Our mission for this week’s Take it and Run Thursday is to shared the best lesson we have learned from running.  So here it goes: 

Few things in life will feel as long as 26.2 miles in 6:59:50.

If you want to read about what others have learned check it out here.

This week’s Take it and Run Thursday topic is Building Miles and Going Long.  When it comes to going long I have always been one to end up with my foot in my mouth.  I started out saying I was just going to train for a 5K to say I did it.  Before I knew it I had done several 5Ks but I was never going to go any longer.  Then I saw an advertisement for the Zoo Zoom 5 miler.  Maybe just this once…  Before I knew it was registered for the Minnie Marathon 15K.  Again I was just going to do it once to say I did it, but I would never run further than that.  The story continues and before I knew it I was training for my one and only full marathon. 

I am not a very fast runner, but I am competitive by nature.  I think that drive is what made me turn towards distance races.  It is one way for me to challenge myself and compete with myself without trying to beat the clock.  Increasing my mileage was a slow and natural progression in my training.  I started with one goal and then once I reached it I set my eyes on the next prize making sure it was far enough out for me to slowly build my mileage.  Increasing too fast or adding in things like hill or speed workouts without building up to them can lead to overuse injuries, which can be long and frustrating to recover from.  A good guideline is not to increase your mileage by more than 10% a week.

I am a 3 day a week runner.  This typically involves 2 tempo workouts during the week and a long run during the weekend.  If my weekend log run is over 7 miles I try to bring some hydration and nutrition along with me.  I used to be a Jelly Belly Sports Bean girl, but when I was training for my full marathon I found the sweetness got to me after mile 14, so recently I started using Clif Shot Bloks. 

Your body isn’t the only thing that will be feeling the strain of you new found distances.  Keep an eye on your shoes.  as you increase your mileage you will be putting more wear and tear on your soles.  Personally the first place I feel a worn shoe is in my knees, so I always make sure to keep an eye on my mileage and change them around ever 250 to 300 miles.  Some people can go as long as 500 miles, but it all depends on your weight, stride, and shoe.

I have a feeling that my worn out shoe will end up stuck in my mouth again.  My competitive nature doesn’t want to stop at a full marathon with a time of 6:59:50, but until my body completely forgives me for the training I put it through for this full marathon this will have to do. 

To read what others have to say about Building Miles and Going long head on over to the Runner’s Lounge.

Ode to my Garmin Forerunner 205

How do I love the Garmie? Let me count the ways.
I love Garmie to the end of my street and back
My soles carry me left and right
For the finish line of every race.
I love thy beeps that encourage my pace.
I love thy beeps that tell me to take it easy.
I love thy maps that show me where I’ve been.
With my last miles — I love thee virtual trainer.
(Parody of Sonnet XLIII by Elizabeth Barrett Browning)

Unfortunately I have missed the past couple of Take It and Run Thursdays, so I thought I would start this one off with style.  The topic for this week Gear, Gadgets and Equipment.  Since I just returned from dropping my Garmie off at the FedEx place so he could make his return trip to GARMIN International I thought I would write about him.  Oh how I miss them. 

So I am not the best poet, but I do truly love my Garmin.  Despite being constantly strapped to my arm and dictating my pre-running routine it really brings a new freedom to my running.   My routine goes as follows:

1. After an 8 minute warm-up on the treadmill.
2. Adorn any extra layers needed to gaurd against the elements.
3. Step onto the back porch and turn on my Garmin. 
4. Stretch while Garmin finds his friends the GPS satellites and I encourage the dog to “do her business”.
5. Venture back through the house to the front door while verifying that I have the correct distance alert set.
6. Exit the front door locking it behind me.
7. Descend the first step.
8. Descend the second step.
9. Hit the START button.
10. GO!

These 10 simple steps are where Garmies control ends.  After that I tell him where were going.  I will be honest that often my running route goes the same way, but it doesn’t have to.  If I am running down the street and find that there is a tractor trailer in the way then there is no problem.  I simply turn around and make up the distance by looping one of the courts more than once.  There is no guess work here, not driving the car around the neighborhood to make sure I covered the correct distance.  No boring tracks or trails with miles markers needed.  I go where I want to go when I want to.

One of my favorite features of my Garmin is www.motionbased.com.  When returning from my run I simply snap my Garmin into its little craddle and send its data up to the motion based website.  It then gives me a map of my run.  Information on my splits.  Temperature readings from while I was out.  I also go to use the Player and watch a little red dot run the route root I ran.  How fun is that???  For a sample here is the Superbowl 5K I ran a few weeks ago.

Unfotunately my Garmin had an accident.  Luckily Garmin has a great warranty program, so my Garmie is snugly wrapped in bubble paper making his way back to the company to have his arm reattached.  In the meantime I am using his older cousin Garmin 201 that I had retired and given to my mother to use for her walks.  Hopefully he will be back to me soon and I garuntee you I will be watching his tracking number like my life depended on it.

I was going to say Ankle!  Get your head out of the gutter.  Seriously though, the past couple days my ankle has felt a little tender so I have been taking it easy.  Still hoping to get out for 10 miles tomorrow, but I am playing it by ear.  My ankle feels much better today than it did yesterday, so that is a good sign.

In the meantime I am looking forward to August when I make another trip out to Anaheim for the Disneyland Half.  I am hoping to do better time wise this year.  That will be up to mother nature though.  If she sends another humid 108 degree day at me there is only so much I can do.  I will also get a bonus medal for participating in the Disney Marathon and the Disneyland Half in the same year.  Yay!  More Bling!

You may have noticed there was not Take it and Run Thursday yesterday.  The topic was music and podcasts.  I used to run to music all the time, but with my full marathon training I actually started leaving my iPod at home.  I found that my long runs went by faster without having my music with me.  I don’t listen to Podcasts.  I just didn’t feel like there was anything I could contribute so I didn’t.  If you want to read about music and podcasts I would go check out what the others had to say.  Next week’s topic is Strength and Flexibility.  I definitely have some things to say about that.  😉

Half Marathon….oh how I love thee…let me count the ways.  Seriously though, half marathon is my favorite race distance and I have tried just about them all…5K, 6K, 5 mi, 7 mi, 15K, and full (surprisingly no 10K yet).  The one I have enjoyed training for and running the most has been the half.  In fact if you recall from my post about Motivation last week I am scheduled for 7 races in the next year…3 of them are half marathons and I am contemplating adding another.  So why the half marathon?

1. It a good challenge.  One of the reasons I love running is that I can constantly challenge myself and the half marathon is one of those challenges.  My goal for this year in fact is to try to improve my half marathon time and hopefully set a new PR.  Being a half marathon I feel like this a goal I can constantly work towards instead of having to set aside a certain amount of weeks for training.  Bring it on! 
2. It is long enough be to called a “marathon” without getting dirty looks from other runners.  Many people don’t know the true distance of a marathon.  I have heard people new to the sport say they ran a marathon and you find out they ran a 5K race.  In fact last week I was watching a news story about a little boy who is a double amputtee and they kept saying he ran a “marathon”.  Their idea of a marathon appeared to be a 1 mile race.  While that is fantastic for that little boy and I can view him as VERY motivating he didn’t run a “marathon”.  Needless to say I scoffed a little at the misrepresentation of the news media on that one.  I would have been equally impressed at this little boy’s ability to run a 1 mile race without the let down of finding out it was a 1 mile race.
3. You can run your long run without sacrificing your entire Sunday.  That was one thing that made it hard for me to get my long runs in for my full marathon training.  I had to sacrifice around 4 hours on the road along with 1 hour of prep time and a couple hours of recovery time.  For a half marathon I only need 2 hours on the weekend for my run and maybe the hour of prep time, but it doesn’t take me several hours to recover from my run.  In fact I can fit a 10 mile run in after work and before bed and don’t even have to wait for the weekend to come if I don’t want to.
4. It’s all about the bling!  Yes, I will admit it, part of the reason I love halves is that it is long enough for you to get a medal.  I loves me my medals.  In fact if I am looking at a half and it doesn’t say I get a finisher medal then I stop looking at it, lol.  Hey, at least I am honest. 
5. It is a very friendly distance.  Not that 13.1 miles is not a hard distance to run, but the people that run it are awesome!  They tend to be people that have been running for a little while and have run a few other races before so they have good road ettiquette.  Most of them are very easy to talk to and are more than willing to strike up a conversation to help pass the time whether you are waiting for the start or making your way to the finish. 
6. My parents don’t have to wait too long for me to get to the finish.  I felt bad for them at my full marathon because they had to drop me off at the start at 4:30 for a race that didn’t start till 6 and then it took me 7 hours to finish.   Talk about a long day!  At least with the half they only have to wait for between 2 and a half or 3 hours before I get to the finish.   

I could keep going and going, but I think you get the idea.  I loves the Half Marathon and I am not shy to tell people I do!  ;) 

Read more on half marathons from other Take it and Run Participants.