Category Run Salty

I have run well over 1000 miles with Trex, including during my (our) most triumphant and worst races thus far in my (our) running careers, and from my perspective he is most definitely my Anchor.  On this we agree. It’s just we don’t quite agree on which particular definition of the word applies to our partnership.   While Trex has this nagging feeling that he is dragging behind and slowing me down he is anything but that. So allow me to set the record straight.

Anchor leg
anchor leg is the final position in a relay race. Typically, the anchor leg of a relay is given to the fastest or most experienced competitor on a team. The athlete completing the anchor leg of a relay is responsible for making up ground on the race-leader or preserving the lead already secured by their teammates.[1] An anchor leg is typically part of a running relay, but may also be part of swimming, skiing or skating relays.[2][3]

Having swam competitively in HS, I was often the anchor swimmer on relay teams. I can still hear the voices of my swimming sisters yelling my name as sprinted past the other swimmers, cheering me into the wall, and shouting how much they loved me at the moment we all realized we had just earned first place on the podium and qualified for State at our first regional meet.  It was a proud moment in my life and has always stayed with me.  Coming from behind, and over taking my competition was something I thrived on. Ask my family or friends and they can attest to my fierce competitive nature. I love to win.

But a few years ago, while serving as the captain of a Roller Derby team, I had my first daughter and I came to realize that there wasn’t enough room for the fierce competitor in me and the nurturer. This was a hard day.  I realized that in order to be the mother I wanted to be that I had to make room for myself to grow in this capacity. At the time it meant I had to retire my skates because I knew I wasn’t strong enough to balance both sides of my nature. Frankly I am still not, which is why I don’t really compete with anyone but myself in running. Instead I take pride in the fact that I constantly work at balancing being a wife and a mom, with having a full-time (stressful) career, and run long distance. This is no easy task and for me it means keeping my competitive nature in check.

So today I am part of a two person team, and we are our own competition and I am more than okay with this. There simply aren’t enough me hours in the day to let my raging ram loose on the course (I am an Aries btw). While she is in there I don’t have any more time or energy available to do what it takes to complete with the likes of runners such as RAbbit or other women, who dominate the course in my age group, without paying the price of missing out on my family life or falling behind in my career.

So frankly I don’t give it my all, I give it what I can, day in and day out, saving enough for the rest of my life. Sure I most definitely have it in my veins to go faster, but at a serious cost. I have to keep this drive in check to maintain balance. I am my own boat anchor {1}.

an·chor
ˈaNGər/
noun: anchor; plural noun: anchors
1.  a heavy object attached to a rope or chain and used to moor a vessel to the sea bottom, typically one having a metal shank with a ring at one end for the rope and a pair of curved and/or barbed flukes at the other.
2.  a person or thing that provides stability or confidence in an otherwise uncertain situation.

It is because of my natural tendency to want to take off and race to the finish that I have needed a little help learning to stay grounded with running. It has been a learning process and I am more than grateful for Trex’s influence in this area. I have never known anyone as steady like a rock (or an anchor as the case may be) as Trex.

To start, if it is a run day, he runs. His words, not mine. If it is 1 billion degrees outside, raining flaming locusts, and it’s a run day, then he inevitably has some gear for just this occasion, pulls it out, and he runs.  Yes that is a tad bit of an exaggeration, but the analogy holds. I don’t know anyone who is as thoughtful about preparedness, and who is as dedicated to finishing what he starts as Trex. I have adopted this same credo to help maintain a place for running in my life. My family and co-workers understand that running is important to me so if it is a run day, I run; perhaps not as fast as I am able, but I run. Period.

During my runs I have also come to rely on Trex’s metronome-like rhythmic foot falls to keep a steady pace and structured form. This has helped me steadily improve my running and most likely prevented numerous injuries and has ensured I have enough fuel left in the tank to complete the ever increasing distances we have tackled over the past year.

Anchor
A person or feeling one uses to keep his or herself grounded or in a calm state when things are not well. He’s my anchor. You know, he keeps me calm on days everything seems to go wrong.
#anchoring #helpful #anchors #anchor #kind

Lastly,  there have often been days when my busy life has left me feeling like a one arm juggler in a circus, and when my emotions threaten to devour me like the hungry lions perched around the ring. Running has helped to be an outlet for times like these, when I feel, quite literally, like I have to “run off the crazy”. On those day’s Trex is more like my very own #luckdragon helping to pulling me out of my emotional storm by the sound of his steady rhythmic pace, his friendly optimism, and his calm demeanor.   I count myself lucky to have such a running companion.

So I guess in the end Trex was right. He is my #anchor and for it I am #better.

Okay I know, enough with the hashtags already. #whatever

Switched themes and then customized the CSS a bit to get a new, arguably better but at least different look for the site.  I decided to go with a Polaroid effect for any images which took some doing with custom CSS to override the theme’s default CSS.

I think in general it’s a a little more elegant, could be wrong.  I may not know elegant but I know what I like as the saying goes.   I’ll be playing around with things, tweaking them slightly as the whim and whimsy strikes me.

The base of the theme is the SpicePress freebie.

I have written a bit before about what it’s like to face my personal walls while running, but I encountered an interesting experience during our back-to-back 30K/15K and I feel it is worth a few lines to describe it as it seemed rather significant and useful for future use.  At least to me, myself, and I anyway.

As T-Rex mentioned in his report, I have had a bit of knee pains the past week or so. I don’t think it is my shoes as I am alternating between 4 pairs of shoes and don’t quite have enough miles on them to be the cause. As such that pretty much leaves strain due to weakness & overuse, sooo I am going to have to up my PT game a bit. I have done band exercises (mostly) on the two days a week, that are our only non-run days, but I guess I will have to do them more fervently and frequently.  I would rather not have to do all this work only to bench myself as a result of injury.

Anyways I have had a bit of extra pain while running. Who doesn’t really? So after we started our second long run for the day my knees complained loudly. My right knee especially using rather colorful profanity from the beginning threatening to force me to turn around. The right had griped a lot after our earlier 30k, so during the day I iced it and applied liberal amounts of Biofreeze gel. I don’t know that any of this helped but it made me think I was doing good anyhow.  So not one to listen to “a bunch of b*tchy little [knees],”  I willed them into submission by running long enough for everything to warm up and loosen up. Thankfully this only took about 15 minutes. Bunny 1, knees 0.

So as the pain subsided I found the 7-min/2-min run/walk cadence helped me get into a decent zone faster for the first half of the run. I agree with T-Rex, our runs have improved with the return of the run/walk repeats.  But one problem I have with this pattern is that towards the end of our longest runs I hit a point when the stop/restart of running and walking becomes extremely painful and it feels better to just simply trot than to change gears. So painful in fact that at the restart of the last run of the night, after an extra-long walking bit, both T-Rex and I, in unison, belted out four letter expletives at our discomfort. The pain was real my friends.

It was during the last 3-4 miles or so of our run/walk that I felt my wall beginning to form. Brick by brick. And not the Yellows kind either.  Perhaps it was the hypnotic atmosphere created by the dark, mingled with the strong light of the high full moon, (or the delirium brought on by the pain and late hour), but somehow I was able to consciously observe the construction process in an almost disembodied state which gave me the opportunity to deconstruct the wall before it could form a solid obstacle.  This disconnected deconstruction process struck me as rather remarkable, and as it repeated itself over the last half run cycles, it allowed me the opportunity to meditatively experiment with my thoughts over my state of being. It went something like this….

Muscles: “Everything hurts, we are sooo done with this sh*t.”
Brain: “I concur, this sucks. F@#k it I’m out.”
Conscience Observer: “Wait a minute, we’ve totally been through this before guys, remember? Let me remind you that we have twice this distance to cover in a few months so cut this moaning crap out and let’s finish strong!” (Rocky theme begins to play)
Muscles & Brain: “But it hurts! And it’s hot. And we are tired. And this sucks. And it HURTS!”
Conscience Observer:  “Ya ya heard it all before, shut the hell up, we are just fine and we are damn sure not quitting. Here think of this…. We are half way from finishing our first 50k and the end is nowhere in sight, we are in the middle of the high desert with no aid nearby and, did I mention, we sure as hell aren’t quitting now? So what would we do then?” (Duh duh duuuun)
Muscles  & Brain: “Sh*t.”
Conscience Observer: “That’s what I thought. Now shut it, we’ve got a long way to go.” (Whip crack sound effect)

I know what you’re thinking… but as Sheldon would say “I’m not crazy, my mother had me tested.”

The not-crazy-like-at-all thought cycle continued to roll through my brain, and each time I would conjure up the idea that “we” simply were in the middle of a much longer run and, in fact, had no choice but to carry on. I basically tricked myself into thinking the end wasn’t near and it worked!   Well that is until the next time my muscles and brain tried to unionize and strike, forcing me to remind them of their ‘At Will’ contracts as I cracked my proverbial whip. (cue Devo song).  In those moments I somehow, not through the use of hallucinogens, stepped outside of myself and talked some sense into my brain and body. It was a rather surreal experience. But I am curious to know if other runners have a similar trialogue with themselves, or if perhaps insanity is creeping in with stress and age. Probably the latter. Hoping it’s the former, for Trex’s sake.

While I can’t say that I didn’t struggle with the wall, I can say I learned how to not allow it to form solidly, gaining me the clarity and abatement of the pain needed to reset mid-run. It also gave me hope that I have what it takes mentally to finish Ultra distances.  Or I am mental. Either way as long as I can keep my machine from giving out on me I intend to give it a try.

I thought I’d throw some notes out there about myself.  First, where did the T-Rex come from?  Firstly when I first started pretending to run I would sometimes look like the proverbial dinosaur with short little arms trotting after some tasty triceratops.

Secondly because of my smaller group I’m quite the older of the lot.

How did I become a #notarunner?

My athletic history for most of my life has been pretty much a roller coaster of peaks and valleys of participation.  More valleys than peaks.   As a kid it was the stereotypical, run around the neighborhood and woods all day till it was too dark to see (no street lights in the tiny little town I grew up in).

Then we moved to a ‘big’ city and for a few years it was fairly quiet on the exertion front then sports came into play, wrestling and football which occupied the school year and part of the summers.

Then it was time to move on and get a job but at the same time I got involved in the fledging sport of Paintball.  So early in the sport that we were still using the same paint that they used to mark trees for cutting down.  Yes, that’s where the paintball came from, marking tools used by lumberjacks and rangers and the like to mark trees.

Paintball involves a lot of running, sprinting really followed by periods of not moving all at random.  A kind of martial fartlek going on.

During this time I also took up running for fun with a good friend of mine.  Together we were able to always prevent the other from just going to the ice cream store instead of running when it was 110F and -10F.  My running was a fairly consistent 25-27 minute 3 mile run 3 times a week, rarely went past that and when I did it was because of some random pretty girl who was amiable to the company on the trail.

Then marriage came and went and came again along with kids the second time and during this time there were moments of lackluster engagment in strength training, weight loss and no running.

It wasn’t until 2 years ago, June 2016, that for a fairly random reasons, the primary one I got a Fenix 3 HR watch which almost demanded that I try to use it for it’s purposes, i.e. tracking running.

To say it was a couch to 5K would be generous.  It was a sleepy sloth to a slow turtle to be honest.

I ran my first 5K 4 months later clocking in a speedy 39 minute run.  But I ran the whole thing without stopping even if my ‘running’ was barely above walking.

2 months later I ran my first 10K in training, not well, on Christmas day.  2 months after that I ran a 10K as a race.  It was during this period that I started running with someone else, my partner in crime on this site who became RW Prime.  At the time I’d been running for about 8 months and she was probably at the same state I was 4 months in.  It didn’t take her long to catch up to me and then of course surpass me.

While at a local running store a pleasant lady by the name of Olga introduced me to the concept of the “Running Spouse”.  And thus T-Rex’s running wife club was formed which has been quite a source of humor.   The only qualification to be a member is you have to run a race with me.  To date this gives me 4 running wives, although one of them, Rabbit, is more honorary because while we ran the same race, it was 1200 miles apart.  I’ve had a shot at a couple of other random wives who approached me during races but we ended up not running together for whatever reasons.

2 months after that I ran my first half marathon.

I didn’t run my first full until March 2018, the Little Rock Marthon 2018.  Prior to that my longest distance was 20 miles, on a day so cold the water froze in our bottles and bladder lines.  Literally froze next to our bodies.

Then 3 months later I ran my first trail run, the Mowdy Mustang Run, in June.  A marathon distance, on trails, in Oklahoma summers.   Not my brightest decision but looking back it was a great experience and certainly pushed me to my limits in keeping moving forward in spite of adversity.

Which brings us to the present and looking back.

In the 2 years 2 months I’ve been running, as of right now I’ve run 2320 miles.  With Run being a pretty generous term, let’s just say that I’ve tracked 2320 training miles over the last 26 months.   That includes a 2 week down time due to injury but other than that every training day I’ve run.  Regardless of temperatures, weather, pain, stress, mental condition, life, work, whatever.  If it’s a run day, I run.

And that I believe is why I continue to run.  Because a run day is the same as a breathing day.  Once you let yourself miss a day, of anything, it doesn’t have to be running, but once you miss a day, the second day is easier to rationalize a reason to miss, the third time is easier until you realize it’s been 3 months since you’ve done whatever it was you were going to do.

My current roadmap is racing against time to reach my goals.  Time is my enemy at my age.  The older you get the harder it gets and I’m starting a bit behind the 8 ball in that regard.

I’m going to attempt a 50K this fall, a 50Mile in Q1 in 2019 (barring major injury) and potentially next fall there’s a race I’d like to try, the Cave Creek Thriller 50K + 30K double.  You run a 50K in the morning and a 30K that evening.  Doesn’t that sound like fun?

I’m not sure when, where, if, a Hundred is in the cards but as Rabbit has stated publicly she’s going to do it with us if and when we do that it certainly adds to the draw.  Although she’ll be bored silly I’m sure at the pace that we’d be doing.

Finally I have (unofficially) broken my 12-year-old Half Marathon PR. Today, thanks to the creative planning of my RH, we Raced The Dawn and I managed break my record by a whole 1:01 for a total finish time of 2:15:15. This was no easy task, and it surprised me just how difficult it ended up being given how confident I was in my abilities to break this record.

What made it so difficult you ask?  (You probably didn’t ask, but I will tell you anyways.)

For starters, in order to make this happen it required extra hydration over the last few days which resulted in numerous trips to the bathroom, including in the middle of the night; eating when it’s rush-hour at Luby’s (5pm); going to bed before 8pm; getting out of bed at the early/late hour of 2am; and leaving my house 45 minutes later, so T-Rex and I could meet at the half way point, stash a vehicle and water reroute, with just enough time to spare to start our “race” at 3:57am (PR time – Sun Rise time).  As previously mentioned in another post this was a re-run of The Golden Driller route, at which this year I failed to break my PR; and at which last year was cancelled on account of torrential rains, gale force winds, and considerable lightning in the area. This resulted in our not getting to run the half marathon we were trained and ready to run, and the decision to plunk down the premium last minute entry fees for the OKC Memorial race the following day, and we know how that race ended up now don’t we?

The official race conditions this year were near perfect for a PR, but it seems our re-run was not able to escape the ‘Curse of the Golden Driller’.  As we arrived at the park, much to our amusement, once again we were met with a torrential downpour, strong winds, and lightning. As we sat in the car watching the sheeting rains there was nothing to do but laugh and check the radar again. Luckily the worst of it passed quickly over us and we were left with steady light rains and winds with cloud-to-cloud lightning far enough away not to be of danger, and just enough time to make our official start time.

So into the rain we stepped, found our official start/finish segment of pavement, set our watches to the same race program we used three weeks ago, and then set off at our race pace.

The weather being what it was actually cooled the morning off enough so that overheating wasn’t as big of a problem as it threatened to be, but all the water on the trail eventually soaked our shoes completely, and by the end of the race I was weighed down, drenched in water from head to toes. My soaked clothes and shoes probably added a good 2lbs of dead weight. But the rain made nice sounds as we ran under the trees that canopy the trail in several areas, so there’s that at least.

It being as late/early as it was and pitch black thanks to the clouds, we discovered that the Riverparks trail lights don’t blaze all night. Luckily we had headlamps to light the trail and all the frogs that hopped in front of us.

And unlike a sponsored public race, and because of the ungodly hour of the morning, in the rain, there was no one else on the trails running but T-Rex and I, which has its pluses and its minuses. On the plus side, you don’t have to constantly bunny hop around other runners, forced to weave and dodge around them expending additional energies. Also there is something nice about the quiet of running in the middle of the night in the rain. Meditative. But on the minus side there were no cheering fans, or by-standers, no support, no one to catch up with, and lastly the lack of energy and enthusiasm that comes from the race high. Not that T-Rex wasn’t good company, quite the opposite, although we ran mostly without conversation on account of the harder pace and need to conserve oxygen, which felt scarcer thanks to all the moisture in the air.

Eventually I was given the direction to “go on without me,” and unlike last-time I did.  Right around mile 10 I broke away and hoofed it as fast as I could go at that point, which wasn’t nearly as fast as I had hoped for and squeaked into the finish with just a minute to spare. But my speed vs T-Rex’s gave me just enough time to grab my celebratory supplies, to setup some finish line tape, and open a confetti popper as he crossed the finish. Mission accomplished.

Many things are sacrificed in the pursuit of one’s personal best. Today that sacrifice was sleep, energy, wear-n-tear on the body, and time with family while I mostly lazed around the house in recovery from my run. I was completely deplete of the energy needed to do more energetic activities most of the day, stove up with some muscle knots in my back, and I couldn’t to do much with my family besides sit around and watch movies. Although I did take them to the pool hoping to help them burn off energy and give me a chance to soak in the hot tub, but the latter didn’t happen and I ended up in more pain than when I went in. Oh well, put some mom points on the board for sacrificing recovery for making happy memories with the kiddos, and hopefully this spasming pain in my back will go away with proper rest home treatments.

But, for me, the sacrifices made were worth the feeling of accomplishment that came with finally putting this PR win on the board. And because no race would be complete without bling, separately–unbeknownst to each other,  T-Rex and I both made, and had made, special awards and medals to make official our First Place Male and Female statuses of Race the Dawn, a RunSalty production.

Today turned out to be one our most memorable and fun events, and though T-Rex doesn’t know it yet, I am going to propose that we do this again next year, and turn this into a yearly event. Next year maybe our friends will join us as we try and beat the sunrise again and break the curse of the Golden Driller.

On the heels of my (our) first 20 mile paved trail run I decided it was a good time to make an introduction, as a soon to be occasional contributor to this blog. Having accompanied Trex (my Running Husband, not to be confused with my Dear Husband) on a good number of the runs documented on this blog I suppose it is only fitting that you hear the other side of the story, or at least another perspective.

First and foremost I am a #runner. I am very much an athlete, having run, swam, and even played Roller Derby; but I find I have returned most often to running, probably for the practicality of it. This past year I have once again fallen in love with running as an outlet and inlet for my mind and body.  Yes yes I am one of those people.

I, unlike Trex, actually enjoy running (while running). Yes, physically it is very hard, and my brain and body offer up the normal responses to tell me ‘This sucks! You really really should just give up right now’; but I find enjoyment in the physical mental process to conquer my own version(s) of the Blerch or LAD – whom I haven’t yet named, so stay tuned.

I struggle, like every other human on the planet, with motivation and discipline issues, and what I have found, repeatedly now, is that finding a running partner (like Trex) has been exceptionally beneficial to overcoming my personal tendency to stray from the (running) path.  While I do occasionally enjoy solo running and the benefits of this, over the course of my life I have always had companions to run with and just feel it is way more fun if it is a shared experience. Yes I did in fact call running fun, a fundamental difference between myself and the Trex–we generally don’t much agree on much, and certainly don’t agree on the definition of what we find to be fun. But nonetheless I appreciate the company so I don’t complain–much.

Now about our first 20 mile run….

I am not going to lie, it was hard. I mean really effing hard. The kind of hard that, for me personally, I would rank up there with child birth in terms of the mental fortitude required to keep moving once my body had hit it’s physical limits. And to toot my own horn, I have had two children at home without the assistance of drugs to numb the pain, so I have earned the right to make that comparison.

Since the 20-mile run is an achievement milestone on the journey to a marathon, as it is for most runners on that path, I fully expected it to be it’s own challenge. Being the longest distance we will run before the Full, it was a good test to see how we would hold up at our planned marathon pace. In short I feel we passed the test, but not easily, and not without sweat and (for me) tears (at the end, when Trex wasn’t there to see).

Since Trex handled the technicalities, having already crunched the numbers and tallied our distances and times and projected how we can make our planned times at LR, that leaves the feels to me….  As I already said this was effing hard, but it was also a lot of fun….right up until that last couple of miles, and even then I enjoyed being done.  We managed to keep our spirits high and the energy positive, and I am super proud of this run and what we accomplished.

The +‘s:

• The weather held, not too unbearably cold.
• Mentally I think I (we) was (were) in a good place for this run having completed the 30K the weekend before.
• I feel I (we) gained extremely valuable insight into pushing through walls.
• We stuck to the workout schedule we built with some flexibility and managed to maintain a good run/walk pace.
• Good Carb/caffeine fuel intake during run keep energy and mental strengths in the green.
• Escalante’s first long run performed well, no dead toenails or blisters. Super comfy on my feet.
• Overcame the physical wall between mile 18-20 to finish on pace target.

The –‘s:

• Too much food at rest stop.
• Not sure if Escalantes will be cushion enough for my joints through 26.2 miles. Leaves me to debate on what to wear.
• Encountered pre-cramping at mile 18-20. Made it difficult to stay positive.
• Physically felt spent at mile 19-20, did NOT feel I could have run even one more tenth of a mile past 20. This has left room for doubt about how the hell I will manage to run 6 more miles.

Lessons learned: (The hard way)

• Check your watches the day before to make sure you remembered to sync your workouts
• Don’t overeat or drink too much at the break stops… molasses cookies, and fig newtons are a weakness.
• Charge/check HR belts
• Don’t linger too long at stops.. It causes muscles to lock up and you eat too much.
• Don’t over tighten laces and or use straight laces. After the fact I have Extensor Tendinitis in my right foot thanks to my pulling the laces too tight when my shoe came untied. This injury is still bothering me 5 days later and probably needs another day or so to be completely healed.

All in all, as I said, I feel like we achieved this milestone with flying colors, but there is a niggling feeling of doubt planted in my brain that I am going to have to wiggle loose and dislodge in order to be mentally ready for 6.2 more miles.  But I am fully prepared to give it my all and try like hell to finish the next milestone on this journey for the sheer fact that I am stubborn and strong willed and hate to lose (even to myself).  Type A all the way

After seeing the footage from our Greenleaf 30K I decided to look into ways to making that better and I settled on a Feiyu Tech G5 Gimbal.   In just some quick playing around with it it works fairly well.

I’m going to have to 3D print some shells though to use 18650 batteries as the 22650 it comes with is just super hard to find and I have a bunch of 18650’s for flashlights of various purposes.

It’s heavier than I thought but the craftsmanship is pretty good.

I picked the G5 for a few reasons, looks, it’s just a cleaner look than the other one I was looking at, it has a ‘selfie’ button that makes it easy to do a 180 of the camera, and it was $50 less than the other one I looked at.

Also DC Rainmaker has several months of use with this model and he didn’t say anything bad about it so that’s a big plus.

And a big reason to get a gimbal, a powered one anyway, is I just like toys.  All kinds of toys.   I could have 3D printed a weight based gimbal that would have helped.  But I needed a compact one that I can easily stow in my pack and this one fit the bill.

Added another domain that points to this one called runsalty.com.  Surprisingly there’s no such thing on the internet.  I went looking for a tech shirt with either I Run Salty or Run Salty on it and they don’t exist.  I’m vaguely shocked at that.

I didn’t expect that the internet would let me down and apparently I had an original thought.”

So I registered the domain name because why not?

I need an angry salt shaker running as a logo now and I can use cafepress or something similar to create my own tech shirt to show my angry running.

This all started as I just ran my first half and for a few minutes after I finished I was in a bit of a mood because I ended up walking 3 sections of the last mile and and a half.   Maybe half mile total walking.  And as a result I had the thought I need a shirt to warn people that I may be unapproachable and as salty is a thing at the moment although it may be winding down, I said to myself, “get a I run salty shirt.”.  I didn’t expect that the internet would let me down and apparently I had an original thought.

So you may see some changes on the site as I make it more salty.