Martini Fridays: An Extra Week of Training? Fun!
This is not me, and this is not how I have fun.
In this edition of Martini Fridays, Adrienne Martini, training for the Pittsburgh Half-Marathon using the Train Like a Mother: Finish It plan, realizes she’s served herself up a few more miles.
This is not what I expected to be writing about this week.
Before you panic, I’m not injured nor sick. Everyone near and dear to me is well.
Oh, and I’m not pregnant. That particular ship has sailed, thank all the gods that may be. I love my babies but I am d-o-n-e.
No, my surprise is much more mundane. What I’d expected to devote my entire post to this week was Saturday’s nine-miler and how I keep failing at the “fun workout.”
Long story short: Nine miles is a long way. I wanted to reward myself with a homemade cinnamon roll afterwards but was afraid I might barf, which would be a waste of a homemade cinnamon roll. I did get to run outside, even though I had to keep changing my route because it was blocked by heaps of melting snow. Still, I got it done.
“Fun workouts” are called for a few times on the TLAM: Finish It Half-Marathon Plan. SBS, Dimity, and Coach Christine Hinton offer up some ideas for the fun workout. Shoot baskets, they suggest, or play dodgeball. Ice skating would work. Hit a dance or aqua aerobics class.
These are all reasonable suggestions, even though I can’t quite think about dodgeball without painful flashbacks to sixth grade gym. Unless you count flinching and crying as a “fun workout,” dodgeball is off of the table. And if you do count flinching and crying as a fun workout, well, who am I to judge?
That’s a lie. I’m totally going to judge that.
Regardless, what their suggestions don’t take into account —and why would they?—is that I have a very narrow window to work with on Mondays. I have 45 minutes in the morning and that’s it. There is nowhere else I could squeeze anything longer than a pee break.
My YMCA is a small one. There are no classes scheduled during that window. As I’ve whined about before, the weather here is still frigid and icy. The options for “fun” narrow pretty quickly when I take all of that into account.
My kids, of course, think that I’m just against fun, which is why I can’t come up with an activity. They may have a point. When it comes to workouts, I like the reassurance of a plan. I don’t have enough experience with running to feel like I can just wing even a tiny bit of it. And being asked to choose my own fun feels a little like winging.
This is what fun looks like for me. Rather than leap on the elliptical or stair climber, I’ve been bonding with the recumbent bike. Given that these fun workouts usually come after mileage increases, it’s nice to sit down for a little bit, even while making sure I’m getting my heart rate up enough to sweat a little.
Part of me feels that I’m obeying the letter of the law on this, rather than its spirit. And what I’d intended to do at this point in the post was ask you a) what you’d do for a fun workout and b) if I’m slacking too much. Which I still hope you comment on, mind.
But I noticed something while taking the picture to go with this post.
I’m proud that I’ve worked through the first page of the plan. I was going to get all pinteresty on crossing off the days, like work in some scrapbooking stickers or origami or something. In the end, I went with good old red pencil and laziness. The slashes go in different directions because of the way the page was sitting on my desk.
After taking that picture, I moved the second page of the plan to the top of my pile of running-related paper. Something looked weird. See if you can spot it.
The race is on May 4, which means that the last week of training starts on April 28, which is what my pencil date on the side says next to week 15. That works. All is well through Week 7. But when you go back to the first page …
… you notice that I failed to account for the week that starts with February 24.
I might have wept a little when I put all of this together.
So here’s the dilemma: should I pick a week to do twice or do I lengthen the taper or do some third thing that I haven’t yet thought of? If I pick a week to do twice, which one should it be: one with more mileage or with less?
Remember what I mentioned about my ability to wing it? If I thought the directive to have fun was unsettling, well, this missing week is downright harrowing. Please advise on both how to have fun and how to deal with this dilemma.
Tell Me Tuesday: The Ins and Outs of Gastrointestinal Issues while Running
That all too common position after a run: it either means you’ve been working hard or something is horribly wrong on the inside.
Let us be blunt: Dealing with stomach issues while running can be the shits. Literally. (If you find this topic gross—or you’re eating breakfast—now is the time to head over to TMZ or NYTimes.) Yet it’s a fact of life that, for many runners, tummy troubles can cause a bevy of issues, from pain to diarrhea. Here at AMR we don’t shy away from crossing the proverbial port-a-potty threshold in search of some solutions.
For a poop-primer, let’s start with why running can wreak havoc with your GI system. The up-and-down motion of running jostles your innards, turning the last night’s dinner into a sloshy mesh. On longer or more intense runs, your body struggles to provide your muscles with the blood they need to push you through your hill workout or past mile 14. Thus, different organ systems like your GI tract can end up with a serious deficit of oxygenated blood at any point during your workout. Short-changed on blood, your gut can revolt, which can then, well, be revolting.
Here’s to crossing your fingers that your pit-stop won’t be rudely interrupted.
This doesn’t mean we have to succumb to suffering through split times interrupted by a pit-stops behind a bush or hours spent in the bathroom post-race. What follows is some advice from us at AMR and sage suggestions from other members in the tribe:
–Hydration is one of the most commonly offered-up solutions. While dehydration can certainly be adding to the problem, especially on longer, hotter, more humid runs, simply drinking more water will not always be an easy fix to the problem. Sara reminds us that, especially when talking GI issues, it’s important not to overlook electrolytes (think Nuun or Salted Caramel GU).
-Coffee is also used by many to clear the [poop] chute before a morning run. Pamela, for example, found herself without her usual arsenal of coffee at the Chicago half-marathon and says she has learned her lesson ten times over. Becky, like Pamela, finds the best results waking up half an hour to an hour early before her run to treat her body to, “a warm cup of GI start-up liquid.”
–Diet is another culprit people commonly blame as the cause of pesky stomach disturbances. While there is no one food that helps everyone, lots of mother runners have commented on Facebook about experimenting with what, how much, and when they eat in relations to their workouts. Cheryl, for example, has found eating a piece of toast or bread before her runs helps.
Amanda and Erica, conversely, found removing gluten from their diet practically eliminated GI distress “overnight.” Heather got the same result from decreasing the amount of dairy she eats. Daniela has found, regardless of each individual’s dietary needs, the best way to experiment, and hopefully finding real results, is to keep a food diary.
-Imodium is a solution many runners with GI issues end up turning to. While some of the tribe has had mixed results with it, many women have found that either taking Imodium before a run, after, or both before and after saves them the stress of mid-run pit stops. Other mother runners have experimented with TUMS and probiotic treatments. Once again, it doesn’t work for every runner but worth a shot.
-Lastly, staying relaxed before and during runs can also cut down on GI problems. Although for many of us this is a doubled edged sword, since running is our de-stresser and it doesn’t help when it gets interrupted by intense GI pain, creating a routine before races that keeps your mind and body calmer could potentially help. Heidi, for example, is very self-aware of her stress level going into a run and switches up her workouts to accommodate what’s been happening in her life.
Remind yourself: Each run doesn’t have to be a crap shoot (ba-boom-CHA!). Start experimenting and let us know what has–or hasn’t–worked for you. Any wonderful homegrown remedies out there? Comment below!
No lines for the port-a-potties?! This shot must have been taken days before a race.
Disney Princess Weekend: Glass Slippers, Mother Runners, Magical Miles
Bring on the bling! Princess Half-Marathon medal; Coast to Coast medal (two Disney races on each coast in 1 year); and Glass Slipper Challenge.
What a weekend. Actually, what an amazing five days that started with a mother runner party at Fit2Run in Orlando and concluded with wearing so many medals around our necks, it kind of felt like a workout.
We were lucky enough to play multiple roles at the Disney Princess Half-Marathon Weekend—and thankfully, as mothers, we have the multitasking skills to handle it. (And it was so, so much easier than simultaneously helping with 5th grade math homework, cooking a dinner that everybody will at least tolerate, and sweeping dog hairs and crumbs off the kitchen floor.) We manned the mother runner booth on the expo floor and got to meet so many badass, interesting, hilarious mother runners; we spoke daily, giving tips and tricks for race day; we ran the Princess Half-Marathon on Sunday; and I—Dimity—added the inaugural Enchanted 10K on Saturday so I could go full-on Disney and run back-to-back race and collect a special medal, the Glass Slipper Challenge.
Our mother runner booth was a hive of laughs and inspiration. So many women taking on their first 13.1, so many women telling us how important running is in their lives. (And so many women there without their families! Love the freedom of traveling solo, no? Especially as I sit typing this in the Orlando airport, so grateful my biggest concern is filling my water bottle before the flight.) We received lots of congrats and women telling us how excited they were to see we are officially a part of the runDisney family, which only heightened our excitement for the upcoming races.
After two days at the expo, I was ready to race—even if that meant a 2 a.m. alarm, if I adjusted for Colorado time. (Which I will do right now: Just heightens the drama, right?) I was especially ready to run because we had a small army of mother runners committed to taking on the 10K together. Our only goal: Assume an easy pace, spend some time bonding with the tribe, and take a bunch of pictures. Turns out, we had one other goal: Totally soak our shirts, even with our easy pace. Probably not news to anybody who lives in the southeast, but Holy Humidity. Somebody said it started at 96% that morning—and went up. No mind: We laughed and chatted and Instagramed our way through a lovely 10K course.
I must interrupt this race post to just wax for a sentence about how instant and special the connection of mother runner is. Although a few women came with their pals, we had a couple solo runners and we immediately fell into step with one another. By mile 3, we were discussing vasectomies and by the end, we were trading emails. (Ok, the group email was mostly to grab pictures from each other, but the morning had a glow about it that would’ve been present even if we weren’t trotting through Magic Central.)
Our final group shot. I think even Mickey would agree, we are badass princesses.
The funniest part of the race for me? Carissa, the effusive runDisney announcer, noticing our mother runner posse crossing the starting line. “Where’s Sarah of another mother runner?” she asked, “Oh yeah, back in bed, still sleeping.” Sarah, a West Coaster whose body clock was an hour earlier than mine, choose to skip the 10K—then she let me nap after the race so I could grab back a little of that lost sleep. (Thank you, sister from another mother runner. Much appreciated.)
I needed as much rest as I could muster because Sunday morning required a 3:00 am alarm to get dressed, grab a bite, hit the bathroom multiple times, snap a couple shots, and be ready for a 5:35 start with 26,000 other runners—and a few characters along the way.
I won’t lie: The idea of covering 13.1 miles after a pretty epic couple of days felt pretty daunting. Especially because the humidity hadn’t really relented; the air was thick and our sports bras were soaked after about a quarter of a mile.
Not a great picture, but it’s representative of the weather: Warm pea soup.
On the bus over, we talked about how we’d run this race like we ran Tinker Bell: with enjoyment as a focus, but still maintain a steady pace. We had spent enough time on our feet at the expo. I felt surprisingly good from the outset. (Not PR good, but definitely better than I did at the start of Tinker Bell.) Sarah had a tougher time breathing through the thick air, so we just found a doable groove and kept our eyes out for good picture opps. I decided I would let Sarah set the pace, more or less; I had a few moments where I let my inner jackrabbit out, and she wisely reigned me in. My jackrabbit is best matched for 5K’s, not half-marathons, but I have a hard time remembering that.
I think we’ve got our costume for next year, although those incredible boots might be a bit ambitious.
We hit the halfway point, and it didn’t feel downhill, but it didn’t feel impossible either. I was also following Sarah’s lead on fueling. She religiously takes a GU at mile 4, 8, and 11, so I mentally divided the race that way: 4 miles + 4 miles + 3 miles + 2.1 miles. Those bites felt perfect for the day, and I liked that the segments got shorter towards the end.
Sarah, I’m guessing, divided the race into pre-mile 7 and post-mile 7; mile 7 is where there’s a special Princess Power Song. “If it’s not ‘Let it Go’, I’m just going to super bummed,” she admitted. When we heard “The cold never bothered me anyway,” she immediately sang all the lyrics, and I joined in for the chorus. (Phew. Thanks, runDisney, for keeping Sarah’s spirit high.)
On we went. When I’d fall into a tough spell where running just felt hard, I asked myself, “How can you make this easier, Dimity?” Usually that meant shortening my steps, making them more frequent, standing taller, and unclinching my fists and jaw. I kept the same pace, but dramatically downsized the effort.
We ran into a multitude of mother runners—loved the mother runner in the hot pink Tough Girl Tutu who dotted it up, Minnie-style—and that, of course, is always a highlight of any race. We met Kelli at the beginning of the race, who told us she was following our Train Like a Mother Half-Marathon: Own It plan. She got ahead of us when we stopped for pics, but we saw her again right after mile 12, when we urged her to Own It and to finish strong. We hit the last drag of race, and I think I had sweated out every.last.drop of energy I had left. “I just want you to keep your chin up and look proud and smile,” Sarah told me, and that was what I needed to hear. Check and check, so here’s another thanks, SBS.
She’ll also be very bummed if I don’t print our finishing time, so it was 2:06:58. (Note: I did not round up to 2:07.)
Our pal Denise, who gamely helped us woman the booth all 3 days, finishing strong. Thank you, Denise!
It’s hard to Let It Go when you’ve been looking forward to this trip for so long—and it’s hard to sum up such an incredible weekend with one witty paragraph, especially when sleep was minimal and sweat, maximal. So I’ll take the easy way out with another picture. Mother runners bookended this memorable weekend, and Kelli bookended a memorable race. Thanks, all. xo
Great job, Kelli: proud of you, mother runner!
You Ask; We Answer: A Q&A Show
If only the bag could tell us how to pronounce it…
In an uncharacteristically oversharing mood, Dimity opens this show with a TMI tale that cracks Sarah up. (Doesn’t everything?) Then, jumping into questions posted on their Facebook wall, the mother runners talk about everything from dividing longer runs into two workouts to importance of “easy” runs. (No, not oxymorons.) Find out what the exercise “grey zone” is—and that Dimity admits to loving it. The gals discuss how to balance racing with family planning, agreeing you shouldn’t ever have to justify race distance or plans to anyone. In telling Norma-Ann when to start running more frequently, Dim and SBS debate whether they “look forward” to a run versus “not dreading” one. Along the way, Dimity gives a few hints about their upcoming third book—and Sarah mispronounces “cruciferous” not once, not twice, but three times!
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Martini Fridays: 64 Laps of Mildly Profane Silliness
A walk with the corgi. It’s a little snowy. Even the dog is over it.
Adrienne Martini is up to Week 5 in the Train Like a Mother Half-Marathon: Finish It training plan, and the Pittsburgh Half-Marathon—and spring—feel impossibly far away. Check out her previous posts.
When you live in a place where winter is a force to be reckoned with, you learn to make peace with it. Or, if you can’t make peace, you move south.
We actually lived in the south—in Texas and in Tennessee—for just over a decade. And while there are many things I miss about both places (migas and dogwoods, among others) I do not miss the endless, punishing summers.
I’m a cold weather gal. I’d rather put on a sweater than shorts. I’d much rather crunch through autumn leaves than scuff through summer sand. Give me crisp air rather than air you can wring out like a wet towel.
That being said, this particular winter is getting on my last dang nerve.
I’ve had it. As I type, the snow outside is literally knee-deep. My knees, that is; not the knees belonging to the kids or the corgi. Another 2 – 4” is predicted by this evening. I don’t even know where we’ll put it; I do have a few ideas where Mother Nature can stick it.
I don’t know that I’d be so very over it if I weren’t trying to get training runs in. But I do know that I’ve turned into a Tom Petty song: I’m tired of myself and tired of this town. I’m tired of the kids, too, because they are always in the house. And of slushy boots and of snow days and of icy windshields and of frozen fingers. I have lost my cold weather zen.
I didn’t even toy with the idea of running outside for Saturday’s eight miler, even though I’ve seen a few brave, lithe young men out in blizzard-like conditions. I am just not that much of a badass and have made peace with that.
Besides, about half of my neighbors have stopped shoveling their sidewalks, which makes it hard to wear Yaktrax because it’s not consistently snowy underfoot. For the record, I’m tired of my neighbors, too, but totally get how weary they are.
Fortunately, the indoor track was on open Saturday. Just getting there involved a boring-but-epic adventure that included brushing and scraping another 4 inches of snow off of my car, most of which went into my boots.
Angry cats, angry mother runners.
My mood was remarkably foul by the time I had my running shoes on and started the first (of 64) laps. Usually on long runs I listen to podcasts but I had deploy my emergency playlist, which is full of the songs I listen to sparingly. Some of them are guilty pleasures; some are R-rated.
This list has little to do with the songs SBS posted earlier this week. All of the songs on the list are great, mind, and inspiring. I totally get why “Girl on Fire” and “Brave” are on so many iPods. Worthy choices all.
My emergency playlist isn’t full of those songs. Instead, it has a mix of music that I’d not recommend to many. This is where I stash all of the songs with nuclear-grade swearing, like Missy Elliott’s “Gossip Folks” or the Beastie Boys’ “Ch-check It Out.” Also on the list are songs that I’m embarrassed to love, like Nelly’s “Hot in Herre” or Robin Thicke’s “Blurred Lines.” While my feminist side finds these tunes troubling at best, I still love them. And, yes, I’m aware of this moral ambiguity. These are the songs I needed to keep both my brain and body engaged in something other than grousing about the weather.
As in my last Eminem run, which reminds me to put some of his songs on this playlist, I hit a mental wall about six miles in. There’s just something about being two-thirds of the way that sucks out my will to go on. This time, I went to the silliest song: Amanda Palmer’s “Map of Tasmania,” which is really not safe for work once you figure out what she’s talking about. (And the video is not at all safe for work, the easily offended, or small children, Not that it would harm small children, just that you also need to have the time to have a Very Important Discussion afterwards. Older kids, like, say, my Tween, will simply roll their eyes if they catch you watching it. She does that when I breathe, too, so I try to not read into it. I’ve digressed.)
This song makes me smile every single time I hear it, even when I’m two-thirds of the way through a long run, indoors, in February when I know the most I have to look forward to after the run is a 10 degree afternoon spent thinking about the Bahamas while trying to stay warm. Desperate times call for mildly profane silliness —and both the run and the tunes helped lighten my mood. I wouldn’t say I had my swagger back by the end but I was no longer ready to bite the head off of a kitten.
As proof that training actually works, this eight-mile run wasn’t nearly as exhausting as the first one a few weeks ago. While my legs weren’t anything that could be described as fresh on Sunday, I didn’t think twice about the several dozen trips I made up and down the stairs in order to do several dozen loads of laundry and vacuum up several metric tons of dog hair.
Progress, I guess.
I’m doing my best to not think about the nine-mile run that is coming up this week. I’m also doing my best to not think about how it will probably have to be done indoors again because all this snow and ice isn’t going anywhere, no matter how fiercely I direct my fire-y rage at it.
Sadly, my magic playlist won’t work again so soon, but I suspect I can go back to my old podcast standards since my mood won’t be as grumpy.
Just in case I need them, however, it would be nice to know what songs you have tucked away for emergencies, especially if they are just a little bit embarrassing.
ZOOMA Amelia Island Recap
Kristin & Jessi after the ZOOMA Half Marathon
The ladies travel (virtually!) from Portland to Sochi to Florida, where their guests Kristin Smith and Jessi Schacht recently ran a ZOOMA half-marathon on Amelia Island. Kristin, fresh off a marathon (as in, 6 days prior!), and Jessi rave about all aspects of the all-women’s race, from the bounty of port-a-lets to the champagne at the post-race party, and even participants huddling together to stay warm at the unseasonably cold start line. The running partners talk about their “very conscious decision” to run the final the miles together rather than beating themselves up to hang with the 2:10 pacer.
But first, Sarah recounts her harrowing four days in #Snowlandia, and how she’s been staying up late to watch the Olympics. Sarah is loving slopestyle, while Dimity admits social media is crushing her Olympic buzz. Sarah also shares her personal connection to the Winter Games. (Hint: It’s via her ex-husband.) Finally, turns out both of Dimity’s children and one of Sarah’s are geography-geeks.
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Oh-snow-you-didn’t! Sarah (purple) and running pal Molly getting goofy on a flake-filled run.
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