Doubts and Fears

Last night I was up, unable to sleep, thinking about the upcoming marathon.  In less than four weeks I am supposed to participate in the Seattle Rock and Roll Marathon, this coming weekend, I am supposed to run 20 miles as part of my training.  I feel completely unprepared for both.  This past weekend, I went out for a long run and almost died at 13 miles.  The shoes I have bought and started to break in during my short runs have caused me to develop foot pain (on the top of my foot!).  My mind is filling with doubt!  I have never raced a full marathon (or even a 1/2 marathon).  Would it be better to do the Seattle 1/2 and target a race in the early fall before harvest to run the full?  The Portland Marathon would be perfect for me, it would give me more time to train.  Is the doubt I am having more pre-race jitters or real concern about how much training I have missed? For the next few days, I am going to be resting to let my foot heal.  At 1:30 in the morning, I went online and found a pair of my favorite shoes of all time (the Mizuno Wave Alchemy) and ordered them to be here by the weekend.  This Sunday, I am going to go for a 20 mile run.  I looked at the course details for the marathon I am training for, there will be a water station every 1.5 miles.  On my training run, every 1.5 miles I am going to slow and walk for a minute, drink water and eat some energy gel, trying to simulate a race strategy to complete the full marathon.  For my first marathon, I want to finish strong and not be dead for the next week.  I want running marathons to be a long term hobby, not a once in a life bucket list item.

Where does all the time go?

My marathon is now just over one month away, and I am starting to doubt I will be fully ready.  The last few weeks have been, to put it simply, crappy on the training front.  Work and life seem to creep in and make getting the required training in hard.  It is easy to still find the time for my shorter runs (anything under 6 miles) but it is hard finding the time for the longer training runs and the really long run every week.  Any thoughts of a great first time in my first marathon are gone, now I am buckling down with the simple goal of completing and not dying!

You'll take this treadmill and like it!

As most of you do not know, last week my wife graduated from college. To celebrate, we took off for a week and headed to Las Vegas.  But what about your marathon training!?  Although I did not get in all the miles I was hoping for, I did accomplish one goal, I learned to run on a treadmill!  For those of you who do not know, I HATE treadmills!  Put a wire mesh cage around one and you end up with a human hamster wheel.  Squeak, Squeak, Squeak!  That thought, and the thought of me shooting off the back in front of all the other people working out at the gym was enough for me to keep my distance.

If I am going to keep on running, past the marathon and truly make this a lifestyle, I realized that I needed to embrace the treadmill...or move to an area where there is perfect/decent running weather year round.  Since I cannot take the vineyard with me, I am going to have to learn to run indoors when it is a blizzard outside.  So during my vacation, while my wife slept, I slinked off to the fitness center at our hotel and practiced running on their treadmills. (yes, I know, I could have gone out and run on the strip, especially in the morning, with all the other runners.  With my luck though, I would have biffed it in front of 75 camera toting Japenese tourist.  Been uploaded onto YouTube, and become an instant meme over in Japan. How does one say, "I've got two left feet" in Japanese to their version of Matt Lauer?) The end result, I can now easily run on a treadmill for an hour.  To celebrate this great achievement, I got my shoes laced up and am of to run through good ol' mother nature!

Off I go, into the wild blue yonder

Yesterday, I went for my longest training run yet, 13 miles!  It was kind of a weird experience to leave my house, knowing that I would be gone for the next couple of hours, doing nothing but running.  My planned jogging route was one that would take me all over the South Hill of Spokane, from east to west and then back.  Loaded up with my camel back on and music player fully juiced, I set out on my journey.  It was amazing how many people I knew and recognized on my trip!  I passed Matt, the wine steward at the Rocket Bakery (thanks for the wave!), Mike Conway, a fellow winemaker, and at one point, my wife who had gotten off from work early!
During my journey, I had many a thought. Some of the more important ones were in regards to what music I put on my mp3 player in the future. Some songs that one would think would be great for running are not while other lessor songs actually help pull you through the tough miles. I also thought a lot about food.  Pre, during and post eating is definitely something I am working on figuring out. So far my list of bad items to eat before running include, nachos, a piece of beef jerky and nothing else, and forgetting to eat all together.  During my long runs, I have learned that 12 oz of water will not get you through 11 miles, GU is good, and that energy drinks need to be watered way down.  Everything seems to taste 100% more sweet when dying of thirst then when resting. So that energy drink at mile 7 ends up tasting like a mouth full of sugar and is not refreshing in any way.  For post race, nothing beats Chocolate milk, Whey protein chocolate milk, or Muscle Chocolate milk.  Jalapeno corndog...not to good.