Fargo Marathon Recap

In a shocking turn of events for us, marathon morning dawned clear and free from rain. Would this be our first dry marathon? Only time would tell.

Our hotel was kind enough to open breakfast an hour early so that racers could eat. There was a buzz of energy in the room. While it wasn't the best breakfast I've had at a hotel, there was a wide variety of options, including some hot food. The only really weird thing is there was no water other than from the tap, which was also used to wash trays.

After eating, we made the quick drive to the local mall to take a shuttle to the athletes village. I was a little worried how the new and relatively complicated shuttle system would work, and I did get a bit nervous when I saw the line, but the shuttles came quickly and in large bunches, so we were on in less than 10 minutes.

After what seemed like quite a long time, we were dropped at the downtown bus depot. We were told to wait in a line for another bus to another mall, though these buses took a lot longer to come. Some locals took off on foot, saying we were close, but there was a lot of chaos at this point, so we opted to wait. We crammed onto a short bus and arrived at the village.

I was excited to get to hang out inside for awhile before having to drop our bags and be a part of the growing excitement. We were maybe two minutes walk from the starting line, and we were supposed to be lined up at 7:30 for an 8 AM start. Even though we got to the village at 7, we were almost immediately told to leave for the start. I was a little annoyed at this, especially since we would have to drop our bags and wait in the morning chill. If the trains potentially blocking people from crossing to the start were an issue (and none even came by in that hour), I think the race should've picked a different spot for the marathon village.

We dropped our bags at the UPS trucks right outside the mall and went to wait for the bathroom line. It was the Indiana nightmare all over again, with four bathrooms for even more people, and this time there were two lines, so we made literally no progress. Finally, a bunch of ladies hopped out of line and formed a queue for some bushes. Once I had cycled through this line, Michael said his line had only moved when people left for the bushes. He was fine to bail at this point, so we crossed over to the bridge and the start line.

As soon as we started, I warmed off, and I probably took my hat and gloves off within the first few miles, though I'm so glad I had them for the long, cold wait. I realized too late I didn't really take any pictures of the course. Almost the entire thing was run through neighborhoods. It was pretty, though nothing noteworthy. It was great because people were out cheering almost the whole way, even for us stragglers near the back of the pack.

There were also tons of fun signs on the course, though it was hard for me to get many pictures, since a lot were at the beginning when it was still very congested.

Some day, right...? Also, the lady who took this picture was impressively drunk off mimosas.

I would for sure keep running if someone brought Faramir to cheer me on.

This race was also great fun because there were so many Maniacs to cheer on. While Crossroads was my first race as a Maniac, there were only a couple, and I don't recall even seeing all of them on the course. On the other hand, Fargo had a quite a few out-and-backs, so I tried to cheer every Maniac I saw. Running really helps reduce my social anxiety. (Side note: what do you say to someone wearing a 50 Stater shirt? I try saying Go 50 Stater, but that just sounds awkward.)

As we rejoined the half course, we noticed they had a special elite lane marked off. I thought this was a really nice touch to give leaders in both races clear areas to run. These were, however, empty by the time we rolled through.

Except for me, obviously.

We also had to make a pit stop at the aid station that immediately won my heart - it had tissues! I'm relentlessly teased for always having a supply of tissues at hand (though people mysteriously find this convenient when they suddenly need one).

My kind of place.

While we were going at about the same pace as at Crossroads, I mentally felt much better. I was more prepared on the fueling front, and I made a bigger effort to increase my sports bean intake, supplemented by aid station food along the way. I'm not sure why my previous fueling strategy of one bean per mile no longer is doing it's job, but it helped to be prepared for it this time.

The last few miles were again tough, but I was fine to keep pushing. If we hadn't stopped at the bathrooms around mile 25, I would've probably been able to push more in the last mile.

Though I pretty much wanted to collapse like this balloon arch.

I knew the finish was in front of the Fargo Theater, but I was again confused by crazy downtown Fargo. I knew we had to be close, but I desperately wanted to see the finish line. The course cruelly kept it out of sight until the last tenth of a mile.

Finally, finally, we turned and finished!

Thankfully being slow meant the chute wasn't crowded like the 5K!

Finish Time: 6:01:21

We were met by enthusiastic volunteers who put medals for the marathon and the Go Far Challenge (for doing the 5K as well) around our necks. Another volunteer gave us ponchos, though I didn't need since there was no line for bag drop. The UPS volunteers were spot on, even late in the day, and had my bag ready before I got to the table. There was a fairly good food spread. I had some Nutter Butters, which I normally hate, and they tasted like amazing.

Go Far Challenge medal

Marathon medal

Rocking my medals and the awesome race jacket that even fits my T-rex arms!

At this point it was about 2:30 and the shuttles back were only supposed to run until 3 (which seemed poopy, since racers had until 3 to finish). We followed the people who took our picture to try to find the buses. We wandered around the Civic Center, where the volunteers said the buses would be, but we could only find people who said they were waiting but hadn't seen anything for a very long time.

Three ladies sitting on the sidewalk had just about given up, and one of them was local. She said the bus depot was very close, and there would be free buses back to the mall where our car. We were so thankful to have found her, as we were able to follow the group to the bus station and get on the right bus. If we had had a flight to catch, this would have been extremely stressful, but fortunately we had all the time in the world. Big shout out to those women for helping us out.

After what was an extremely long bus ride, we made it back to the mall. We remembered our car was under a JCP sign by the Chili's. However, we soon realized JCP had signs on both sides of the mall (one of which was not where the store was), so we had to hobble through the mall to get to the car, during which we got quite a few odd stares.

We had been planning to take a nap before dinner, but after showers we were starving, so we headed out to downtown again to eat pizza at Rhombus Guys.

Sadly, our pizzas were not shaped like rhombuses. Michael loved his (T-rex with lots of meat), but my margherita was just okay. After finally feeling satiated, we went back for round two of mini-golf.

TripAdvisor has assured me their two courses were awesome and the best people had ever played at. While the course design was cool, the actual holes were uninteresting and difficult to the point of not being fun. The green was warped, and our balls constantly rolled back to the start of the hole. It was also incredibly windy as a storm brewed in the west, so we called it a day after playing one of the two courses.

Four states down, 46 to go.

Did You Try to Pick the Most Remote Place for a Race?, or Fargo Recap Part One

One of the most surprising things I've found so far in my quest to do the 50 States is people have a lot of opinions (that they are more than happy to share) about which states I should do. They seem to fail to grasp the concept that I have to do all the states, so order isn't really important.

Still, I had a hard time convincing people when I needed to go to Fargo. The fact that North Dakota has two marathons and flights to Fargo were relatively cheap did not seem to be satisfactory. It only made it worse that there were/are several local marathons in this time frame, so when I said I was running a marathon, no one was even considering Fargo.

Secretly I just wanted to find Martin Freeman.

Friday morning dawned dark and early at 4 AM to catch our 6 AM flight out of Lansing. I've never used the Lansing airport before, but the set-up was rather strange. The four ground floor gates are all meant to accomodate small regional aircraft, and, while each gate has a booth, they all share a weird boarding area. They call each flight number when it's time to actually board. It worked but was odd.

Our flight landed early in O'Hare and after a slight delay, we also managed to arrive in Fargo early. We had rented our car through Hertz because it was literally half the cost of all the other companies, but I was really apprehensive, since almost every experience I've had with Hertz in the past has been a complete crapshow, to put it mildly. But once I determined the people standing in line were just standing in a line for no reason (???), it took less than five minutes to get the car.

While I was getting the car, Michael spoke to some Fargo volunteers manning a booth by the car counters. I thought this was a really nice touch and a great way to make racers feel welcome. We got some literature and were off.

Our first stop was the expo, located in downtown Fargo at the Civic Center. Finding parking was a bit of a challenge, and we only squeaked by because a lot of people behind us got stuck by a train that just decided to chill on the tracks for at least fifteen minutes, I know they made the race "downtown" for whatever reason this year, but we had to drive by the Fargodome to get downtown, and nothing was going on there. I think it would've been easier to at least have packet pick-up there.

The set-up was fairly organized (even though someone wrote the bitchiest Facebook post about it). Bibs were picked up outside in tents, and the expo and shirts were located inside.

The tents were a nice touch, as were the carpet bridges. The weather was clear, but I think our feet would've stayed dry if it had been raining, which would be an important consideration before a day of walking around.

I didn't take any pictures of the expo because the aisles were narrow and I was kind of overwhelmed by the amount of people crammed in there. They had a wide variety of vendors: Nike and UA were both there, as well as several local businesses and local races. I was bummed we weren't local, because the events looked fun. It would've been easy to blow a lot of cash, especially at the Nike booth (what can I say, I have a lot of their Spartan-branded apparel and love their running clothing), but I contented myself with another pint glass for my collection. This was also where we discovered North Dakota sales tax is a sickening 7.5%. Blech.

There were signs on the floor directing racers to shirt pick-up, and we followed them around through the expo. This wasn't unexpected, until we realized they were just leading us in a circle. I asked someone with bags where they had gotten them, and they gave us directions. We felt pretty dumb until we had someone later on ask us where we had gotten our bags. I have no problem with the race forcing us through the expo, but one or two additional signs to make the path clear would've been helpful.

At this point we were about to gnaw our own arms off (that was probably just me), so we headed to the Wurst Bier Hall for lunch.

Jackalopes are very German, didn't you know?

I was tempted to try one of the more interesting bratwursts, but I stuck to the one sourced from Fargo, though I did treat myself to a draught rootbeer. I highly recommend this restaurant to anyone visiting Fargo - it had a cool atmosphere, and the food was super filling and incredibly inexpensive.

After eating and drinking our fill, it was off to play mini-golf. We made the drive over, only to discover the place was closed, with an opening time on Fridays of "varied." Huh. We decided to flip flop our days, and we headed to the Red River Zoo instead.

The zoo is very small and located off a major highway. It was strange to hear cars whizzing by while looking at the animals, but I suppose there wasn't a lot of good land available in Fargo when they built the zoo.

It's a...lison?

There was a field trip going on when we got there, but once the children cleared out, the visit was really enjoyable. Although the zoo is small, it focuses on rare, cold-climate animals. Fargo was a top breeder for several of the species on display; apparently Fargo has bred 25% of the red pandas currently in captivity. I've been to a few small zoos (shout out to the Wellington Zoo!), and I really like how they have unique animals not at the major zoos.

We had an impromptu lesson from the zookeeper about this baby porcupine. So cute!

Bet you haven't seen a takin before!

The wolves, obviously, were freakin' sweet.

The day was mild, in the low 50's, so the red pandas were actually active!

We probably spent about two hours going through the whole zoo, with lots of time to observe the animals. Obviously we needed a quick stop in the gift shop.

I am a panda.

Visit over, we popped over to our hotel, the Kelly Inn on Main, to check in. We got a little nervous about noise when we saw there was a bar attached, but it seemed that most of the guests were runners, so there were no problems. It took a couple tries to find the room, as evens were on one side of a square and odds on the other, but this didn't match the signs. Later, we heard others doing the same thing. 

We passed out for a short nap, which was wonderfully refreshing, before dinner. We tried a place called Grand Junction Subs, with made to order subs on fresh French bread. Again, super delicious and super filling for the price. 

The next step was to once again do battle with downtown Fargo for parking for the 5K. I was nervous that with 6,000+ people participating, parking was going to be a nightmare. By some miracle we turned down a random street right near the start line and found a street space available. We made our way to the proper pace sign. The start was very well organized, with a separate line for walkers, and enormous pace signs. Obviously, there were still walkers starting at the front of the race, but at least the race did everything they could to try to prevent it.

Start line...we were baffled by the number of people who felt they needed to run with the race bag. 100 times worse than wearing the race shirt.

At this point we realized neither of us brought our Garmins, but we were going to run nice and easy anyway, but it still felt quite uncomfortable. The course was nice, over the bridge we would be starting on the next day and through some neighborhoods. Later someone commented part of the marathon course was the 5K course in reverse. I had no concept of where I was in Fargo most of the time, but I think this was true.

Lots of people were out to cheer, and it was a fun way to shake out the pre-marathon nerves. For some reason I always convince myself I've forgotten how to run in the days leading up to a race. 

Finish Time: 36:02

The finish line was a complete cluster, and we had to fight to get a water and a medal. It was so bad some people bailed before realizing there were medals and had to go all the way back. I didn't blame them, the finish was so crowded we could barely cross the last timing mat before we had to come dead stop.

After we survived the mob, we tried to re-orient ourselves to find our car. Even after looking at one of the maps posted at an intersection, it still took us a few times. Why? Because Fargo is afraid to name their streets with words and only uses numbers. In no order. In both directions.

Which leads to this.

Once back at the hotel it was time for showers and bed before the big day. And discussing why we choose to run 26.2 miles instead of the nice 3.1 we had just completed.

Crossroads of Northwest Indiana Marathon Race Rating

Race: Crossroads of Northwest Indiana Marathon
Date: April 27, 2014
Location: Lowell, IN
Year Running: 4th
Registration: $60

Race Information

Size: 92 full, 375 half

Course Limit: 6.5 hours

Min. - Max. Elevation: 705 - 745 ft

Min. - Max. Temperature: 38 -61

Charity Supported: Organization for Autism Research

Travel

Airports: We drove, but I think the Indianapolis and either Chicago airport would be good options. I would imagine Chicago is cheaper.

Rental car: 100% necessary. The race is in the middle of nowhere, and there's no way from an airport to Lowell.

Host hotel: One - the Radisson in Merrillville. The rate was still $130 a night, and we got a room at the Extended Stay America for $79, with several other similarly priced hotels available.

Pre-Race

Communications: Terrible. We didn't receive a single email, and we later discovered most of the information on the website was wrong.

Expo: Fleet Feet Schererville, which is right next to Merrillville. We weren't able to make it, but I got the impression it was just packet pick-up inside a running store, nothing special.

Other Activities: None.

Race Day

Parking: Not a problem. We arrived 45 minutes early and parked right by the start/finish line. There was also additional parking in the subdivision across the street. However, there were no signs or volunteers directing traffic, so the park was a little chaotic.

Shuttles: n/a

Bathrooms: Four, for several hundred people. We were a little stressed about making the start, even though we got in line right after getting our bibs.

On Time: 14 minutes late. For a race with 90 people, unacceptable.

Corrals: None, but not needed.

Course

Type: Loop

Terrain: 100% concrete

Bathrooms: None (despite several being advertised). There was only one spot on the course large enough to use for cover, and it was on private property. Icky.

Crowding: None

Highlights: farmland, lakes

And a chance to call 888-YOFAITH

Support

Course Support: Several aid stations, but the map was wrong and I honestly can't remember how many there were. They only had water and Gatorade, but so little that they needed to ration it, even on a cool day. The water (and therefore also the Gatorade base) tasted like it came from a well, which was really gross to my palate.

Spectators: None.

Local knowledge of race: None.

Post-Race

Food: Bananas, Zone bars in a variety of flavors.

Atmosphere: Lethargic. It was clear the Race Director and her committee just wanted to wrap up and go home. I got the impression we were being a nuisance by being slow. Credit to the ladies handing out medals, they were very enthusiastic and cheered us on at the very end.

Party: None.

Swag

Shirt: A nice technical shirt with a key pocket. I'm really bummed they ran out of my size. 

Even Faramir wants to wear it.

Medal: Really awesome, probably the best part of this race. The ribbon is race specific.

Final Thoughts

• A poem:
  I do not like this race in a box.
  I do not like this race with a fox
  I do not like this race in a house
  I do mot like this race with a mouse
  I do not like this race here or there.
  I do not like this race anywhere.
  I do not like this race.  
• I think most of the problems are listed above but to condense them and bring in what I discussed in my race recap - disorganized packet pick-up, extremely rude volunteers, not enough bathrooms pre-race, unorganized race start, grossly inaccurate course map, lack of aid stations, no bathrooms on the course, dangerous course in some parts with no shoulders and no course marshals.
• This problem is too big to lump in above, but I want to make sure to mention it. There was almost no medical aid available. There were a few volunteer firefighters driving the course, but only one part and not in a methodical. There was also zero medical aid at the finish. This could be extremely dangerous if there was warm weather combined with the lack of aid. 
• Penultimately, the Race Director and her committee were not runners and apparently didn't consult any. I'm sure there's a few issues I forgot to mention, but just know that her lack of expertise showed in a variety of ways. The most notable was her being annoyed runners would not stop at aid stations to drink!
• And finally, DO NOT RUN THIS RACE!

Recommendation

• 50 Staters: No.
• Non 50 Staters: No. Super no.

Crossroads of Northwest Indiana Recap

Sunday morning dawned like both my prior marathons did - cold, windy, and raining. My prayers to the gods of all that is dry had gone unanswered. Despite a weather forecast as contemporary as the previous night calling for a low of 50 and high of 70, we got something entirely different.

It was easy to forget just how cold it was on the half hour drive to the race start. It was also easy to forget while laughing at a minivan that tried to drive through a closed weigh station. Nice try, bro, but that's not an exit.

The race was in the middle of butt nowhere, and there's no way we would've found it without directions to the exact street address. Freedom Park was a spacious park with bathroom, fields, and playground equipment, as well as a giant barn because Indiana, I guess.

Someone else's picture because I was busy being cold.

After missing packet pick-up the day before, we got in line for race day pick-up. This quickly became one of the largest clusters I've ever had the displeasure of being part of. They had people switch lines no less than three times, and the volunteer manning the marathon bibs stared at me for a good 30 seconds before asking me my name.

After finally getting my bib, I was forced to crash through another line to get to the shirt pick-up. They hadn't printed our shirt sizes on our bibs, but I knew I had ordered a small. When I told the volunteer passing them out I would like a small, I got the bitchiest response ever - it boiled down to her accusing me of lying because she had no smalls left (even though people registering same day were getting shirts, and I assume some of these were smalls). I ended up with a medium, but I couldn't believe how rude she was. I heard her yelling at other racers as well, so it wasn't just me, at least.

It even has a little key pocket, I'm bummed it doesn't fit.

After that debacle, I added my jacket, rain jacket, and gloves to my outfit and waited in the longest bathroom line ever, since the Albert Einstein in charge decided four port-a-potties was enough for 400+ people. Nope. It's not.

After that we went to the worst organized start ever. (Can you see a theme yet?) The marathon and half started at the same time at the same point but in opposite directions - we had the same start line but were facing each other. This isn't a terrible idea, except this was only ever communicated by an announcer over inaudible speakers. Michael and I only got in the right spot via word of mouth.

While we were waiting, the lead biker came through to get to the start line. It was loud and chaotic, so a few people didn't hear him say excuse me. His response was to forcefully shove these two women away as hard as he could. I'm not sure where this race got their volunteers, but clearly none of them went to preschool to learn how to be nice.

Finally, fifteen minutes late (inexcusable for a marathon with 90 people), we were off. The first part of the course took us through newly built subdivisions surrounded by farmland. The wind was almost unbearable with nothing to block it. We also saw the best religious sign ever, which was especially refreshing after seeing a variety of "HELL IS REAL" signs the rest of the weekend.

Best phone number ever.

We continued and around mile six and seven came to some lakes. I'm not sure if they were man-made, but I sure never expected to run by lakefront cottages in northwest Indiana.

Michael also took the opportunity in the wind to take a picture of me looking "puffy". He assured me this was hilarious.

 

However, despite how nice this part of the course was, I started to get worried. The lake we were running by was definitely around mile 20 on the course map, even though we had gone less than eight miles. We thought we had followed all the arrows painted on the ground properly, but it was still a little nerve-wracking. Thankfully we did find the eight mile marker, at which point we realized this poop show of a race had also significantly changed the course without telling anyone. This was really hard mentally in such a long race.

One fun part of the middle miles was having people yell "Go, Maniac" at us. It made me feel great about all the time I put into training for my first two marathons. 

The next major event was our bathroom break. This race had zero bathrooms, despite there being several marked on the course map, but we just saw how inaccurate that was. After having to go since mile one, I finally broke at mile 17. I felt terrible peeing on someone's private property, but it was literally the only tree big enough on the whole course to go behind. 

It was also around this point we had some volunteer firefighters ask from their vehicle if we were having cramping issues, even though we were running comfortably. Bizarre.

This was the point where the race started to really get painful and uncomfortable. I expected it, but it still didn't suck any less. Michael was amazing and lent me some extra sports beans to keep me from bonking. I think I neglected to fuel well enough in the week leading up to the race.

One of the many other problems this race had was a lack of aid stations. We sometimes went as far as four miles without seeing one and, again, without an accurate course map, we had no idea when the next one would come. Around mile 20 two little girls handing out water bottles gave us one each, and these seriously saved our lives. (Especially because there was no medical aid present at the finish, if we had become seriously dehydrated, we would've had to drive ourselves to the hospital.)

I stopped taking pictures at this point because there was really nothing of interest, and we were running on roads without shoulders into heavy traffic. I'm glad Michael was with me, or I think I would've been run down. 

Finally, we saw the giant barn and knew we were near the finish line. We had made it!

Time: 6:04:35

I guess when I said, "Please take our picture in front of the sign," I should've been more clear that I wanted the sign in the picture as well.

There was quite a bit of food left at the end, despite our late finish, though the Race Director had parked her fat butt in front of it, so we had to awkwardly reach around her to get stuff. What a fitting way to end this terrible race.

I also had to ask to have the race results updated, which hadn't been done for hours. (No wonder most of the age group awards were unclaimed!) The website had advertised age group awards five deep, and there were only three other women in my age group, so I was excited to default into an award. But this was yet another lie - they were only three deep. Michael got one, and I was insanely jealous.

Where else would be better to put my default AG win pint glass from Sleeping Bear on?

The medals themselves were pretty cool though.

After finished we rested in the car for awhile, just to be out of the wind. It had warmed up significantly from the start, but I immediately felt chilled after finishing. I was so tired from the sun and wind and stress of the poor race that I just wanted to curl up and sleep.

It was anti-climatic, but state three was in the books.

No Gas Stations for You - Indiana Recap Part One

This weekend saw the auspicious start to my 2014 marathon season by traveling to Indiana. Aw yeah.

We unfortunately did not see the famed Indiana bison or lumberjacks.

I kicked things off by driving down to Michael's on Friday night and caught up with a close friend. It was strange being back on campus after having a big girl job for three months. I really felt like I was separate, though I can't say it was a bad thing. We even got super lucky and were not awoken by the other tenants that tend to favor partying between 4 and 6 AM. 

We had an early wake-up call on Saturday and readied ourselves for the drive. Michael was awesome enough to do the driving so that I could relax the whole way. It was nice to catch up after so long apart. The only issue on the drive was when we decided to start looking for a gas station, at which point we saw one for 60+ miles. I guess there are so few people that there aren't any off the highway. We ended up having to stop just outside West Lafayette...good thing my car has good gas mileage.

Instead of going right to the area of the race, Michael and I planned a stop in West Lafayette to visit a former teacher of our who had moved there for work. (No pictures because I'm not a creeper.) After meeting his dogs, who were the least scary big dogs I've ever met, we drove downtown for some lunch, which was spectacular, because I was about to gnaw my own arm off.

Their first choice of restaurant was closed, but the back-up across the street had a great shaded patio, which was perfect given how wonderful the weather was. I managed to eat most of a margherita pizza to fortify myself for the day. 

After relaxing, the group of us trekked across the river to get to campus. The downtown area was really cute and had pretty much every shop a college kid would need, definitely a big difference from the abandoned mess that is East Lansing's downtown. There was also the added bonus of this being a special weekend at Purdue, aka everyone dressed up in ridiculous costumes and were wasted by the early afternoon. My personal favorite was a guy who attempted to a roll up a hill. Mad skillz.

I had really wanted to see the Boilermaker train, but apparently it doesn't always park in the same spot, so we went to see the Boilermaker statue instead.

No Sparty, but it has its own charm.

We were obviously by the basketball arena and football stadium when we got this photo. I know Purdue is not a bastion of sports prowess, but it was almost comical how small their football stadium was. I felt like I could just reach out and give it a hug and pinch its cheeks and tell it how cute it is. I might look into seeing MSU play there next time that game is scheduled away, it seems like it would be a pretty stress-free game day experience. 

 

After the Boilermaker came a stop up on a patio to get a good view of campus. It makes me feel like a traitor, but I think I liked Purdue's campus better than MSU's. More of the buildings seemed older yet well-cared for, and there were nice lawns spread throughout.

Forever...I'm a...Spartan.

We also stopped to see the Neil Armstrong statue, which was hilariously chill. For some reason I can't find my picture of it, so here's someone else's. 

About to pop off to, you know, the freakin' moon.

After a quick stop for ice cream, we headed back. Michael and I stayed longer than planned, so we knew we knew we wouldn't be able to make packet pick-up (which closed at 5 PM, seriously?), but we were really happy we got to maximize our visit. From other blogs I read of people doing the 50 States, half the fun seems to be seeing out-of-state friends. Indiana isn't exactly across the world, but West Lafayette was still too far for just a quick day trip. 

The race was to be held in Lowell, IN, heard of by exactly no people, including any hotel owners, so we drove on to Merrillville, which had actual places to stay. We decided to overnight at the Extended Stay America, which was not the best choice in hindsight. The rate was good, and the room was fine, but the other guests all gave me creepy vibes, and it took the receptionist three tries to make our room keys. I also got to listen to the cleaning ladies have a screaming match in the back room. Professional.

But the most important thing about Merrillville was it had a Portillos. For anyone not in the know, this is only the most amazing restaurant on the planet. I generally only get this a few times a year when we see family in Illinois, though we occasionally indulge and get a box delivered to make ourselves. Italian beef and fries is not the best pre-race meal by any stretch of the imagination, but I knew this race was going to hurt, so there was no way I was skipping my favorite place.

This basically put us into a food coma, and we went to bed at a crazy 9 PM for our early wake-up the next day.

Meb Strong

Congratulations, Meb!

 

I was fortunate enough to be able to stream the last few minutes of the men's race because it fell during my lunch. I could hardly believe my eyes when the Boston Marathon Twitter feed kept telling me Meb was holding on to the lead. I had wanted to believe so badly when Shalane was leading earlier, that I tried to tell myself not to get reeled in. (But a giant congrats to her as well on the PR! I'm definitely not trying to downplay what she did do.)

No one around me at work had a real appreciation for the race, so I was left to flail silently in my cube while I watched the last two miles. It was like having to watch the Rose Bowl quietly - almost impossible. 

I wanted to jump up and shout at Meb to run when I kept seeing Chebet behind him. One of the camera angles made Chebet seem a lot closer than he actually was, but it still made me nervous. I do almost feel bad the top men get caught up with the "slower" elite women, I would freak out if I had people passing me that weren't actually in my race when it was that close!

I was thrilled when I watched Meb somehow power even harder once he hit the 1K to go mark. His joy at winning was infectious. I don't think I'll ever forget his face when it really sunk in that he had done it.

 

I can't even begin to imagine how hard he must have worked every single day for this moment, especially as an older athlete, often counted out despite his many (and recent) achievements. 

This is the first time in my life that an American has won Boston. International sports are pretty much the one time I trot out my patriotic horse, but I honestly didn't expect to feel this emotional about seeing a countryman break the tape. While my running career has been short, I think I've always sort of known that African runners will win and anything else is a complete fool's dream and there's a great bridge available for sale if you're interested.

Watching Meb's victory inspired me. In the back of my mind, I've always wanted to qualify for Boston, but unless the BAA wanted to give me a 90 minute grace period, that wasn't going to happen any time soon. I always joke when non-runners ask that the plan is to live until I'm 70 and not get slower. But today made me reconsider.

I have 15 weeks between Hatfield-McCoy and Monument...the Hanson's Marathon Method calls for an 18 week program, with the ability to tweak the first four or five weeks. I know I have lots of room for improvement. This training cycle has given me a better base and gotten me comfortable with pacing myself through much longer runs. It's unfortunate that I've been set back by two colds and an injury, but I'm going to persevere despite that.

I realize that running four marathons in 49 days isn't a typical training plan, but my goal (other than to finish and enjoy them) is to become more comfortable with the marathon distance and how I respond to it. I'm way underachieving based on my 10K PR, so I think with a different training method I could drop a lot of time (relatively) easily. I don't think a 3:34:59 is anywhere in my near future, but I will focus on getting close to a sub-4. I realize that's relatively arbitrary, but I feel like I would be mentally ready to approach qualifying for Boston if I can get in the neighborhood.

Maybe in a couple years I too will get the honor of wearing an unicorn jacket.

Because right now I'm a lot closer to this.

Injury Doldrums

It's been awhile since my last post, obviously because I have been doing some intense workouts...working out my self-pity muscles, that is. For those keeping score at home, there are 20 days until my next marathon. More importantly, my four marathons in 49 days block starts with that race. The goal was to get to the first starting line healthy and fit and take it easy from there. Unfortunately, my body had some other plans. 

 

Three weeks ago I started running again after taking a week off for illness. I capped that week off with a 16 mile long run. I was tired and sore afterwards, but that was to be expected. I assumed the extra soreness was just my muscles complaining about the shift in workload. I spent the next week hobbling around and convincing myself that everything was totally fine (stairs were always super painful, right?). I realized it probably was something more serious when multiple coworkers started to ask why I was walking so funny. (Maybe also when I couldn't get shotgun in the lunch carpool because I couldn't hobble fast enough.) Both my quads felt like I had destroyed them.

I finally broke down and did what a sensible person would do - I rested. Then I did my planned 20 miler. Whoops.

The problem was the rest didn't help at all. Not as in, it started feeling better and got worse again because I came back to soon, as in I did nothing for four days, and the stairs were just as painful. I tried yoga and swimming, which helped a bit, but it did nothing to come close to solving the problem. Any time I attempted a running motion, I felt like I was going to fall flat on my face and only made forward progress with sheer willpower. It was no fun.

 

I know I complain about running, but I do love it. I could have forced myself to keep running sure, and even did so on multiple occassions, but I could never get into the zone and just enjoy. I caved and asked a running friend for advice, and she suggested massaging it with a tennis ball. After picking up dog-themed tennis balls from the pet store (I was already there and was too lazy to make another stop), I tried it out. I could feel quite a bit of tension releasing from my quads. I started getting hopeful, but it still wasn't enough. I could finally walk mostly normally and use the stairs without pain, but I had the same problem when I tried to run.

Last week I knew I had to do something, anything, to try to solve the problem. I headed to urgent care on my lunch one day. It seemed like all the stars were aligned to find a solution - the urgent care is run by the University of Michigan (I know I trash on UM, but even I will admit they have excellent medical facilities), attached to a major hospital, and I got to see a sports medicine MD. Do you know what he suggested - rest. The whole point of going was to resolve an issue that didn't respond to rest, and he just prescribed more of it.

Honestly, the kicker was when he prescribed a blood test to check my calcium level, even though he outright admitted there's no evidence cramping and calcium levels are related. He also recommended PT to strengthen my quads, but considering I regularly lift to do that already, I wasn't about to do that either.

I was getting desperate at this point, so I went to my last resort - I called a chiropractor for a sports massage. There's a clinic in town that's an official Ironman partner and advertised various athletic services, included ART. I called and got the nicest receptionist ever. She even took the time to look up what my insurance would cover and explained how the visit would go. (I've never been to a chiro before.) She was apologetic that the soonest they could fit me in was the next morning.

This is probably going to sound like an ad for the chiro, but it was so amazing I want to share with everyone. Seriously, if you need sports-related help and live in mid-Michigan, check them out. The facility was clean and fresh, and everything was running on time, and they had no problem letting me change there, since I had come from work.

I first went with the doctor to a consult room to discuss the problem. As soon as I said it didn't respond to rest, he was concerned. Already miles ahead of the dude the day before. He also got infinite bonus points because, as soon as I said I had a marathon coming up, he said our goal would be to get me to the starting line ready to run. A++, sir.

Our second order of business was to do a range of motion test. I knew there was some sort of problem when he had me do overhead squats and repeatedly asked if I was going as low as I could. (I honestly had no idea I should have been able to go lower.) We wrapped up with leg lifts, where he seemed shocked with how not-high I could lift my leg. Apparently a normal person can easily lift their leg completely vertical, I could barely get it halfway.

This picture is super creepy, but the best illustration I could find.

The doctor then immediately diagnosed me with extreme hamstring inflexibility, which means my quads are constantly overloaded. He said our goal is to give me normal range of motion in the hamstrings. I never realized there was something I could do about my inflexibility, I assumed it was innate and could never really be improved.

We then did about 20 minutes of ART. I knew it was going to hurt, but DAMN, did it hurt. The worst was when he separated out each muscle of the quad and applied pressure as I moved my leg. I almost cried on the first one, but I knew it would be worth it. I even got to experience the sudden sweats when he worked a few particularly terrible spots.

As soon as I got up, though, I immediately noticed a huge improvement. That man was like a magician.

I'm scheduled to go twice a week for the next two weeks, and then we'll re-evaluate. I'm really excited that the problem was properly diagnosed and is being addressed. I was told to keep to my normal routine as much as possible. I've decided to replace my lifting days with swimming, since lifting just sounds too painful right now. I've even found a great new swimming program I'm excited to try.

Other than turning my speedwork into easy runs, mostly because I physically can only go one speed right now, my goal is to get back on schedule starting Monday. I've promised myself to cut back if it's excruciating, but my quick (actually very slow) two miler yesterday was so much better than any run has felt in a long time. I'm definitely going to be undertrained when I get to the starting line, but as long as I take less than 6:30 to finish, I'll be a happy camper.

See, there's even a game named after me!