Better with age?

Not so much.

I’d really, really hoped to PR the Richmond race. Didn’t happen, not by a long shot. Total time was 2:51:40 – more than a minute/mile slower than my first (and best) half-marathon in April, 2007.

I weigh 20 pounds more than I did a year and a half ago. I’m sure that’s the – um – bulk of the reason for the less-than-optimal performance. Training didn’t go as well as it could have either.

Here are the splits (sorry for the crappy screenshot):

I forgot to turn the Garmin off at the finish line, so that purple-shaded last lap isn’t correct.

I recommend the race, if you’re in the Richmond, VA, area next fall. The course is lovely, winding through some beautiful old neighborhoods and the biggest hill is the long one going down as you approach the finish line. The promised music-every-mile didn’t happen, but the weather forecast might have had something to do with that.

The forecast was much worse than the actual weather. I’d taken arm warmers and a hat (I never run in a hat), and I bought gloves at the expo. Turned out to be a warm, humid, windy morning but the predicted thunderstorms had already blown through by the start of the race.

Both of my running companions finished, as well – my husband’s cousin’s wife’s 16-year-old daughter had entered as well, and we crossed the line together. Her mother was 20 minutes behind us, happy to finish and on a runner’s high the rest of the day. They both made the race a lot more fun for me than it would otherwise have been.

I was 31st out of 52 in my age group – and I was very happy with that.

Now on to the rest of my life. My husband wants me to “retire” – I don’t know about that, but I do know, from experience, that race training and weight loss are mutually exclusive, at least for me. So weight loss is now my primary focus. Clean eating and consistent exercise are the order of the day, and the exercise will most likely be walking. I promised I wouldn’t train for or run another race for a year. That oughta be enough time to a.) lose the weight and b.) convince him that I can run a full marathon – a venture to which he is comPLETEly opposed.

The rest of the rest of my life involves quite a bit of travel to see very dear people who are very sick. One is my dad – I’m heading back to Florida Tuesday (taking two days to get there) and will stay for at least a week, although it’s kind of open-ended. The other is in Indiana and, depending on my dad’s situation, I’m supposed to be with her the first week of December.

Blogging will be spotty for the next couple of weeks, but I’ll try to post occasionally. Thanks for reading, whether I’m here or not. Your encouragement has always meant so much to me.

Rain, rain, go away

Damn.
The forecast for Richmond Saturday morning looks pretty bad. Eighty percent chance of rain, slight chance of thunderstorms, 99 percent humidity … earlier this week it looked much better, all sunshine and roses. Can we turn back time?

Whatever. We’re leaving at noon to wend our way east and won’t be back until Sunday night. No blogging during the interim.

I dreamed I ran the race in two parts. I did 10 miles on Saturday, then came back and finished the final 5K on Sunday. Total time was 2:10. Which is IMPOSSIBLE, people, for a middle-aged slowpoke like me. There was some kind of hospital triage unit I had to go through in order to run on Sunday, and I was really proud of myself for figuring out what I needed to say in order to get through the proper channels and back out on the course. Weird dream.

I’m running with my husband’s cousin’s wife, who averages 13-minute miles. Since that was the dismal pace I ran last Sunday, we should have a good time. I’m just glad the election is over; we cancelled out each others’ votes. (Need I say more?)

Seriously, I hope to do much better than a 13-minute pace and I hope she doesn’t mind my leaving her behind. Heh. I think I just jinxed myself.

Zoooooom!

Okay, y’all know I’m not the speediest of runners. I blame it on my short stature, advanced age and extra weight. But the combination of two months of training and much cooler weather seems to have helped my pace tremendously. I used to struggle to run a 12:40 mile. Today? Not so much:





I did a total of 6.8 miles, most of it walking, but I was supposed to run two miles today at a 12:32 pace.

I think I smoked it. Heh.

If I can keep that up for 13.1 miles (BIG heh), I’ll not only PR in Richmond, but I’ll also make my goal of finishing in 2:30. In order to PR, I have to run in less than 2:38:24.

Eating a more normal diet is very helpful, and it doesn’t matter to me whether it’s psychological or physical. If I think I can run more efficiently if I have rice with dinner and a banana with my morning coffee, then that’s good enough for me.

Ruh Roh

I never was a Scooby Doo fan. I’m from the Bugs Bunny/Chip ’n’ Dale/Tweety Bird (“I think I saw a puddy tat”) generation. But when I experience an “uh-oh” moment, I immediately think – and sometimes say – it in my best Scooby Doo voice.

If you’d tagged along on my walk/run Tuesday morning, you would have heard me. I can’t remember the exact moment, but somewhere along the 7.25 mile-route, I twisted my left ankle. It’s still a little twingy – is that a word? – so I’m postponing today’s four-miler until tomorrow.

Thank goodness for easy weeks, eh?

I wrapped it in an Ace bandage and hobbled around yesterday doing what I normally do. RICE (Rest, Ice, Compression, Elevation) was called for, but Compression and about an hour of Elevation was the best I could do.

It’s definitely not a sprain, and is much better today. The swelling is gone, as is most of the pain. If I weren’t in training I’d probably test it. But I sure don’t want a major setback with just eight weeks until race day.

My South Beach experiment has blown up in my face. What? You didn’t hear the explosion? You missed the flames erupting from the blown-out windows? While I can lose weight and still train eating meat-and-salad, meat-and-salad, meat-and-salad, I can’t do anything else. And while I don’t have a fulltime job or children to look after, I do have a house that is, as my mother used to say, “ready to walk.” And a mother-in-law who is still in the hospital and a President to elect.

Heh.

Carbs = energy. Without carbs, I sleep nine, 10 or even more hours per night. I drag my ass through my day and sleep like I’ll never wake up. I’m tired when I rise in the morning, tired when I run, tired when I hit the sack at 8 p.m.

To celebrate leaving the Beach, I had a cup of Shredded Wheat with strawberries and milk for breakfast. (Carbs ≠ donuts, Belgian waffles or coffee cake. Does anyone eat coffee cake any more? My mother used to make the recipe on the back of the Bisquick box and invite the neighbors over for coffee and cake at least once a week.)

I guess my major weight-loss push has been pushed back to, um, the holiday season.

Oh, joy.

And the winner is …

wistfield!

But we must give Denise the credit. Since only three people left comments – sob! – and Mindy had already taken herself out of the running, Denise felt that wistfield – who loved the bag – should be the winner. How cool is that?

I’ll mail your bag to you, wistfield, as soon as you e-mail me the address where you’d like to have it sent.

When I logged on to my Blogger dashboard this morning, I was astonished to see this message:

I’d hate to see the Shrinking Knitter deleted, so I asked for a review. Apparently some spam-checking spider thinks the blog is spam, and a human will have to have a look at it. In the meantime, I’m going to check into one of those services that will print your blog in book form.

Yesterday’s tempo run was hard, hard, hard. I don’t run fast, ever. (I like to say I was built for comfort, not for speed. Heh.) But I understand that if I want to reach my goal of finishing the Richmond Half-Marathon in 2:30, I’m going to have to do some speedwork. I was supposed to do a one-mile warm-up, three miles at an 11:08 pace and a one-mile cooldown.

Here’s how my brain works: I figured if the first and last miles were at a 15-minute pace, the entire five miles should be done in 1:03:24. I did it in 1:02:47, but I surely didn’t do those middle three miles in 33:24. I had to alternate walking and running from the get-go. Which proves (to me, anyway) that I at least have the stamina and will to achieve the goal. Whether I have the legs to go the distance is the question.

Finally, I used to reserve Fridays for quotes over at SK. I’m not resurrecting the habit, but I did find a good one that seems appropriate to think about over the weekend … and for the rest of my life. Maybe you’ll find it thought-provoking as well.

When we are no longer able to change a situation —
we are challenged to change ourselves.

~ Victor E. Frankl

Enjoy your weekend.

In the beginning

Today is the first day of the rest of my life half-marathon training.

Well, it seems like the rest of my life. It was 90 degrees here in the Middle of Nowhere yesterday and it will very likely be in the 60s or colder when I toe the starting line in Richmond in November.

(As you distance racing veterans know, only the elites get to actually “toe” the starting line. The rest of us get to huddle up in corrals with the masses, several blocks behind the fastest runners. We sometimes don’t even notice the starting line when we eventually cross it.)

Nothing says “time passes” like the weather in the Middle of Nowhere.

As I mentioned last week, today’s schedule calls for a rest day. But you can also cross-train on rest days. I spent Saturday morning helping load eight truckloads of wood from our demolition project, which I thought was quite a good weightlifting workout. Lifting weights would be a good thing to do today, as well.

Here’s what’s left of our pool house:

One thing I’m going to have to pound into my pretty little head this time around is that I don’t have to start out at the suggested pace. It’s something to work toward. I’d like to finish in 2:30, but I don’t expect my first training run to even come close to a 12-minute mile. (Don’t laugh. I’m old. And slow.)

Finally, apropos of nothing at all, here’s a photo of my zinnia.

Yes, you read it correctly – ONE zinnia. I planted six packages of zinnia seeds the last week of May, watered them every day for a week and then had to go to Florida when my dad got sick. When I got back, all these cute little seedlings were sprouting, and I thought they were flowers. I figured out, eventually, they weren’t, but have been too lazy to pull them all out. Good thing, too, or I’d have missed the miracle! Heh.

A case of the blahs

I’m going to attempt the Richmond Half-Marathon this fall. I originally thought the date was Nov. 8; turns out it’s the 15th, giving me an extra week before Serious Training commences.

That delay, combined with my doctor’s admonition to stay out of the sun and the slight puffiness from the steroids I’ve been taking (last one went down this morning!) has contributed to a case of the blahs. Or the lazies. You make the call.

Other than filling and moving trash bags for an hour or two the past couple days, my intentional exercise has been nil. Nada. Nyet. I could get used to this.

But then I remember how much I enjoy training – sticking with the schedule, adding bright little stars to my calendar when I’ve completed a workout, progressing and improving as time goes on – and suddenly I can’t wait for Monday. Because, according to the schedule, Monday is … are you ready? … a REST DAY!

Heh.