The Six Pack of Running Winos

Here we are at Demae's wedding in July of 2006 (can't believe it's been that long). Little did I know that the running bug would somehow catch on, and this year, we'd be planning on running the Santa Rosa Half Marathon -- in a matter of months.

Out of the girls pictured to the left - it's me (note the horrible tan line), Demae (bride), Rachel (next to her), Tam (scrunched 2nd from the right), and Heidi. There's one more runner, Harmony, whom I haven't met yet - which will make up the six pack. The only "real" runner of the bunch, Heidi, will probably do the full marathon, while the rest of us will conquer the half marathon -- a whopping 13.1 miles -- in a beautiful wine country setting. I hope I can make it without taking any detours into my favorite wineries for a mid-run refreshment.

So, the training has officially begun. Rachel has put together our training schedules and while they seem reasonable, I found out today that four miles seems substantially longer than three, and it's only going to get longer from here. You'd think the one extra mile would be easy peasy but no such luck. Of course, I picked the hottest part of the day to take my run and thought I might die from heat stroke on the way up the back trail to the house with the "finish line" in sight. Would be mortifying if my neighbor had to come over on his ATV to hoist me back up from a collapsed state. He already rode over once to save me from a chipmunk that got into the house -- and the sofa. But that's another story altogether.

My goal now is to get into half marathon running shape while somehow not giving up wine in order to do so. I need something to live for during this "training" period.

Trail Running

Living in the country presents a unique opportunity in the form of miles upon miles of fire roads that seem to go on indefinitely. This provides ample running (and exploring) terrain to cover with the not-so-new trail runners. The picture to the left is the end of my property and the other direction is nothing but open dirt road -- which is a lot easier on my knees then the gravel/paved road around the neighborhood loop which is usually my route of choice.

Usually when running around the loop, even on a not so dry day, all that has to happen is for a car to pass by and, if they're not feeling rather neighborly enough to slow down to a crawl, they'll end up throwing up enough dust to stop you in your tracks until it clears. I doubt when this happens that the culprit even sees me give them the finger - just due to the smoke screen.

Dust bowls created by cars (or jacked up trucks as the case may be) becomes an non-issue when running on the back roads. This was enough to make it a tempting lunch time route and off I went - into the wilderness. It was nice jogging where the chances of running into another human is slim or none -- solitude at it's finest. But this can create another set of issues - what if there is some unabomber type mountain man that's living in a shack deep in the woods? What if there are a whole pack of them? What if there are wild animals who are coming out of hibernation and haven't eaten since last fall? What if I hear banjos?

The solitude of running, without a phone, GPS, or flares, bring these types of thoughts to the forefront of the mind. Not to mention I'm already tired from running by the time these speculations start rolling through my head, so if something or someone jumps out from the bushes and yells "boo," my chances of a fast get-away doesn't look good. I'm slow with a few extra pounds on the old backside that weighs me down.

This, of course, leads to "running protection" options. Other than packing heat -- and let's face it, I don't think they make a running pack that's equipped with a holster, I need to find another "just in case" weapon of choice. I wonder if someone can make an iPhone application for that.

Lucky for me, I'm not the only person with this need. At the local store today we found mace - in a nice pink case small enough to tuck into any pocket or even my hand. I don't know if I should be happy (or concerned) that the local store sells this type of stuff, but it will give me a little more peace of mind when I'm out in the great wide open running around where no one is in rescue distance. Unabomber beware. Now I just have to remember to spray downwind.

Stress - the Final Frontier

They say everything happens for a reason. I have to wonder what the reason for certain events could possibly be, as some "things" just seem to rear their ugly heads 1/ when you least expect it, 2/ when you didn't ask for it and 3/ when you seriously don't want it. Just when I think I have it all figured out, the wheels fall off of my apple cart. This creates - stress, a lot of it.

Not a big fan of stress - not that most people are but some do thrive on drama (I know a few of those types). I, on the other hand, don't handle it well and I try to avoid it at all costs. Some stress, I have now learned, cannot be avoided. So, how to combat it and try to be the windshield instead of the bug? 

I've tried most of these stress-relieving techniques in the past couple of days, to no avail. The stress is still there. In fact, I can hear him in the next room. No matter how much I ignore it - it won't go away. Meditation might work, but right now I only resemble Buddha - I can't quite sit still long enough and quiet my mind to meditate like a monk.

Since I haven't been running in over a week - due to stress and simply not feeling like it - I decided that today, no matter what, I would at least get a 5k under my belt and try to kick off some of those endorphins, also known as a runner's high. No excuses. There must be a way to get out of the funk other than mass quantities of wine, and hopefully this is my answer. Although never underestimate the healing properties of mass quantities of wine.

Off to the treadmill I went. Turning up the Podrunner podcast, I completely lost track of time - 3.5 miles under my belt (instead of 3.16 -- 5k) - yeah for me. Prognosis: Feeling much, much better.  I'm back at it tomorrow at lunch time. No matter what - and again, no excuses. Little endorphins are my friends.

And now I'm off to try stress relieving techniques 4 & 5 -- friends and laughing. Oh yep - and my own technique that Oprah somehow missed, wine. Not mass quantities, mind you. That would lead to a headache and headaches are stressful. I'm boycotting all things stressful from here on out or at least until tomorrow. From here on out, I plan on looking through my non-buggy windshield and moving forward in more ways than one. Onward and upward.

Commitment vs Interest

“There's a difference between interest and commitment. When you're interested in doing something, you do it only when circumstance permit. When you're committed to something, you accept no excuses, only results.”

Packing my running shoes to take a run while on a business trip in Chicago proved to only push the weight limit of my bright orange American Tourister (that my ex-boyfriend deemed as the "widow-maker" due to its weight) over the airline's happy scale. Bastards. It's bad enough that they charge you a baggage fee, but based on weight I am doomed. It's all about the shoes.

So, to make it cost-effective to take my new trail runners, I figured I had to run while there, even if only once. Knowing what happens at these events, I knew it was a long shot, and it went a little something like this:

Day 1 - hanging out with Irish girlfriend Liz who owns her own bar. It was lesbian night. Enough said.
Day 2 - Ran into Canadian friends who drink a lot -- at 3 p.m. Downhill from there. Enough said.
Day 3 - hanging out with Kiwi and Canadian friends who drink a lot. Seriously, I don't know how I survived this day and am contemplating a new career.
Day 4 - Having tied good ones on three nights in a row, my body finally gave out. I felt pretty good - so off for a run by Lake Michigan I went early in the afternoon. Work - schmirk.

Started out at the hotel and headed for the lake - a mere few blocks. Of course, I was spotted in my running attire going out of the hotel by someone in a suit who was going to a meeting (even though I did my best to sneak out of one of the more remote areas) and am now probably deemed a serious slacker, not that I wasn't before this little eye-spy event. I am allergic to meetings at these kind of functions, by the way, and deem myself there for Public Relations purposes only.

Running by the lake was rather nice and I could see the museums up ahead. When I passed Buckingham Fountain it was at the two mile point and I hadn't realized I'd run that far. It was about that time when the skies opened up and it started pouring. Not just a little bit pouring, but a lot pouring. The kind of rain where you need to take shelter under a big tree, or the nearest bar.

Contemplating what to do, and without a bar in sight, I weighed the options in my head. I could take a cab back and be ridiculed for pulling up in running clothes to the hotel in a cab (read: sissy) or I could suck it up. By that time the rain was coming down in a steady stream and let's face it, I have my mass amounts of "do-not-get-wet-under-any-circumstances" gadgets to think about -- so I decided to just do what was best for them and cab it - the whole two miles back. I'd just have the cab drop me off a little early as not to get spotted -- as if that ever works under any other circumstance -- or just suffer the consequences.

Imagine my shock when I pulled everything out from my iPod carrier and figured out - while the rain started to come down even harder than before - that I had no emergency cash on me and no phone to call one my allies for help. Not that they wouldn't have laughed at me anyway.

Twenty minutes and two soggy miles later, I was back at the hotel, looking like a drowned rat. I wasn't spotted though - added bonus.

Before I set out on this jaunt, by the way, I mentioned to a group of guys sitting at the bar (of course, where else would we be?) that I wanted to go for a run but it was raining. One announced, over his beer, that if I were a "real runner" it wouldn't matter if it were raining or not, I'd just go anyway. This is, apparently, the difference between someone who is committed to running and someone who is simply interested in running. Therefore, I blame this little event entirely on him and will get him back by spiking his drink with Pepto next year. Maybe more than one of them.

So, if we go by this commitment theory, I believe that this running incident makes me committed and not just interested -- even if only by force, lack of planning and many, many killed braincells. Kudos to me. Oh, and I blacked out on Day 5 and the remainder of the trip is simply a blur....... definitely an occupational hazard.

Things That Motivate Us

What motivates you? This is something I try to figure out about myself quite a bit. I even took a test that would tell me what "motivational type" I am, since procrastination seems to be my favorite pastime. I'll find the results of that later to share.

The answer came today in the form of a graduation party for my friend Tanya (pictured left, procrastinating with me last year -- or eating crabs, one of the two) and on the right in high school, before I discovered wine. Let's hope my preference in eyewear, bathing suits and reading material have improved with age. My decision to attend her graduation party was an easy one. Life is just too short to miss these events.

The party is in Maryland on May 23rd, where there will be yet another pool involved. You know what that means.....pool + drinking = potential spontaneous cannonball and that would lead up to the two most dreaded little words known to woman: Bathing Suit. Eek. Although the alternative, which is "no bathing suit," would be a lot worse, especially for party-goers. No sooner did I hit the "buy ticket" button on the Southwest website, did those two words fill my mind, and anxiety start to set in.

So now I have exactly five weeks to try to get into somewhat better shape so that I don't ruin any of her graduation pictures. No chance of that happening with my mother's camera, considering she mostly takes pictures of her fingers. However, like at most "monumental events" in a person's life, there will surely be photographs from all angles and in most angles at the moment, I have a double chin -- not more than a Chinese phone book, but at least one that needs to go, and heaven forbid if someone catches this porker in a bathing suit with a camera. Not in the world where Facebook has taken over.....No way - it cannot happen. More stress.

Now with motivation on my side (or panic as the case may be), I came back to the little townhouse home-away-from-home gym tonight after work and tried out something that we were discussing today in the office: interval training. I started out at a good trot of 4.5 mph on the treadmill for one minute, revved it up to 5.5 mph for two minutes after that, one minute of 6.0 mph followed and in the end, one minute of 7.0 (which is almost a sprint for me), then back down to 4.5 mph again to do the sequence all over again. When I got back to the 4.5 mph (and could breathe again), I took my heart rate and at one point it was up to 180 -- I'm surprised I didn't pass out and fly off the back of the treadmill. 35 minutes and 3.25 miles later -- talk about sweat. I might just be onto something. Tomorrow I might get a kettlebell, which could help ramp up the progress a little bit. I even toyed with the idea of doing the Master Cleanse again if I get really desperate. That's still in the back of my head, although drinking immediately after coming off of that detox might prove to be deadly. Plus, I still can't even think about maple syrup from the last time I attempted it.

New plan of attack - working out more, drinking less wine (if any), and in five weeks - hopefully will be 10 pounds down. This is going to be quite a challenge since I will be Chicago next week for a conference -- which usually consists of more eating and drinking than humanly possible. Will pack my running shoes, keep the big picture in mind and hope for the best.

Crazy Little Thing Called Mud

Sunday started out rather lazily - as Sundays should. Trying to get motivated and waiting for the coffee to give me a burst of caffeine induced energy that never came, I tried to plan something "active" for the day. According to my body bugg, I have to burn about 2200 calories per day and consume less than 1300 in order to reach my goal weight by May 31.  Rather difficult when you factor in that wine probably takes up half of my calorie allotment any given weekend day. That, and the fact that my fat cells are conspiring against me.

My fat cell conspiracy theory, however, is a whole nother story, so we'll stick to the day at hand. Since procrastination is my middle name, I did everything I could to avoid getting my butt in gear. I took the furry ones outside to run off some energy, and hit golf balls into the back 40 (lost about 10 of them). Finally when I couldn't think of another reason not to pack up my gear and head out, I decided to soak in the nicest Central Oregon day we've seen in a while and take Kooper for a hike. 

We ended up at the Deschutes River Trail with all good intentions of hiking to Dillon Falls - as the sign says, a mere 3.5 mile one-way hike.  That would burn those evil calories in no time. Heck, if I have enough of a deficit, it's justification of a post-hike glass of wine. That's motivation to keep on trudging.

We couldn't have ordered up a better day if we tried. The temperature was in the low 60's with nothing but blue skies and sunshine. My usual reluctant hiking companion was busy sniffing out the menagerie of smells left behind by other hikers and their dogs, and it seemed like a great hiking day was in the making.

Getting down the path a ways, we ran into the hazard of early Spring hiking: mud, and lots of it. Run-off from the melting snow created giant mud holes all along the trail. Add the vast number of people who also had the same brilliant idea that we did - to get out and enjoy the gorgeous day - and what you ended up with in the long run is a muddy mess. I knew I should have gotten those Gore-tex trail hikers at the Nike outlet when I had the chance.

Not to be deterred, we made our way to Benham Falls - .5 miles into the hike - where we decided we'd poke around a bit and check out the beautiful scenery that we're so fortunate to have practically in our back yard. Here we are, trying to get the whole timer thing right, unsuccessfully. The falls were the other direction -- we could hear them, just not see them at that point.

Despite the mud on the path, we (I say this as if Kooper has a choice in the matter) decided to trudge on to our intended target - Dillon Falls.  The further we went, the muddier it got. I should have packed those boots that clammers wear when they go out clam digging. Kooper sunk almost up to his chest (happily, I might add) at one point and that was it. I didn't need to try to pull a "Man vs. Wild" moment in order to save him from a giant muddy sink hole. In my mind, I could already read the headlines in the Bend Bulletin tomorrow -- "Local woman's fat cells conspiracy finally pays off - she sinks in giant mud hole (ass first) trying to save her dog -- Dog fine - Film at 11." 

A few more minutes down the path and no hope of solid ground in site - we had to turn back and make a break for it. My little pig dog, who loves the mud, was not pleased. He'd rather wallow in it, given the chance.

We made our way back to the car - both of us muddy messes, when I let Kooper get take his first plunge into the Deschutes River, which as a Labrador is his birth rite. As soon as his butt hit the water he turned into "wild dog" and was ready to swim down the river after a couple of unsuspecting ducks, almost pulling Mom (and all of my gadets) in with him. At least it washed off most of the mud.

All mud holes aside, hopefully this weather holds out and it's finally the beginning of Spring. I've said that before, only to be shocked by a number of freak snow storms after 60 degree days. Fingers crossed. Until then, we'll plan out all of our Spring and Summer hikes. Driving out of today's hiking spot, I noticed a lot of "trail" signs on the side of the road. There's a lot of ground to cover, apparently and we are up for the challenge. Our goal: South Sister Hike by September.

Favorite Running Accessories

After running for any length of time, you start to figure out little things that you think will make your runs a little more bearable. One of my biggest challenges is trying to keep my hair out of my face. I know this sounds rather trivial, but trust me, if you have a lot of hair then you know what I'm talking about. It's downright annoying. No matter what, my hair normally finds a way to wiggle its way out of any contraption I can find to try to keep it pulled back.

There's been a lot of trial and error in finding a device that doesn't slip down, come undone or, in the worst case scenario, fall off completely. I'm uncoordinated as it is - trying to readjust a headband while jogging proves to be quite a challenge on a moving treadmill (definite running hazard). A headband, I found, has been the best to keep the bangs at bay, but nothing I've stumbled upon seems to work with much success. Most are just way too thin to keep the mass quantity of hair I have where it's supposed to be.

So, a couple of weeks ago when I was out stimulating the economy single-handedly, I picked up a buff from REI that claimed to actually stay in place. There was a picture of rather active looking women with more hair than I have, frolicking around -- "in motion" with the buff firmly in place. I picked one up off the rack, and haven't looked back. Until tonight that is. 

On the treadmill, cruising along at a nice pace, I looked up (they are cruel enough to put a mirror wall in front of the cardio equipment), I caught a glimpse of myself and realized that I looked a lot that guy from Loverboy. Seriously, no one should go out of the house looking like that. I was surrounded by possible part-time neighbors. Embarrassing. I'm thinking we're sure to be evicted.

Finishing up my 5k, in record breaking time, by the way, I mosey'd back to my home away from home, feeling rather self conscience. A few minutes after settling down, I proceed to chat away with a friend who wants to log on to see any progress I've made via video -- he's tech savvy like that. No way, I say. Not while I'm still in my dorky doo-rag, not to mention sweaty. The only thing worse than the look of a rather wrongly situated buff is taking off the buff and having "buff head." This is not to be confused with butt-head, mind you. Either way, there is no glamour there what-so-ever.

So my new find is great for the task at hand - getting the hair out of my face. It is, however, bad for making a fashion statement, which really is what running is all about. No? My next run is scheduled for Friday when I will be a the Treehouse where over-alls are the fashion statement of choice. And since tomorrow is Thursday, and I am working up to my run on Friday -- consider me "working for the weekend." Oh come on, sing it - you know you want to.