places, seeing the city in a way that not very many people ever have the chance.

TRAINING BREAKDOWN

I put together my own training plan using a combination of the Run Less, Run Faster plan and the official Chicago Marathon training plan. I ran 4 days a week from June to October, except for a couple of weeks. I have never in my life consistently run that much. Since June 1 I've run 69 times, 384 miles, for 64 cumulative hours.

It's been challenging to fit in my runs between my job, the kids' schedules, and just daily life. Jordan has been so supportive and helpful and encouraging, and I couldn't have done it without him. When did I fit all those runs in, you ask? A lot of the weekday runs were done during my lunch hour. I work from home now, so I could head out for a run and be back home to take a quick shower. If I didn't get my run in during the day, I would either go as soon as we put the kids to bed, or sometimes Jordan would put the kids to bed.

I preferred to get my long run out of the way and do it Saturday morning. For the really long runs that were 3+ hours, I got up at 3 or 4:00 am so I could be home by 7 or 8. It was so hot this summer that I didn't want to do them during the middle of the day, but sometimes I would go while F was napping and the big kids did quiet time or watched a show. It felt like I was constantly thinking about when my next run was, how long it would be, and when would be the best time to do it. I really don't know how people train like this on a consistent basis! I'm so glad the race is here, because Jordan and I are both burnt out, to be honest.

GOALS

I wish I could say my only goal was to finish, but that's not true. I do want to finish, obviously, but I can't help but have a time goal also. I like to set multiple goals, that way if I miss one, I can still feel satisfied with the next.

My A goal is to get a PR (personal record) and beat my best time of 4:14. My first marathon was 4:14, my second was 4:15, so getting a PR would be amazing. Part of me does think it's possible, but I honestly don't think it's likely.

My B goal is 4:30. That is the time and pace I trained at, and I would be super happy with anything under 4:30. I hit nearly all of my pace goals during my training, and I think this is a solid goal time.

My C goal is 4:45. I'd be pretty disappointed to get anything slower than that, but I also know that sometimes things happen, and ultimately I would be completely devastated to not finish at all, so with that in mind I'm shooting for 4:30 and leaving some room for the unexpected. 

My bib # is 32961 if you are interested in tracking me on Sunday! And if you have any questions about training or running, email me or leave a comment. I know this was a pretty quick rundown, and I probably missed something curious minds want to know.

I'm going to end with something I saw posted in Instagram by a running coach I follow. I'm posting it because I really liked it, and I want to have it here for me to read later when I come back to this.

"This was never about the marathon.
The true marathon was the journey to get here.
Getting on all those daily starting lines. 
Committing.
Recommitting.
You showed up to the next starting line through it all.
Over and over again. Day after day and week after week.
Well, you made it... Chicago.
And I hope you know now that you don't need a race to prove you're a runner. You race to celebrate that you're a runner. So, enjoy the party. Your party.
I hear they're even going to shut down the streets of Chicago for you. 
And you deserve it."