The journey to a new level of Crazy

Once upon a time, there was a girl who finished the Ironman (we will call her IronAnne), and was drunk on the accomplishment feeling invincible like she could do anything.   As she made her way back from Wisconsin to California, she was texting with her friend, Tony.   Tony has been intoxicated with the Ironman accomplishment and knew he could get IronAnne in a moment of weakness and casually mention he was going to be running a 100 miler in Kansas, and that their friend Ultra Jen, was likely to join as well.

In the moment of weakness, when Tony took advantage of IronAnne, she verbally committed to the 100 miler.   In verbal commitments of endurance, IronAnne is not likely to back down.  Though when officially signing up for the race early 2012, she knew she was about to test her limits in a new and crazy way.

....And this is the Journey to a new level of Crazy......

Tony is the one who was responsible for giving me a training plan for the Ironman.   He also found a 100 mile training program for us to follow where our kick off was the Eugene Marathon.    

Tony also provided some inspirational quotes.

To share one:
"Success is not achieved by winning all the time.  Real Success comes when we rise after we fall.  Some mountains are higher than others.  Some roads are steeper than the next.  There are hardships and setbacks but you cannot let them stop you.  Even the steepest road you must not turn back"  ~Muhammad Ali

Let me tell you, my path of training for 100 miles has not been easy.   I have struggled with building the miles, with a knee injury (my first ever)  with new blisters all over my feet, and my feet feeling like they are about to fall off.   While I wasn't about to permanently injure myself, I  also wasn't willing to just give up.  Instead, I readjusted the course. 

As I write this, I just finished my peak weekend runs of 15 miles on Friday, 25 on Saturday and 30 on Sunday.  It's time to blog the journey, and in a few weeks, we will see how the victory lap/crawl goes.

Rachel, my new friend from Wildflower, was able to join me in a 20 mile run early on, but was busy training for her own events.  As awesome as Rachel is, she played match maker and introduced me to Cheryl via text setting up a blind running date!  I planned the run, and met Cheryl at her house, and what can I say- our running chemistry was amazing :)  We became fast friends and she got me through training for the 100 miler!

My goal was to run at her pace when with her, and on the early side I was successful but as training got intense, I started to slow her down but she never let me feel bad about this. She kept positive for me and was always just happy to be running together.
When she got tired, she would use me as motivation to keep going 'If Tara isn't going to ask to stop and walk this hill, then I can't even think about it'  while I thought "I don't want to ruin Cheryl's training, so if I'm going to ask for a walk or slow down, it has to be highly warranted"   And with that- she kept a large chunk of my miles strong.

Now..all this running didn't mean I wanted to give up the bike, in fact, I blame my knee issues on reducing the bike; Not allowing my quads to be strong enough to support me as I increased the running miles.   In addition to the training schedule, I tried to keep swimming 1-2 times a week, spinning/biking 1-2 times a week, yoga once a week and muscle conditioning once a week.   This can sound  like a lot but it's what I love and I believe I need to keep well balanced to fight all the looming injuries ( Note: swimming was always just like 20 minutes in the pool, and when spinning it usually was just 45 minutes, yoga was in my own way on my own time, so I'd keep it to 45 minutes and lifting was maybe an hour, so we aren't talking endurance...just keep moving!)

I tried to keep biking long bikes every other weekend, but pushing my legs to the running limits, meant these rides were not strong and not easy (and given I'm moving away, I wanted the long climbs for the views like above).  My bike friend, Mark, had to suffer through on that one.  It's hard to allow yourself to say "my bike is slow because I ran 26 miles yesterday"  but, really, I'm not superwoman so what did I expect?   I would beat myself up on the slower rides, but Mark started to slow down with me and try to keep my spirits up.

***Note- as long as people stay with me and don't go ahead of me,  I currently have no clue how fast or slow I'm going....  since I lost my watch- I have depended on others for pace.

That leads me to another thing not yet Blogged-  A note to Garmin: You have made me very unhappy and I'm still working on my bitterness before I buy from you again.

Note to all readers:  The Orange Garmin- from feedback from multiple friends and my own experience- is known to have an issue of it randomly flying off your wrist (applied pressure but still, shouldn't happen!).  This happened to me, biking down Hayes St, in a not so wonderful area, I hit a bump, and heard something fall the the ground, I slowed and checked my bike, all was intact so i figured I was okay, a half a mile later I realized my Garmin was gone, and of course the area i was in wasn't the greatest so as i went back to that bump, got off my bike and searched under cars, it was not in sight.
This was my 3rd garmin in 6 years.  Not a great track record!  The first one - the power button started to fail- which was also a known issue, but the remedy per Garmin:  buy another since I didn't get an extended warranty.  I complained to Garmin about losing this third one, and they had they wanted me to jump through hoops to get their attention.
The newest garmin does not have this issue, but, how many times do I have to spend $400 for one of their watches to break?  For now, I rely on friends and paid $2 for the nike plus ap (which the accuracy is questionable but I check my maps and knowledge of the area to be comfortable with my final mileage).

Back to training...


In June, I was visiting my Mom and Grandfather in Palm Springs, running early but still 100+ dry heat which killed my lungs.   This took a toll on my run for weeks after, as after any 20+ mile run, my lung capacity felt the way it used to feel after my first few marathons.


In July, my knee started to bother me. I started to notice, my patella tendon on my left leg would just decide to stop working. After a long run while I was back in Chicago (Week 15), I felt like there was a bubble under my knee, and later that night, as I was walking down the El steps, something popped, and next thing I knew I was limping (luckily we had been drinking, so that absorbed some of the pain).   This scared me, and I knew I couldn't ignore it.  I backed off on my miles and started researching what I needed to do to keep going but strengthen this muscle.  Thanks to those who responded to me on facebook!

I got one of those patella tendon bands to hold up my knee cap which I currently use for maybe 75% of my runs (below is  pic as to why I don't want to become dependent on it...irritation)

So now, with a good month of reduced mileage (Still a lot, but not as much as the schedule required), when I'm supposed to be ramping up,  I was working on balancing miles with recovery.  

By week 19 I was back on track to finish the last three weeks to schedule.  I actually ran the 12 on Thursday, 20 on Friday, and 28 on Saturday AND a bike ride on Sunday (which Mark proceeded to mention we were going a little slow- then he gave me the numbers-  we got down to 18 mph - but oh- i did hit 26-28 on a flat part- I'm more than happy with that!).  My legs felt pretty good, I was pretty shocked I was able to pull off a decent ride.

Week 20, I started my 24 mile run on Friday at 10:30am, and the 30 mile run on Saturday by 10:30 am.  It felt great.  The 30 miles was completed in just over 5 hours, and from there, my friend Jean, was in town, so we continued to go out.  The next day, I was not nursing any leg pain, just a hangover.   I was once again shocked with how great I felt.

I wish I could say the same for my 70 miles in 3 days.   I wasn't moving quickly on Friday to get out on my run, but Ben told me (at 11:30am) if I could make it to him by noon, he would run some miles with me.   So, I quickly changed- and had until 12:05 to make it down to the Embarcadaro.  I ran my first 2 miles in under 16 minutes, which then set the tone for our pace to be quicker than it probably should have been.  Ben is fast, but is very good at adjusting his pace to mine and not make me feel super slow.  However, my pace started fast, so continued fast.  He ran with me for 9 miles, so by my mile 11, I was tired.   I had fun with my final 4 miles to compensate.  But that 15 mile run left my legs a little sore.

Saturday Ben was my running partner again.  I ran to his house which is 12+ miles away, and we made it 13+ miles back to my place.  My 12 to him was pretty strong, running the whole way up and over the golden gate bridge with highschool cross country team.   It was fun to be running with all 54 of them, I loved the fast girls on the front end, though they had boys with them on the bridge, they quickly lost them on the down into sausalito.  You could also tell who were the show-offs as if I passed them- they would have to quickly pass me back, and then next thing you know, they would be walking or tying a shoe :)
 Ben is always fun to run with so I was happy to have him on the run back.  He keeps this calm and steady stride though, I apparently don't laugh enough at his jokes. I'm still making the "seriously this is funny?" face to the "Gu at the warming hut" joke.   :)

Finally, I was at my final 30 miler before taper. Cheryl had to run 16 as she is in her taper for the Twin Cities Marathon.  I really wanted to give her a strong taper run, and I would like to think for the first 14 I managed fine, but the last 2 were a push.  I allow walking to be counted in my training so  Cheryl and I tend to end her mileage at the bottom of Fillmore street and then we walk up Fillmore including it in my mileage (which btw- Fillmore is not even easy to walk up...my butt is going to miss San Francisco!).
I technically got Cheryl for 17 miles.   Once I lost her I made my way to my house grabbed a protein bar and candy (aka my blow pop ring- fun to run with!), and continued on my way.

 

If you don't know runners can hit a point of aggravation on runs- we are tired and dying and if you look at us wrong, we are going to bite your head off.   Maybe it was the miles but... Running down Market, this owner was walking their little dog off a leash.  Now, if you have your animal well trained, I get how you can be okay with walking off the leash in many places, but even then- MARKET STREET!?  That is a crazy busy street, with cars, cable cars, pedestrians, crackheads and bikers.  So when that little dog ended up under my feet (as it got excited i was running and ran in front of me), making me have to hurdle it to avoid crushing it,  I do not feel bad that I yelled for all around to hear "G.D. PUT YOUR DOG ON A LEASH!!!"

Luckily that anger gave me more energy and the next 2 miles were a little easier than the last 2.   My run started to become a shuffle, and I overshot my turn around, but with 3 miles left, I was done with the small stops or waters of anything else- it was time to get the sucker done.

The peak week of training has left me sore.   As I ran the 30 today, I thought how much more waring on my body this has been than ironman training.  I know I won't have speed, and that's not what this is about.  It's about the endurance.  When your mind and body shut down, you have to reach in your soul to get to the end (or this is what I imagine it will be like).  It's not about crazy technology helping you get through, or some sort of technique that's going to help.  You eat what you can when you can-  as Jen says- a variety of food options because at mile 80, you have no clue what your body will accept and reject.

I'm on my road to absorbing the last 21 weeks.  To make me strong, and then....  it's time to just push it.

The 100 mile victory crawl is 3 weeks away!  Stay tuned!