Week 12 - There's Sidewalk Out There!

Many thanks to Kathy H. and Denise T. for donating to my Boston Marathon fundraising page! I am only $82 away from hitting $5,500!  It would be so lovely to hit a nice round number like that :)  If you'd like to make a donation, please click here!

Treadmill Time

I never thought I'd say this, but I think I am actually getting used to the treadmill.  I cannot wait until I don't have to look at it ever again, but it is becoming less of an enemy with every passing week.  Though we've been spared much snowfall over the past week or so, temperatures have been unbearable and snow has turned to ice making running on the pavement a little too scary for my liking.  I decided to keep my training indoors for awhile long.  The Marathon is less than two months away and I don't want to slip and break a bone this close to the big day!

Accidentally hit the stop button of mile 1 of 6 so it says 5. Oops.

This week, I took rest days on Monday for the Boston Marathon Training Clinic, Thursday to attend a fundraiser and Sunday to recover from my long run.  On Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday, I spent quality time at the gym.  In addition to the treadmill runs, I've been some time working on the weight machines to build up my leg muscles to try to prevent any further knee injuries.  I've noticed that my right knee takes about a full day to recover after my long runs and I really want to make sure I can keep it healthy until after April 20!

At the training clinic I attended on Monday, the BAA High Performance Program Coach, Terrence Mahon talked a lot about different types of training - including hill training, which I have avoided because hills are awful.  He did point out, however, that since Boston is a hilly course training our muscles to be able to tackle them is really important.  So, this week at the gym I did all of my workouts using the Hills option - something I'll probably do more frequently now through the race.  I kept the incline relatively low this week with the hopes of amping it up a little each week.  Maybe this is just what I need to get through Heartbreak!

On Tuesday and Wednesday, I did 4 miles each.  I had wanted to do more, but I had evening plans following the gym so I needed to get in and out quickly as I could and 3 miles just isn't enough at this stage in the game.  On Friday, I went back and forth about how many miles I would do.  I wanted to take advantage of the fact that I didn't have any plans for the rest of the night so I didn't need to rush, but I also wanted to have fresh legs for my long run on Saturday.  What to do!?!  I settled for 6 miles.

The hardest part of running on the treadmill is finding something interesting enough to watch on the TV to keep me engaged enough that I don't obsess over the time/mileage on the machine's dashboard. I should really bring a towel to cover it over, but I keep forgetting...and I'd probably just peek anyway. On Tuesday I forgot to bring my headphones and watched the news with questionable closed captioning, which was pretty bad.  Luckily, on Friday Ghostbusters II was on, making it an easy hour!

Long Run OUTSIDE with SEAC

THANKS SEAC! YOU'RE AWESOME!

From the get-go, long runs have been tricky to plan out by myself.  I usually just ended up doing the same routes over and over again, which is kind of boring.  I just found out this week that the South End Athletic Company & Heartbreak Hill Running Company do group long runs out of their stores on Saturday mornings and I got really excited to run with them!

I decided to run with the South End Running Company, since getting to their store is much easier for me AND their run started at 10am instead of 9am.  I always get really nervous when I go to join a new running group.  You never know if the people are going to be nice or not (although in my experience they usually are), if you're going to be the slowest person there (you're probably not and even if you are, who cares), if you're going to get LOST (I didn't, but you never know!), or any number of other things. I am really happy to tell you all that the staff and runners at SEAC were totally awesome.  I felt really welcomed by everyone and ran with a few folks who were around the same pace as me.  It was great to have some other people to keep me motivated and I know without them, I would have stopped once or twice when I really didn't NEED to.

You know you're marathon training when 16.5 is the beginner route

SEAC offered two routes - beginners at 16.5 miles and intermediates at 18 miles - I did the beginners. The route started at their store in the South End, along the Muddy River in the Fenway, around Jamaica Pond to the Brookline Reservoir, through Newton Center to their Heartbreak Hill Running Company store where we paused to get some water and fuel up (around mile 9).  I was so excited for our break because I FINALLY GOT TO TAKE MY PICTURE WITH HEARTBREAK BILL! This kind, wonderful person dresses in a gorilla suit every weekend to cheer on marathon runners making their way up and down Heartbreak and I hadn't had the pleasure of making his acquaintance yet.  It was pretty cool.  You can see he's wearing a Batman mask ON TOP of his gorilla suit because evidently there was a superhero theme this week (I never got the memo :shrug::).  Anyway, it was a fun break!

Heartbreak Bill - Batman Gorilla

From the store we did the final leg of Heartbreak and the 6 miles back into Boston along the actual marathon route - Commonwealth Avenue to Beacon Street then into the City, across the Finish line on Boylston St. and back to the store on Tremont.  As my new friends and I made the iconic left on Boylston we ran (no pun intended) into one of the intermediate runners who paused at a red light and we exchanged fist bumps.  He'll be running his FIFTH Boston and said he still gets goosebumps running down that final stretch on Boylston even in training runs.

Upon arriving back at SEAC, the staff greeted us with high-fives, smiles and water, which was much needed and appreciated.  Justin, who runs their social media accounts had recognized me from Twitter and tweeted a shout out to me, which made me feel great!  I really wish I could run with this crew again next week, but I have to get my taxes done ::eye roll::  I definitely plan on joining them again on 3/14, though and will probably use whatever route they post for this week for my long run on Sunday.

Heartbreak Hill Running Company

Before I end this post, I want to say what a total joy it was to run outside on Saturday.  The sun was out, the air was cold and everything looked beautiful. Sure, the terrain was still a little iffy with packed down ice and snow and a lot of slush, but being able to watch the world pass by is one of the great joys of running. I didn't listen to my headphones at all.  I just took the time to think, center myself and take in my surroundings.  It's so rare to be able to do that and I loved it SO MUCH.  Hopefully the coming weeks will feature more beautiful days like this!