A year or so ago, I decided I wanted to BQ at age 60.  To do this, you had to have a 4:30 marathon.  I’m a 6 hour girl, and proud of it.  Proud that I persevered at Golden Gate Park,     Mile 18, the Potomac River & The Monsoon Marathon.  Last year, I saw that BQ would be completely out of my reach.

Until today.

I ran those angsty miles yesterday, and today I had 6 on tap.  With Hanson, you just run.  Not if you will run today, but how long.  I laced up and hit a nearby trail.  I was floating.  Like, I can’t believe how I felt.  Madonna’s “Like A Prayer” on my iPod.  Me, singing that LOUDLY…Just like a prayer, I’ll take you there.”

Perfect 11:30 target.  Exactly what I wanted.

I’m not over-confident.  I’m working my ass off, and it shows.  It’s not false bravado…You can do it.  Way to GO! You got this!…It’s real.

So, I drug out the shirt, and I put it on.  Not afraid for anyone to say, “Hey, you have never run Boston!”  I put it on, because I can see it.  I can see a BQ by 60.  I turned 53 last week…I’m training for my 5th marathon, and I’ve never been stronger.  Let’s see what I can do in San Luis Obispo, in Tucson.  I’m shooting for 5:30.  That’s a 30 minute PR, and I think it’s doable…and I have 7 years in which to work at it.

Let’s just see.  In the meantime, I’m grateful for the way the tide is shifting…

10 weeks in.  10 weeks to go. Halfway through the week.

Today, I ran 10 miles.  Grueling.  Punishing.

It started foggy.  Then a lone dog staring at me.

I picked up a stick and ran with it for 3 miles.

LSD.  Slow down.  Slow down.  

I really wanted to have the attitude that I am Just. Running.

Mile 4 had me at the Shell stop.  Funny tummy.

I took out my Clif Shot and warmed it in my hand for a mile.

Getting close to the Green Bridge, my head just started to kick in again.

I give it no energy, because, well.  It’s old news.

I’m getting tired around mile 6.  Muddy rocks off the trail.  

Dizzy over the river.

I count the miles that I have to make to make it back

and in a perfect 10 to my house.

I turn.  I come back.

My head says, wow.  You suck.  Your job situation.  

You worry about your kids.

Your sobriety looks a little shaky.  You are. a. loser.

I continue on.  I am slowing down so much that the LSD is looking attainable.

Not feeling it.

Up over the overpass.  Have to add on a half mile.  Bad math.

I run down Main Street.  I make it to that last half mile and speed up.

Because.  In this training, we don’t walk on hills, and we sprint at the end.

I get home.

My friend texts me and says:  You’re amazing.  A runner, mom,

teacher, being of service, etc. etc.

And I realize of course that the perception of others isn’t mine.

So.  It is with aplomb that I announce this glass Half Full.

It’s either halfway from the beginning, or halfway to San Luis Obispo.

Already 216 miles since December.

It’s the best I have ever felt in any training.

I need not be afraid of the marathon.  The real deal is in the training.

And, by the way.  The glass: it’s always full.

This picture made me howl.  It’s exactly the image I want to share what this week looked like.

Last weekend, I deviated from my SLO marathon plan and ran the Tinkerbell Half Marathon.  Here’s what the plan called for:  What I did for the week of 1-29-12 was jack my schedule.  Which meant, of course, that everything was shifted around to compensate for my tired legs.

Sunday, was the Half Marathon, and Monday I drove from LA to my home, a 300 mile drive.  Not only did I not have time to run, my legs just would not have allowed it.  On Tuesday, I ran the requisite 6, and was fine, but by Tuesday night, after wearing compression socks all day, I knew I had to make a change.

There is something very powerful about writing your own training plan.  For the first time in my marathon career, I had written my own plan, based on the Hanson Training Plan method.  I switched long runs.  I meticulously put tempo paces and 5K paces and set the plan on paper.  In writing the plan, you own it.  There is no one looking over your shoulder…no one to be accountable to but, well, YOU.

So I made a decision to rest on Wednesday.  I ran it by my two gal pals, and they both agreed:  Rest was exactly what I needed.  I didn’t feel guilty, and I was not worried.  By Thursday, I thought I would be okay to go.  And, I did.  I had 5 miles on the plan, and set out for my regular run.  It took 4 miles, but FINALLY, my legs settled in.  So much so, that I ran about a half mile more than I needed to.

Yesterday, I was to do Speedwork, but found a Massage College in Modesto that did full body massages for $20 …for an HOUR.  Seriously?  Instead of going to the track, I sped out of my house at a 10:15 pace and ran 2.8 around the block.  Jumped in my car, and headed off to the Masseuse.

Ran, Massage, Spa.  Worked late into the night.

Today, I sit here at the TNT Water Station that I’m running for our team.  I am reflecting on the week.  I made unplanned changes.  And, I paid the price.  It’s over, and I have a standing Friday appointment for a massage, until the marathon.  I have my plan that I’m re-writing to reflect last week’s changes.  I have 3 weeks to change the paces, then, according to Hanson, I’m locked in until the marathon.

Week 10 starts tomorrow.  Halfway there, and I’m loving complete ownership of this.  Happy weekend!

Warning.  This is super long.

It was going to be what got me through the rest of January, ending 30 days of relationship psychosis, where everything is questioned, and realities come to pass.  Unreal.  My family asked me, “Are you okay?”  And of course, if you know my family, you say…

They knew.  And they said get in the car.

On Thursday, I packed up my office laptop, drove to have a meeting and lunch in Fresno with a girlfriend, and barely got out of town before I had some now familiar anxiety when it comes to this particular addiction.  I got my sponsor on the phone, and down the 99 I traveled, to that place that we all love.  Our childhood home.  It’s here where my Mom and Dad will provide me with that most precious quality of love.  The kind that asks no questions.  My sisters came.  Everyone knew why I was there.  And, it wasn’t to run a half marathon.

Of course, the weekend was made ever so special by my sweet niece, who brought over the love of my life…aka Jack.  I am so in love with this baby.  Seriously, when I would get sad, I would just look at this picture and swoon.

My gal pal Penny then invited me on the set of GLEE, and I was all pretending not to be star struck, but she pulled me over to meet some of the cast, and I was simply tongue tied. She bought me the most wonderful dinner at the Larchmont Grill, and we made plans for the Tinkerbell Half…HELLO Mac and Cheese with bacon.  OMG.

All in all a seriously fun night.  Especially when I ALMOST got to be in the episode.  Watching Penny work was a major treat for me.  I love her!

I spent the expo day with friends, and was really feeling the absence.  Letting myself feel it, but couldn’t stand it, so I thought I’d run away to a meeting, when here in front of me was the exact, um, model of Harley I’d been racing from.  I couldn’t even believe it.  I walked in the meeting and was near tears…as usual when I shared, we all started laughing…cuz you know, you can’t outrun pain.  You just gotta go through it after all.

Okay.  So the escape was over.  I faced my fears.

TINKERBELL RACE REPORT

So finally, here is the report.

I make it to Yas’ house, and lay out my stuff.  No.  I’m not Jill.  4am requisite “WTF are we doing up at this hour?” pose.I’m at the back of the corral.  Like the very end.  I suddenly have to hop over the fence and do a little last minute pee.  There went my dollar store gloves.  I was laughing with these girls, who pulled out of their bras baby wipes.  I had remembered my coach telling me about the necessity of these, but do I listen?  (Do we not remember the Potomac River?)  So, she gives me one to put in my pack, which oddly would come in VERY handy at mile 8.  So, we are standing there, and I recognize Jeff Galloway, having been at the Expo the day before with Gina.  So of course, like the truly star struck person I am, I get the pictures snapped and he looks at my garbage bag and says, “I’m sure envious of that bag right now.”  (He glazes over as I explain my love of the Hanson Training Plan LOL)Actual Race Report right here:

Mile 1-3 I simply could not get in the groove.  I was chilly and my stomach was a little fussy…but mostly I was weaving in and out of the TNTers who walk 6 abreast (really, TNT?  We haven’t had this talk, like a million times before?)  We are running in and around Disneyland.  Back in the back, where workers have a smoke, and hey here’s our toilets, and there’s the cafeteria…and I was starting to get pissy about Tinkerbell…so much of the beginning reminded me of Rock N Roll marathons.  Lotta money for a little reward because it’s such a big MACHINE.

We go in and out of the park, which was really cool…Main Street, Pirates of the Caribbean…places that reminded me of my babies (I actually nursed one of them at midnight standing in front of the castle).  BUT.  I was starting to get irritated for reals.  We were WALKING through the Castle…by the Merry Go Round, and people were stopping to take pictures with characters.  And I thought, well, you just have to do the best you can.

My plan had been to go at HMP for 7 miles, because I knew that 13.1 would be tough.  I wasn’t trained, and as we know, I was only there to outrun some heartache.  We were going around Anaheim, in and out of city streets, and by mile 4, I finally FINALLY got in a groove, where I knew I would be around 11:30…And I looked at my watch which had a low battery, so I never knew where I was.

At mile 8, my stomach SPOKE to me.  Like, get off the course now.  Lucky for me, I had wipes.  Found a bush, got right back on the course.  I have no shame about this.  Thank God for the wipes, is all I have to say.

At mile 9, I lost Garmin power.  I ran by the Hula girls, and started throwing the Shaka for my girl Row, for every camera that I happened to see.  I was shocked that at Mile 9, I still hadn’t walked, even a little bit.  There were Clif Shots at Mile 9, and for the first time, took a drink and nutrition.  Perhaps I waited too long.

Mile 10-13.1, we went back through California Adventure, where I remember being with my boys when they were little.  A million years and miles ago.  Some bittersweet memories that collided with times gone by that were not so good.

Finally, I am just starting to enjoy Disneyland.  Thinking, I would do the TINK again.  The crowds were amazing.  AND THEN.  The medal.  As big as my hand.  And heavy.  They hand us a dry bagel and a bottle of water.  Full price for the bib, and I would NOT have been happy.

But, the MEDAL.  I got that thing in my hand, and I forgot all pain.  The smallish pop of my knee at Mile 7 that I tried to ignore…the lousy bagel, and the crowds, and the stupid walkers that rudely stood in my way.  All in all, a 12:19 pace for a 2:45 and change race, for something I wasn’t trained for…not even a little bit.

The Medal.  Seriously.  I am in love.  Tinkerbell, that lil angry cuss.  She rocked my world.

Though sometimes ill-tempered, spoiled, and very jealous  and vindictive… at other times she is helpful and kind to Peter Pan. The extremes in her personality are explained in-story by the fact that a fairy’s size prevents her from holding more than one feeling at a time, so when she is angry she has no counterbalancing compassion. Fairies cannot fly in the rain but can enable others to fly by sprinkling them with fairy dust .  

And so I go.  To the Happiest Place On Earth, to run my first half marathon of this training season…thanks to another running angel.

I’m needing the Pixie Dust right about now.

So.  Here I am at the end of 6 days of running.  God.  I love the Hanson plan.  It’s mind-numbing…and I need that right now.  It’s not, “Shall I run today?”, but “How many miles am I running today?”  Like, there is no discourse in my head about if, but when.  

Cliff Notes for 30.3 miles this week:

• Running 6 x 800s on a treadmill at 10:00 pace is a little sketchy when you have to pay attention to not falling off the thing.
• If you put a Nuun tablet in a bottle of water, it may very nearly explode.
• Out and back.  Out and back.  Two 4 milers.
• 6 Miles does not necessarily mean you have to stop at 3, walk and drink.  There were lessons to be learned this week about sipping as you go.
• Paces.  They are there for a reason.  Because by the time you get to LSD, you’d better understand what MP + :45 feels like.  
• Half Marathon Pace is easier to run when you are not crying.
• Running lunch break, taken at 10am, is easier to fathom than 3pm.
• Old Lady hunched over her walker says to me, “I wish I could still do that.”  Gratitude.
• Some music needs to be taken the hell off the iPod.
• Wave.  At everyone.  One day this week, I waved like a lunatic at every car.  It helped.
• The Dollar Store knee high socks work great for arm warmers, but not as good as Zensah.

my girlfriends know that when i can’t even bother to capitalize my sentences, it’s not a good week.  i have a whole other site of private blog girlfriends…and you know who you are…that hold me up when i cannot capitalize.  in my own defense however, you’ll notice my punctuation is correct.

so.

i sit with my girlfriends.  and they talk about their relationships.

how he came in a tuxedo, with a red rose, and it was march 20, and we met at a french restaurant.  the beginning of the relationship.  every girl remembers dates, places, texts, meeting places.  i sit with them and they all describe the very same thing.  that first moment when they knew he was the one.  one girlfriend talks about the details so fresh, it’s almost like i was there.  another friend describes that football game when he took her hand and kissed her for the first time and the band was playing a bad version of tusk.  it was october, and they went looking for halloween costumes at the mall and he asked her if she would go with him to that party.  and when they went, this guy was there…etc.

see?  that’s how we are.  as i’m listening to this group of strong women, i realize they’re in their world as they talk.  re-living.  re-loving.  re-thinking about that thing that made them fall in love.

love is a good thing.  i just wish lovers never fell out of love, or if they did, they did it before somebody did somebody wrong.  yeah.  that came from a country song.

i’m one of the girls who remembers all of it.  every date.  time.  the weather as i drove home and was floating on air.  and i thought i was unique.  it turns out, that most women i know, know all the details from the beginning.  and the end?  it just ended.  the description is flat and colorless and lacks oomph, because she really just wants to end the story already.

it’s a topic i’ve been thinking of lately.  obviously.

Most of my friends and family know that I’m fundraising for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society.  It’s all over this blog.  I started fundraising accidentally in 2009, and also accidentally found out that my Grandfather also died from a blood cancer.  Thus, my new love for TNT.

It was easier in 2009.  I was fresh.  Fundraising was fun.

Last fall, I definitely wanted to run the Nike Women’s (Half) Marathon for that Tiffany, and didn’t get the lottery draw, so I joined TNT again.  One heel injury, and vertigo spells later, I had to bow out, with $800 to the good.  I definitely wanted to finish what I started for SF, and found out that San Luis Obispo was also a TNT race.  WOW.  Rollover complete!

This is not a lottery race.  It’s fairly cheap, and I could buy my way in.  I don’t have to continue to raise the money.  At $2550, I think of how much MORE I have to raise to run with the team.

It’s tough times.  I am in a forever non-foreclosing house, making near poverty level, hanging on to rickety pickets on my fence, propping up my back fence with 2 by 4s, broken bits and pieces of the house held together with duct tape.  Seriously.  Why would I take on fundraising in times like this?  Why not just pay for the marathon, and be done with it.

Because.

Because I know that kids who have leukemia have a 97% chance of living now.  From the FACTS brochure: (my words…and my stellar chart-reading skills)

• If you had Myeloma in 1960, you had a 12% survival rate.  Now?  41%
• A kid with Hodgkins?  In 1960, 40% chance…now…86%
• Every 4 minutes someone in the US is diagnosed with a blood cancer.  By the time it took me to run my 5 miles today, 14 people were diagnosed.  Every FOUR MINUTES.
• Myeloma rarely occurs in people under 45.
• LLS has awarded $814 MILLION in research grants.  MILLION.  That’s a lotta zeroes, people.

So.  I have $900 more to raise.  I have a football pool.  I am trying not to bug you.  It’s a bitch to raise money in these times.  People don’t want to see me coming.  I usually think, why would I want to do this?  I HATE asking people for money.

Then, I think about my Grandpa.  How I was the first born grand-daughter of the Bon Bon Ice Cream Machine inventor.  How, when I was in 6th grade, and he was so sick, and I had my new Simon & Garfunkle album, my mother rushed in to tell me not to play the Rock and Roll.  And.  He said.  ”Dee Dee, let her play that song…”  He loved Bridge over Troubled Water.  I am the Silver Girl, and I think of him every day.  I like to think that every time I hear it, he’s in heaven, smiling.

Chances are, he never would have seen my sons.  But.  He might have seen me graduate from college, or be the first one in our family to get a Master of Science degree.  He might have been at my wedding.  Or my other wedding.

So.  I raise money in his memory.

Please don’t think I’m playing on your sympathy.  I hate that mushy shit.  However, if it moves you to donate…even $5, then that’s awesome.  I often get hit up for fundraising.  I take my little check and let it roll into a $10 donation.  I’m embarrassed that I can’t give more, but I can’t.

So.  Go to the raffle on the top of the blog, and let your money play a game.  $1000 will be donated to TNT, and the LLS.  I will do the same for you, if you only ask.

I had to run six miles today.  Yesterday was my first off running day in six days.  SO, like the old days, I had something relatively unhealthy for dinner.  I used to justify my over-eating, or eating of the wrong crap.  Like, look.  I ran.  So I can most certainly have a Big Mac.

I had some Chinese food.  And.  Not the real stuff.  The Fast Food–fast and yummy and greasy type.  Thinking of course that I’ve run all these miles, and have taken 12 pounds off.  So yeah.  Gimme the Panda.  Plus, a week or emotionally draining conversations and old connections.  I earned this, right?

I had a relative amount of decent calories yesterday.  I hadn’t really had too much food.

This morning, I woke up with the salt and MSG hangover.  That slimy feeling in your mouth that means you have something nasty in your system.  I never realized it before, because I ate like this all the time.  But.  Since Hanson training started, I’ve been a little more clean with the food.

I flushed.  I drank Nuun.  I drank more water.  I took Advil.  I waited until noon to lace up.

The first mile I was sweating much more than I ever had in a regular training run when it’s only 47 degrees outside.  I had to hit an 11:00 Half Marathon Pace.  I looked at the watch, and I had to slow down.  I was going to NAIL this.

My stomach didn’t cooperate at Mile 1, but after that, I didn’t stop.  Not even for water.  Because I knew if I did, I would most certainly have  stopped, or slowed down.  So I drank off my belt, and kept running.

It was a great run.  But, it only happened because I was not going to let my bad choice of food compromise this day.  I powered through, and then made a clear decision.  If I’m going to cheat, it will be on a Friday night.  The night BEFORE a rest day.  Not after it.

Off topic:

• I am so grateful for the number 8 & 9.  If you know this number #xa, you know what I mean.
• Sponsorship:  Blessed.
• I seem to run better and faster with a broken heart.
• Friends hold me up.  I thank you for that.

Week 7 of Hanson training began with a learning lesson.

I ran a marathon.  This week.

27.2 bloody miles.

Hanson Training is making me feel strong.  12 pounds down and daily running has become a salve to me.

At the beginning of the week, I was slayed by a personal decision that went awry…love that goes away unexplained or with non-acceptance…and I knew that I had a buttload of miles to run every. single. day.

I ran 6.2, then 3, 5, 5, 4, and finally yesterday did speedwork at an avg pace of 10:14.  This is not me.

And today.  Today I get to rest.  Washing all of the clothes that I will wear again starting tomorrow at the beginning of my 6 day a week workout, leading up to San Luis Obispo Marathon.

I’m raising money.  I’m paying bills.  I’m in court and I’m working the best I can on the 12 steps that I love so much.  I’m raising teenagers.  My work started Wednesday.

I just really want to sit the hell down.

It appears that pain is a great motivator for me.  Since the beginning of this horrific week, I ran a PR, lost more weight, nailed all of my splits…I ran crying and I ran laughing.  It hasn’t been pretty.   Crying myself to sleep.  Waking up with an emotional hangover.  I used words like “devastated” and “crushed” in my vocabulary this week.  Amazing friends stood by me even when I made really questionable decisions.

The Lasso Of Truth.  Wonder Woman’s own lie detector.  I’ve been in that this week.  Compelled to tell the truth to myself no matter what.  Committed to telling the truth…MY truth to those I love and the ones who love me back.

It’s been a rough week.  I want to sleep.  I want to wake up and find that my world is still in tact.

But instead.  I run.