No man’s land

Week Two of your three-week taper is not the time to be told that your upcoming marathon might be cancelled due to government ineptitude. I suppose it’s better than being told at the end of Week Three, but, still. I’ve been a little on edge for the past couple of days, trying to figure out contingency plans just in case.

Happily, they’re not needed, as it looks like the MCM is going on as planned. Oorah, I say.

Tapering is SO MUCH easier the second time around, though it helps that I’ve been distracted by scrambling to finish this first chapter of my dissertation (!) before my advisor returns from her fortnight abroad. Next week might be a different story, when I will only be running two days during the week and will be trying desperately to sleep and stay off my feet and read obsessively everything I can about this race and maybe work on this paper for next month’s conference and AAHHHH is there anything on Netflix I need to see??

…hmmm. Maybe this isn’t as easy as I thought. I guess you can never entirely overcome taper madness, can you? 🙂

To steal a phrase from another run-blogger, run well, my friends. If you’re tapering right now, are you going as insane as the rest of us seem to be? How do you deal with it? If you’ve never tapered before, what are you most leery of / looking forward to?

The magic of the second 20-miler.

Hal Higdon’s Intermediate 1 marathon training program has you doing 2 20-milers within two weeks of each other, which, if you look at it on its face and have never run more than one of those before in your life, seems insane. But, by God, I don’t think I’ll ever train for a marathon again without doing at least 2 20-milers, because this second one – which two weeks ago I thought there is no fucking way this is going to happen AGAIN in two weeks! – was absolutely magical.

Today dawned cool-ish (64 degrees), but humid (dewpoint 62), and sunny after 8am. I started around 6:30am, figuring I’d finish between 10:15-10:30am. (I finished at 10:20) Since I was in my hometown, I made two loops: one following the course of a popular ten-miler held in town every year, that runs right by my house, that I’ve STILL never run because it’s always on a weekend I can’t make; the second loop following a road north of town and circling back up a lot of long, nasty hills and ending with a 200-foot climb over a mile. This was sort of intentional: it was the most efficient way home, but it was also meant to mimic the end of the Marine Corps marathon, which ends with a 60-foot hill over 0.2 miles (I think – I just know that it ends uphill).

The first ten miles were great, as any first ten miles always are; I stopped at my house to use the toilet and swap out water bottles and pick up my Munchkins, and set off for the stupid-hilly, much-warmer second ten miles. I’m not going to lie, I was really irritated and whiny from miles 12-14 because they were infuriatingly gradually uphill and in the sun, and I was sweating and working hard and wishing I could quit, but I knew I had to power through. My mantra became “just a few miles until your next gel/water stop… and then two miles to the donuts. And then three miles to home!”

So, I powered through. And I was rewarded with a lovely flat stretch and some nice, shady downhills. And then there were donuts. It occurred to me somewhere around mile 16 that I was actually feeling really fucking good, and that those hills were really not as bad as I’d made them out to be. I felt like anyone who saw me would be surprised to learn that I was that far into a 20-miler, because I felt so good that I assumed that I also looked that good (a quick check of myself in a car window absolutely nullified that theory, but it was a nice thought!). I could feel myself picking up the pace, and as I wound my way down, down, down to the tiny flat stretch before the killer ending hills, I thought: this is AWESOME.

Magically, the Survivor song “Eye of the Tiger” has a habit of popping into my head as I’m tackling nasty hills, and the same thing happened on this final stretch. Pardon my French, but I absolutely fucking KILLED those hills. Up, up, up, level out, deep breath, small dip down, and up again, up, up, level out, cross the bypass, level out, up, up, UP FIST PUMP SUCK IT YOU ASSHOLE HILL! and then – whoa, what? There was the Baptist church that I know is just up the street from my house, and then – FUCK YEAH I’M DONE “excuse me sir, what time is it?” “10:20” “Thank you!” thinking FUCK YEAH I KILLED THAT RUN OH MY GOD I FEEL AMAZING. hey look, extra Munchkin in my pocket! *snarf*

Two weeks ago I ran a fairly flat 20 miles in 3:40. Today, I ran a fairly un-flat and rather hilly 20 miles in about 3:43-3:45. I was pretty bushed after that first one, but right now I feel awesome. It occurred to me somewhere in all of this that if I can feel this good and this energized and this strong – and I finished strong as hell! – on legs that are this tired after 16 weeks of training, then I am in very good shape indeed for achieving my goal of a sub-4:30 marathon in three weeks. THREE WEEKS! Aaaaahhhh!

So yeah, that happened. Magical. Let the taper madness begin – after football Sunday and beer! 🙂

Marathon month! And, September by the numbers.

yup. Marathon month is here = 24 days until MCM = I got my bib number emailed to me yesterday and nearly started hyperventilating. I’m so freaking excited, even though I know I have another 20-miler on Sunday (my legs are already going “but why?”) and that means the taper is coming soon and THAT means that Taper Madness begins anon, ever-anon.

Oh boy. This is going to be FUN.

I bought a new pair of Sauconys last week because my old ones were shot to hell; I’m not sure of the wisdom of buying a new pair one month out from a race, but when I calculated how many miles I’d ran in the old ones, I knew it was the right decision: 591! That’s the most I’ve ever put on a pair of shoes. No wonder my joints were fussing at me the last 2 weeks. Anyway, the pair I got was the same kind – ProGrid Guide 6 – just a different color, which is fun. I’ve put 18 miles on them already and love them. Wooo!

I did some other math, too, and arrived at the fun number of about 172. That’s my September mileage; easily the most I’ve ever done in 30 days. Also a fun number is about 1125, which is how many miles I’ve run in 2013 so far.

In 2012, all 12 months of it, I ran about 1152 miles. I will surpass that sometime on Sunday, about 8 miles into that 20-miler, and probably not realize it, but that’s kind of nuts. Or, totally awesome.

Running more has led me to get faster (oh, the paradox I didn’t believe: if you want to get faster, run more, and run slower!), so I’m starting to think of a goal time for MCM… dare I say it? Out loud? I’ve been thinking it for some time.

(eek!) 4:30. There! Committed!

(tiny voice) …I know I can do 4:20. 😉

What do you think about when you run?

Saint’s sister asked me yesterday what on earth I think about when I run stupidly long distances like 20 miles, which I did for the first time of this training cycle yesterday morning.  Since I had just walked in the door from finishing the run and cooling down for a few minutes, I was still in that weird, oxygen-to-the-brain-deprived, endorphin-driven mental state where I can’t get myself to stop talking, so this is what I told her:

For the first few miles, I thought about how long unfamiliar roads are: when I’m on a new route and I know that I have a new road to spend some time on, 1 mile always feels like 3. It’s never 3; it’s only ever 1. But, just because I’ve run a road before doesn’t mean I’m still not delusional about its length the 25^th time I run it. (see: Monument Avenue in Richmond. I keep expecting it to shrink, but it never does. Hrmph.)

From miles 7-12, I thought about how unfair it is that I never think once about pooping or needing to poop on any run shorter than, say, 12 miles. I swear it only happens when I’m going really long and have absolutely no idea where a bathroom or Porta-Potty is. Yesterday was no exception; I knew I was in trouble when I started seriously thinking that it would be okay to duck down an alleyway and discreetly fix the problem. Thankfully, I remembered that there was a Starbucks on my route near mile 12, and I was in enough distress to convince myself that it really would be morally OK to walk in there and use the toilet without buying anything. The good news is that these miles flew by because all I could think about was poop, but they also dragged a bit because all I could think about was when I would be able to take a poop.

For miles 12.1-12.5, I thought about what a freaking awesome idea that pit stop was. Holy crap, I felt so much better. (no pun intended)

For miles 12.5-18, I thought about the following things, in no particular order: It’s hot in this sun (it was maybe 50-55 degrees throughout the run, but the sky was cloudless and the sun was bright), and I am going to get burned (I did, a little bit, but not lobster-like). I want a Cookout milkshake when I get back. Do I remember all the words to Coolio’s “Fantastic Voyage”? [Answer: I don’t, but more than I had thought.] No, wait, I also kind of want a sandwich from Chiocca’s – no, I want both that AND the milkshake. Things hurt. I have to stay strong. I have (seven, five, three) miles to go. Why do people name their kids what they do? Why did my sister pick X instead of Z for my nephew’s first-name first letter? How does the designation of in-laws work? Take Saint’s mom’s siblings, and their spouses – to her, they’re in-laws, but what are they to each other? How is this going to work when we get married? Do our sisters become in-laws, or does it stop with me and him? [I’m not kidding, that was a good 30 minutes of thinking that very much helped me out] Oh my God, I have to do another one of these runs in two weeks? Dafuq? Oh hey, it’s Munchkin time [the Marine Corps Marathon hands out Dunkin’ Donuts Munchkins at mile 23, and I wanted to try them on my 20-milers to make sure it was okay to eat them three miles from the end of my run. I ate these a little early – at mile 15 – but dear sweet baby deity, they were a GODSEND]. I think somehow I STILL haven’t managed to take enough water with me [I went through two 16.9-ounce bottles]. OH MY GOD THIS ROAD NEVER ENDS AND I KNOW THIS FROM EXPERIENCE AND ALSO THAT IT IS MOSTLY SLIGHTLY UPHILL BUT IT STILL SUCKS also partially because there is no shade on it and I am hot in the sun. Hang on, two miles to go? Oh shit, I’m actually going to finish this. Oh man, this run is almost over!

For miles 18-20, I thought about what a stupid idea it was to design my route so that the last two miles were sharply uphill. Actually, it was mostly mile 18-19, but still: my legs were not happy with me at that point. It took me until here to really wonder: if my legs were this sore and tired on a 20-mile training run that I was taking slowly, how in the hell was I ever going to run that plus 6.2 more at a faster pace for the actual race? Two seconds later I mentally bitch-slapped myself, reminding me that this run was happening on purposely-tired legs that have been through 13 weeks of training and that the race will find me on fresh, rested legs that will have been well-cared for by that time, so shut up and stop doubting yourself already. At mile 19, I started to think that it was just about time to get on home and watch some football. At mile 19.5, I started grinning like an idiot, and felt kind of sad: it was going to be over soon, this crazy long run of mine. At mile 19.8, I garbled something resembling “I don’t want to run over your puppy!” at a guy whose leashed dog veered right into the path of my feet because no one – myself including, because I was basking in the moment of being awesome – was paying attention. At mile 19.9, I thought about how much it would suck to get hit by a car so close to the end, but also that it might not feel too bad because it would take my mind off the pain in my legs. At mile 20, I slowed to a walk and started laughing, and thought: “BADASS. Beer. Hmm, yes. WAIT OHMYGODFOOD.”

This morning, I woke up and thought, “Wow, that was some of the best sleep I’ve had in weeks.”

This afternoon, I’ve been thinking: I only get to run 5 miles tomorrow? I get to do this, again, in thirteen days. And then I get to taper, and then I get to run a marathon again.

I think that’s pretty awesome.

A tiny update: feeling better, and a kindness.

I had some trouble getting to sleep last night because I couldn’t stop coughing, but when I woke up, I felt pretty okay, and thus felt also okay with my plan to run. Because it was horrifically humid out, not to mention said cough, I took it extraordinarily slow, but damned if it didn’t a) feel awesome to be out again [yes, I know I only missed one day] b) help me feel a ton better by the time I was done. I think tomorrow I’ll run my scheduled 5, taking it easy, but also skipping my regular gym session afterwards – that will allow me to a) sleep in a bit longer and b) focus my efforts on the run.

Next week, though, it’s back to lifting after my Tuesday-Thursday runs. I kind of miss my old-man friends there.

I forgot to put in my last post that something cool happened on my long Sunday run this week. I was in Richmond, where I ran my first marathon last year, and since I had a scheduled 18-miler, I decided to run parts of the marathon course because hey, why not? I’ve re-run one particular stretch of it a few times because it follows the James River and is flat and lovely, especially when the sun is rising over the rocks in the middle of the water. This stretch was part of the 18-miler I did, which also took me up a very long and gradual hill – and past the fire station where I got the hand-breaking-high-five from a firefighter last year – and then over a long bridge that allows some excellent skyline views of the city itself. For some time on the run, I thought I was completely alone; I hadn’t seen anyone for miles, and was enjoying having the road (mostly) to myself.

When I crossed the bridge, I pulled off the sidewalk into the shade to take a gel and drink some water. To my surprise, three men came running up the sidewalk not too far behind me. One went past, but the second slowed down, got my attention, and hollered: “Hey, GREAT RUN! I’ve been watching you for a while. Keep it up!” – and off he went. Someone followed not long after him, and it took me a second to holler “hey, thanks! Have a great run too!” – and then I immediately thought: Who is this guy? How long has he been following me? Have I really been having a great run? Huh, I guess I have, because I feel great. Hey, where’d he go? I want to catch up to him and be friends with him! I realized this was silly, so I finished my break and ran back on my way.

Three days later, I’m still thinking about what this random stranger said, because it’s really stuck with me; he has no idea how much those words of encouragement helped me (I was at mile 14, and really wishing I was done because I was hot and hungry and didn’t have enough water with me, oops). For the rest of the run, I kept thinking: yeah, great run! Great run! Badass, you got this! It sounds so silly, but it absolutely helped get me to the end of those 18 miles. So, thank you, large burly runner-man with awesome sunglasses, for your help. If I see you in Richmond again, I’m going to high-five you.

Random acts of kindness: they can go a long way. I’m not normally one to tie it to a particular day, but given that today is, well, today, consider passing one on to someone. Tell ’em it’s from me.

So, how’s it going?

This is more a self-directed question than anything else, mostly to set me up to answer it. But, if you feel like telling me, I’d like to know how you’re doing, too.

Since my last post, I’ve:

– watched the Nationals beat the Phillies, 8-5, in a comeback win fueled by Jayson Werth’s 1,000th career hit;

– ran a good chunk of the Mount Vernon Trail near D.C., which was awesome because I got to watch planes take off from National Airport for a decent part of the run [Warning: gross thing coming up];

– tied my shoe too tight on that run and gave myself a zombie toe (wherein blood collects under the toenail; Google it if you really want to see what one looks like); I let it go for a week, couldn’t take the pressure any more, drained it, breathed a huge sigh of relief, and was pretty irritated when it flooded with fluid all over again the next day – so now, I just have a zombie toe full of dried blood that does not hurt but looks nasty;

– ran 15 miles in the rain one cool Sunday and – much to my surprise – really enjoyed it;

– went to the Central Virginia Craft Brewers’ Festival and tried several delicious beers, not that I can remember any of their names now (oops), but let me tell you, this part of the state makes some damn fine libations;

– in that vein, happily welcomed a new brewpub to town that I hope will continue to make delicious offerings, if their first go-round is any indication;

– began YET ANOTHER school year, in which I apparently will not have time to blog, but that’s okay – being busy with dissertation stuff is good;

– played a couple of rounds of golf / had some practice at the driving range, in which my shots were not terribly awful and in some cases even traveling straight and/or in the air;

– visited my family for Labor Day weekend, which was hot but full of beer and dancing and grilled meats and boat-time;

– aaaaaand last but not least [screech] [thump] caught a really nasty cold that has temporarily thwarted my MCM training.

I’m in that meaty part of marathon training composed of heavy-mile weeks, and this past weekend I peaked at 44 – which is the largest amount of miles I’ve ever run in one week in my entire life – and it’s interesting this go-round, because I remember how hard it was last year, when I was writing about this more often as I went through it for the first time. I don’t really feel the need to document all of that this time, because not much about it has changed. It’s still hard; there are still mornings when I want to give up and fling myself down on the concrete and take a nap [but I don’t because it’s 4am and I will probably get hit by a car], and there are nights when I wish I could go hang out with friends [but I can’t because I have to be in bed by 9pm], and there are aches and pains and sorenesses that won’t go away unless I just flat-out stop [which I won’t because, deep down, I love doing this]. But, it’s much easier to manage this time, because I’ve been through it before and I have a better idea of what to expect, and a better idea of how to recover and protect myself properly.

I also feel more confident about being able to finish this marathon faster. My pace runs have all been hovering right around the 10:00/mile mark, which is right where I want to be, though I’m not sure I can hold that pace over 22 or so miles. (My m.o. for any race longer than a 5k is to start out slow, excruciatingly slow, and then ramp up to race-pace and, with any luck, have enough left to hit negative splits in the second half.) It’s easy to hold for 8 miles, but 22? I don’t know. I feel like a better and stronger runner this time through, and I feel more mentally prepared and much less freaked out about the whole process, which I know will help me on race morning.

But this cold. This cold! I missed a workout for the first time ever in any of my training this morning, and I had to actively tell myself that it was and is okay for me to miss one stupid 5-mile run and gym session because missing one day is not going to completely derail my entire 18 weeks of training. It’s funny, given how much I tweaked last year’s marathon plan I was not nearly as freaked out about all of that messing around with the schedule as I was about missing this one stupid run. I think it’s because I’m a better and smarter runner now that I think, well, if I stick to the plan that’s been working for me, I’ll have a great race! Thing is, precisely because I’m better and smarter, I also am more willing to listen to my body when it tells me no no no please don’t today. And this morning was the first time that it said that, and I said, I will listen to you, because I know that it is you and not my trickstery brain trying to tell me I’m lazy or unwilling to do this. [Trust me,  I know the difference; that moment when the alarm goes off at 2:45am and my legs try to tell my hands hit snooze! We’re tired!, my hands, being closer to my brain, know that my legs are trying to usurp my brainpower and make me be lazy, so the hands win – the alarm goes OFF, out of bed I go.] What did it for me – and I’d suspected last night that this was going to be the case – was that this cold has moved down into my chest, and I now have the lovely death-rattle of crap skeeballing around in my lungs before it gets expectorated. I had nose- and sinuses-only symptoms starting Friday morning and going through Sunday evening, so I did my 8- and 18-mile runs on the weekend as normal, and I felt fine, even a little better because the running cleared a good deal of the congestion out. But when I finished Sunday’s run, I felt a tightness in my chest that I knew spelled trouble, and sure enough, Monday morning I woke up and knew what was coming. I did a shortened and very not-intense cross-training session Monday morning, and was prepared to back off and run just an easy, slow 5-miler this morning, but when I crawled into bed at 8:30 last night and set my alarm for 3am, I had a sneaking suspicion I was going to say nope! and turn back over for 2 more hours of sleep before work.

That’s exactly what I did, and it feels weird to have done so, but I plan to just pick up where I left off anyway, and do an easy 5-miler tomorrow morning, provided I feel better. This is a ramp-down week anyway, where I was only scheduled for 36 miles, so minus today’s run, I’ll still make 31 for the week, which is not bad. [Next week I get my first 20-miler of the schedule, which will be wheeee so much fun!]

But I just want this crap out of me and gone already. Not least because I’m going to a bacon and beer festival on Saturday and I REALLY want to be able to enjoy myself as much as possible. 😛

So, that’s how things are going here. How about on your end?

I’m 1/3 of the way through MCM training, but I need to talk about beer.

Running stuff first:

As the title says, today marks the start of Week 7 of my MCM training. This is an 18-week plan, so the first 6 weeks are over (thank you, Captain Obvious…), and now’s when the real fun begins. I forget that the first 6 weeks of such plans are the easy weeks, wherein one flirts with a 30-mile-week but spends most of one’s running time hovering in the low-to-mid-20’s for weekly mileage. The next six weeks begin with this week’s 36-mile week, then continue with next week’s 37-mile week, then one drops to 26, then goes back up to 41 (!), then 44, then back down to 36. And I haven’t even gotten to my 20-mile long runs yet!

But, this is the good stuff. This is the meat of the training, where the best work gets done, and the best foundation is built for that Sunday in October. This is where, as they say, shit gets real.

Okay, so now on to beer. (yay!)

Summer school ended last week, so Saint and I planned a trip far out of town and as much off the grid as we could manage. As it turned out, there was wifi and cell phone reception, but we generally opted not to use it unless getting lost was imminent, and I forgot how great it is to drop all the white noise and just be with your surroundings and company for a couple of days. We went to the far northern corner of Virginia, near where it meets West Virginia and Maryland. Yesterday was spent exploring Harper’s Ferry, which I’ve never been to (or at least don’t remember, if I went when I was very young), and we had a great time hiking around and learning about the area’s history. And, um, eating ice cream. On a return trip, we’d like to devote more time to a longer hike, because some of the scenery on the West Virginia side of the Shenandoah River looked quite lovely and alluring indeed. (Not to mention the impossibly sweeping sky over horse country when it’s flooded with summer-afternoon-cloud-lit sunlight. GAH. Gorgeous!)

Saturday, however, was spent sampling as much beer and wine as we could get our hands on. We only made it to two wineries, which means that we should probably devote an entire day to wine if we decide to pursue that endeavor on a return trip, but based on the mind-boggling number of craft breweries that have exploded into the area recently, it’s going to be difficult not to return to the places we did visit as well as visit the ones we neglected. For example, we never made it to the Mad Horse Brewpub, where I see friends checking into all the time on Facebook, and of which I have generally heard good things. Or Magnolia’s at the Mill, of which we actually were within spitting distance, but were in search of coffee rather than beer at that particular moment.

The three places we did manage to visit were, in order of visitation, Adroit Theory Brewing Company, the Macdowell Brew Kitchen – home of Mud Hound Brewing – and Crooked Run Brewing. (All of these are easily Google-able and findable both on Facebook and Twitter, so I won’t waste space with links and such.) What happened at the first somewhat knocked us on our rear ends a little, such that when we visited places 2 and 3 where there was only one brewer’s-own beer available to drink, we weren’t entirely disappointed.

I’ll work backwards, starting with Crooked Run, who unfortunately only had their Hopsail (a Belgian single) on tap when we arrived. They’d sold out of their American and English pale ales, and did not yet have their raspberry dark Saison, which I would have loved to try. Happily, the Hopsail was a very nicely done single, and it made us wish that more breweries made singles; as much as Saint and I both love dubbels and tripels, a well-made single can be very refreshing. That’s what this was: refreshing in its simplicity and good execution.

Prior to Crooked Run, we’d visited the Macdowell Brew Kitchen across the street, which is where one can sample the beers of Mud Hound Brewing Company. Alas, only one was on tap when we arrived, and it was their American Pale Wheat Ale, Pocket Full of Sunshine. Saint sampled it, not I, because I was not in the mood for something grapefruity, so I can’t say what I thought of it. He wasn’t a big fan, but I suspect that was due to the grapefruityness. I’d love to return when the Kitchen has more of Mud Hound’s beers available, because some of them sound delicious: a double IPA, a tripel, an oatmeal stout, to name a few. In any event, I had a Three Brothers Admiral Double IPA, which was delicious, and also local – to Harrisonburg, anyway – if not exactly local-local.

Before our coffee run, we headed to Purcellville to meet Greg, the brewer at Adroit Theory Brewing. Since ATBC isn’t yet officially open, I had to do some emailing to figure out how exactly to arrange a tasting; I saw notes and photos of their beers and the folks who had consumed them on their Facebook page, but it wasn’t immediately obvious how those beers and people had come together in the first place. I was given Greg’s email, and we arranged to meet at noon on Saturday, when he would be at the brewery tinkering with some things.

I should have known we were in for an unusual 90 or so minutes when Saint and I got out of the car and were told “I need to check on a keg, come with me and I can pour you some of what’s in there”. We followed him back to the temporary storage room, and quickly learned that “what’s in there” was a barleywine that had spent a couple of weeks in a bourbon barrel. [Turns out it’s their Tenebris from Ghost 014, if you follow them on Untappd.] I don’t usually care for barleywine, and I’m no longer the fan of bourbon that I used to be, but good LORD, this was like being hit in the face with a sweet beery bourbon wallop that hollered “HEY! You! Pay attention to me, for I AM DELICIOUS.” And it was. At 11% ABV, this is not a brew to be taken lightly, and I was a little nervous that this was only the first sample of the day: ATBC’s philosophy is that no beer under 7% ABV shall be made by them, and I can emphatically appreciate that philosophy, but it makes one wish that one had invested in a slightly more safe method of transportation elsewhere than the car one has driven to the place of beer.

Thankfully, Greg was very much willing to share with us the plans for the space as it transforms from an industrial space into a social, beer-drinking space, and some of the history behind what we were tasting and his methods for devising brews. Because I a) confess that I can’t recall most of what was said thanks to all of those damned delicious beers and b) it would really do an injustice to Greg to take the words out of his mouth, I won’t even attempt to convey what we learned, but instead I will suggest heartily and strongly that you visit Greg yourself. Until this place opens, word of mouth is what they have to rely on, and I feel like if I tell 5 people, and they each tell 5 people, and so on, etc., this brewery will thrive once it’s officially open.

Why would I care about a brewery more than a few hours away, you ask? For two reasons: 1) they are one of the most DIY breweries I’ve ever encountered; 2) we walked away with seven (7) bottles of beer, for which Greg would not take payment. I’m no businessperson, but you can’t make money by giving away your product. Concerning 1), each bottle is hand-corked, hand-cage-wired, and hand-labeled, which right now is done by either Greg himself as he’s packing up a goody bag or two for you, or by volunteers who come in and help out. ATBC does have its own graphic designer for the (*ahem* awesome) labels, but everything else is in-house. That is, on its face, absurd.

Concerning 2), well, that speaks for itself. I’m not being paid or in any way comped to write this, unless you count beer as payment, in which case I declare this to be the best business model ever. 🙂 In addition to the beer, Saint and I took a bunch of stickers to put up in our respective towns, and I have every intention of telling anyone who will listen about ATBC, because not only are they making really effing good beer, but they’re also making really effing good unique beer. Their first was an Imperial Stout, which – okay, I’m already primed to love them for that right there, not to mention their quickly-apparent preference for very hoppy beers – is an unusual choice for a debut beer. Since then, they’ve brewed a milk stout without water, a smoked porter aged on serrano peppers, imperial brown ales, a saison brewed with wormwood that you can try with sugar cubes, a wheat wine, and more – and, the barleywine that we tried is also going to be aged in brandy and gin barrels in the future.  Saint and I sampled all of those, and they were unusual and absolutely delicious. The pepper-smoked porter sticks with you for a long time after you’ve finished it, but in the best of ways. The wheat wine is a devilish little thing of a drink that completely betrays its 9% ABV status; it would be easy to open this on a warm summer or fall day and drink it entirely too quickly before you realized what you’d done. The brown ales – each brewed by a different person, but using the same basic recipe – were rather unlike any brown ale I’ve ever had, and the imperial double red ale was not as grapefruity as I’d anticipated and thus delectable. We left with a bottle of each of the three brown ales, and one each of the imperial double red, the wheat wine, the wormwood saison, and the bourbon-aged barleywine. Saint took one of the brown ales to share with his dad, and I took the rest with me to, um “save for us to drink together”.

Anyway, so, after we took up a good chunk of Greg’s time, we scooted out into the rainy afternoon and made our way to a coffee shop, because it was close to 1:30 in the afternoon and we were both feeling a bit, erm, sleepy for some reason. Having consumed caffeine, we made it on with the rest of our day, and as good as the other beers were that we sampled, they didn’t quite match up to the experience we had with ATBC. Plus, we have other places we need to visit, which really just means a return is inevitable – when, with any luck, ATBC will be capital o- Open and we can try whatever deliciousness they’ve conjured since August.

So, that’s my beer report for this weekend. It’s not a stretch to imagine that I also enjoy this part of the marathon-training schedule because it makes me feel less guilty about drinking all of this beer, though I know I can’t have weekends like this all the time. It does, however, make me thankful that I live in an area so rich in delicious beverages. I confess I’m a little worried about the microbrewing industry reaching a saturation point, but until then, I’m going to keep on sampling and visiting as much as I can. *urrrp* You’re welcome. 🙂

YAY more health and marathon stuff. (But: I think I figured out the weirdness!)

Health stuff first. If this makes you squicky, skip ahead to the Marathon stuff below. (this is when I miss Livejournal and its cut-tags!)

Right. so: at last post in, um, June I was on inhalers after an “all-clear” signal from the cardiologist. I gave them two weeks, and they didn’t seem to be helping; I had a couple of panic attacks that they definitely didn’t help, so I called my PCP I guess about two weeks ago from this Wednesday (July 10, if you’re counting) and said “hey, these aren’t doing anything, so what next?” He steered me towards a pulmonary specialist to make sure it wasn’t a lung issue, and then he said “at the same time, you may want to consult psychological services (called CAPS here at school) to see if they can’t refer to you someone to help you manage the physical symptoms that I think are pointing towards panic disorder”. So, I did those two things; the pulmonary folks got me in for July 15, and CAPS – well, CAPS works a little differently because they do a screening phone call to help figure out where they should best send you. I’ve had some not-so-great experiences with CAPS in the past, both for me and with other people (as in, hearing about their experiences), so I was not entirely looking forward to the process. But, at the same time, these panic attacks had been starting to interfere with my daily activities – and especially running! – in a way that made me say “okay, it’s time to do something about this already because I cannot handle this on my own anymore”.

CAPS dude called me on July 11, and instantly he was fantastic. He asked good questions, and seemed genuinely interested in my situation, and at one point actually said to me “I am going to follow up with you – and I want you to follow up with me – every week, because I’m going to be with you until we get a solution to this problem”. This was huge, because no one at CAPS has ever said anything like that to me, and it was such a relief to know that – even though my issues aren’t life-threatening or even really that big of a thing – this guy had my back. He gave me one referral, and I called her and set up an appointment with her for last Thursday (July 18, again, if you’re counting).

Fast-forward to July 15. I went to the pulmonary folks, and we did a bunch of tests to see if I had asthma, all of which I passed – as in, no asthma, completely clear lungs, no clots or fluid or weirdness or anything. The doctor did suggest that it could be vocal cord dysfunction, in which the cords don’t fold or unfold properly during inhalation or exhalation and can cause blockage of the airflow into the trachea and lungs. Since I’ve been having trouble inhaling, she thought it would be more this than asthma, especially since I came out of the tests asthma-clear, and the inhalers didn’t do anything (they’re more for lungs than throat). But, we left it at that, and I told her I was going to pursue other possible leads in my quest to figure this all out.

Before my July 18 appointment with the licensed professional counselor (LPC), I – somewhat at Saint’s insistence – returned to the idea that all of this could very well have been caused by the birth-control switch. I had an IUD put in at the beginning of May, before our trip to London; specifically, it was the Mirena IUD, which had a long list of side effects and, I noted while reading and asking around for others’ experiences, was one of the most hotly divided between “love it/hate it” among those who’ve had it put in. The first couple of days after the insertion, I felt meh, but not awful, and within a week or two I felt more normal. Then London, then the weirdness. Saint kept saying that the timing was just right – three weeks after insertion – for it to have been something about the IUD that was the root cause of all this. I didn’t discount that theory, but I wanted to rule out everything else first. Now that I’d done that, well, there I was.

One side effect that isn’t anywhere in the mound of literature that comes with a Mirena insertion is “panic attacks”. A quick Google search will lead you to an apparent army of women who never had a single panic attack in their lives who started having them after getting Mirena put in. You know that feeling when something so blatantly obvious finally goes click in your brain and you wonder why you didn’t realize it sooner? That was what it felt like, reading about all of these women who were completely derailed by this device. Another thing I didn’t realize about Mirena is that it is partly made of silicone; I’ve recently – as in the past month – had a very bad reaction to something else containing silicone, so I’m wondering if there isn’t some silicone allergy I never I knew I had that would be causing my weirdness. In any event, every instinct in my body was telling me “get this thing out of you“, so I decided to sleep on it and see if I still felt the same way the next day (which was July 18).

I did, so I went to see the LCP and told her immediately that I wanted to rule out the possibility of the IUD/silicone allergy being responsible for my panicky everythings, and she agreed, and we had a very nice hour together talking about ways for me to cope with weirdness for the time being. I told her that if it did turn out to not be the IUD or silicone allergy, that I’d prefer the mental coaching / cognitive therapy approach first, and then short-term medication second, if that didn’t work. I’m in no way saying that I attach a stigma to being on something like Xanax – which is what she said would be prescribed – and I can hear my sister saying “You voluntarily turned down Xanax? Are you nuts?!”, but because my other sister is a somewhat-functioning prescription drug addict, I’m quite leery of being on prescribed medication if it’s not absolutely necessary. (I get irritated enough at having to take 4 horse pills per day for my ulcerative colitis, and I won’t even take ibuprofen for a headache unless I can’t see straight. I may also be slightly overreacting to the idea of taking medicine, yes, but we’ll save that for another day.) I’ve even taken SSRIs before – Lexapro – with good results, and I know plenty of people for whom SSRIs and similar types of medicines have worked. I just want to emphasize that I don’t know if these medicines are right for me at the given moment, is all.

Anyway, LCP and I had a really lovely time together and I felt bad that we might possibly not see each other after the 18th – I told her I’d get back in touch with her at the beginning of August – and as soon as I left I called the folks who’d put in my IUD to talk about getting it taken out. Things escalated rather quickly, and I found myself with an appointment the next morning (this is Friday, the 19th)  to get it taken out after I told my doctor there what had been going on.

So, that happened, and just like that! it was out. I got a prescription to go back on the Pill, and went on my merry way. Now, I should explain here that the gynecologist I saw in January for my annual exam noted that the Pill and ulcerative colitis patients tend not to mix, because the danger of blood clots caused by the pill is elevated with UC. But, my UC has been pretty darn well held in check for a while, and I’m – at my GI doctor’s word – a rather low-risk patient at the moment, and managing well. I also never had a single panic attack when on the pill, and never had any other issues with it. It was working fine for me, so why not go back on it? I talked to both the doctor who put in and removed the IUD and the gynecologist about this – specifically, whether or not I should try a copper IUD (no hormones, just a copper device) or an implant, or just go back on the Pill – and we collectively agreed that the Pill was still the best option. I’m a bit gunshy about getting another IUD put in me, and the implant is something I’m still considering – though, my thinking is that if I’m going to get a form of birth control that lasts 10 years, why not just get my tubes tied? (I’ve known I don’t want kids since I was 12. No, I am not ever going to change my mind. Yes, I have met The One, and he doesn’t want kids either. So, hush. :)) So, the Pill it is again, and we’re back where we started.

So, where am I now with the weirdness? I feel like I need to wait a few weeks to be sure that I can conclusively say that it was, in fact, the IUD that was the cause of all of this. I’m also going to try as best I can to eliminate the source of the silicone that may have also been the culprit. I also have the vocal cord dysfunction in the back of my mind, so I’m not entirely prepared to rule that out as a possibility either. In the short term, however, I can say that – and I hope it’s not the placebo effect – I feel rather better already. I’ve gone on two runs since Friday, and cross-trained at the gym today, and didn’t get the dizziness or numbness in my hands and feet at any point during or after exercise. I did have some shortness of breath, though a good deal of that can be attributed to a) going uphill b) the fact that I was doing a pace run on Saturday and AUGH I HATE THOSE because I always feel like I’m going to puke but that’s how I know I’m hitting my pace and c) the fact that we’re still dealing with dew points above 70F at 6am when I run in 75-degree weather, which makes it really hard to breathe normally. My heart rate has been much better about going down and – more importantly – staying down when I’m done running or working out, and it’s not racing when I wake up in the morning or am sitting still. So, I will keep my fingers crossed for the next couple of weeks, and be vigilant about monitoring symptoms and whatnot.

BTW, I feel like I should just print out a copy of all that and hand it to my dissertation advisor and say “This. THIS is why I haven’t gotten any work done in the last two weeks!” It’s been frustrating and time-consuming, for sure, but I feel like there’s a light at the end of the tunnel and I’ll soon be able to put it all behind me.

Okay, health stuff done! On to Marathon stuff.

So, yes: I’ve finished week 4 of training, and am on to week 5. I like this part of the plan because it’s when I start hitting 30-mile weeks and can justify an extra snack or beer or two or three in my diet 🙂 Plus, I really enjoy the double-digit long runs; not to say that 9 miles is nothing to shake a stick at, but it’s a mental thing – simply because it’s double digits, 10 or 11 miles feel so much cooler than  9 miles. When I do a 9-mile cutback long run two Sundays from yesterday – at the end of week 6 – that will be my last single-digit long run of training. After that, shit gets real. Woohoo!

This weekend I had a 6-mile pace run on Saturday and an 11-mile slooooow long run on Sunday. I’d done a 5-mile pace run last weekend in much cooler and less humid temperatures on a much flatter route (I was in Saint’s city), so I was a bit worried and irritated at the idea of doing a 6-mile pace run in warmer and much more humid temperatures and on a rather more hilly route in my own town. I even thought for a hot second about taking indoors to a treadmill, but then I remembered how much I absolutely hated every second of every pace run I ever did on a treadmill last year while training for my first marathon (plus, it’s too easy to bitch out and start slowing down on a treadmill). I also got mad at the humidity and decided that I was not going to let it take over my life like that. Armed with an abundance of caution – I was ready to take the necessary measures to slow down and cool off only if absolutely necessary – I set out early Saturday morning to get going.

Happily, it was overcast, so at least there wasn’t going to be any sun for my run. It was still grossly humid, so that by the time I was done I was completely covered in sweat (yes, even in those places). My time wasn’t as fast as I’d wanted – I was able to hit a 9:12/mile pace last weekend in the cool/flat run, and here I managed about a 10:10/mile pace – but, all things considered like hills and humidity, I was pleased. I was tired, sweaty, hot, but happy, and knew I’d set myself up well to have a nice slow long run the next day.

Sunday (hey, yesterday!) dawned with rather a lot more sun than Saturday, which I thought unfair because I had to run nearly twice as long and thus be outside for nearly twice as long. Happily, I accidentally mostly picked roads in the shade, and the first hour of my run was completely shaded because the sun hadn’t completely risen and I ran about 3 miles in a park down by a river 2 miles away. So, that was pretty awesome. I did hit some sun later, but it wasn’t too bad, and was never bearing down on me for more than .2/mile at a time. (No, I did not put on sunscreen or wear a visor. Why do you ask? :))

I did two things differently with this run than I normally would, and that was: 1) stop for water twice; 2) take 2 gels with me to consume. I’m at the point where I could probably slowly run a half-marathon without either water or food; I can do 9-10 miles without and still maintain a reasonable pace, but since it’s summer and I hemorrhage water and electrolytes like it’s my job, I decided to be smarter about replenishing stores during instead of afterwards. I also have an idea that I might need to take in more food-fuel during the actual marathon, because I’m not sure I ate enough last year. So, I’m going to start eating and drinking more on my long runs to get my body used to this idea. It worked like a charm on Sunday; I timed my consumption well, and I’d already been feeling pretty good prior to said consumptions. (Heh, that sounds like I had a really good experience with a medieval disease… not quite!) By the end, I was having to hold back a bit, because I was tempted to sprint the last half-mile home on my tired-but-feeling-gooood legs. I resisted, though I did accelerate somewhat ridiculously through the traffic light intersection closest to my house because I really just wanted to not have to wait to go the last 0.1 mile to get home. I actually laughed after that and thought, where the hell did that come from? And I was smiling like a good a couple of minutes later when I slowed down and ended my run. My average pace ended up being an embarrassingly slow 11:47/mile pace, but whatever – that’s what these long runs are for, to teach me to run long on tired legs. On fresh legs, that would have been at least 90 seconds faster; in less humid conditions, at least 2 minutes faster. So I like where I am now, but I know I have room for improvement, and plenty of time in which to get it done.

Long story short, MCM training is going well and I am pleased with my higher mileage and excited for the summer heat to eventually cool off and make things a bit less temperaturely-excruciating.

And hey! Bonus Food stuff.

I don’t have nearly as much to say here, but I had some absolutely amazing barbecue on Saturday from a local hole-in-the-wall that I am still thinking about and drooling over, and I also made some pretty awesome banana pudding (yes, the kind with Nilla wafers and whipped cream) on Saturday that I have tried very hard to not completely consume before today. I don’t think it’ll see Wednesday, but we’ll see. I swapped out Greek yogurt for the whipped cream and you can’t tell the difference, which is great, because it somewhat curbs my guilt at consuming all that sugar in one go.

Non-food stuff, but still fun.

I hiked to a swimming hole with some friends yesterday (sure, why not an easy 4-mile hike to jump-start the long run recovery?) and it was hot and humid and gross and then we got in the water which was deliciously cold and then it started clouding over and THEN we got torrentially thunderstormed upon as we were hurriedly packing up to leave. Normally I’d be irritated at getting completely soaked for a second time in one day (first time was after my run, yum!), but when you’re already swimming-hole wet, it just doesn’t matter. I did have to lay out my wallet, its contents, and my spare clothes to dry them out afterwards, but there was delicious beer and a hot shower afterwards so it was all good. A well-spent summer Sunday if ever I saw one, I say.

Thus ends the stuff! Carry on, friends, and be well.

 

A quick update on health stuff. Oh, and MCM training!

– because, you know, my many readers are wondering what happened at the cardiologist. I know, the wait was killing you! Here is your answer:

I got an echocardiogram (after having a normal EKG). It was *awesome* because I got to hear and see all of the ways my heart moves blood around and it was all sorts of colorful and squishy-sounding. A few pokes in the ribs, sure, but otherwise it was one of the neatest things I’ve ever had done to me in a doctor’s office. It turned out completely normal, save some very very minor regurgitation (I think that’s the word the cardiologist used) that isn’t supposed to be a Thing. So, I asked: what next? Off to see a primary care physician, to try a more general approach.

To sum quickly, what I’ve been dealing with is a month-plus of panicky feelings – near panic-attacks, but never having an actual one – plus difficulty breathing, dizziness, tingling in extremities, tightness in the chest, shortness of breath, pain in lower legs, thumping-heartbeat feelings, elevated heart rate, aaand I think that was it. Blood clots in legs and lungs were ruled out, heart issue was ruled out, anxiety is still on the table as a possibility (but why? I’m not anxious about anything, really; could be hormones from switching birth control…), but PCP said hey, maybe it’s something in your lungs, which sound clear but let’s try inhalers to see if we can’t open up your breathing passageways. (Going up a flight of stairs puts me very much out of breath, and I run 20ish miles a week. Laying in bed makes breathing difficult too, regardless of how I am positioned.)

So, that’s where we are now: albuterol before exercise and every 4-6 hours, and fluticasone every twelve hours. I’m learning quickly that albuterol – known for causing the jitters – is not combining well with caffeine, so I need to watch that combination. I feel like I’m slowly turning into my mother, who used inhalers for most of my childhood and may still do so, for all I know. 😛  We’ll see how this goes for about two weeks, and then re-assess as necessary.

Anyway, yeah. This week is/was week one of MCM training. 24 miles, 11 of which I’ve already done – 5 tomorrow, 8 on Sunday – and I’m feeling okay about this. I wasn’t so jazzed a couple of weeks ago, but I feel better now. My runs have gone slightly better since then, and I have a feeling this training will be harder than the training for my first one, not just because of the breathing issues but also because it’s a more advanced plan. That’s intentional, because I’ve realized that running more miles in training = faster time on race day, and I want to break *ahem* 4:30 in this race, and I think I can do it.

One week down (mostly), 17 to go…

And with that, I’m off to teach and then off to South Carolina for the weekend. Woo!

Marine Corps Marathon 2013: here I come!

Huzzah! (Can I say “ooh-rah” if I’m not a Marine? It feels wrong, so I’ll just stick with Huzzah! for now.) I am one of the lucky several thousand who received an email yesterday afternoon containing the following magical words: “Congratulations, you’re in!” In case you hadn’t heard (and I don’t expect you to have), The People’s Marathon is one of the fastest sell-outs in the U.S., and this year it sold out in less time than many people will run it: 2 hours and 27 minutes. I was online right when registration opened, and spent 20 minutes refreshing windows in multiple browsers, but eventually, I made it in. Many did not, and I understand their frustration, so I wonder if the MCM is going to continue to use its active.com online registration free-for-all next year. Since I have no complaints, I don’t think they should do anything, but a quick peek at the vitriol being spewed on Facebook at the MCM tells a different story.

*shrug*

In any event, I’m in and I’m giddy as a schoolgirl, because I’ve already booked my hotel room for the weekend and spent a little too much time last night geeking out over the course map (see it here, and tell me you don’t see what I see on the right-hand side: http://www.marinemarathon.com/MCM_Runner_Info/Course_Maps_908.htm) and reading a million things about logistics and race-day fun and the foods they’ll have on the course. I did that last thing because one thing I might try with training for this marathon is using the fuel they’ll offer in the race on my long runs – and I decided that before I saw that they’re handing out Dunkin’ Donuts Munchkins at mile 24. 🙂

Another thing I’m going to try with training for this marathon (my second. Eeee!) is simply running more: upwards of 40-50 miles a week, or about twice what I did when training for my first one. How exactly I am going to accomplish this while working, teaching, and writing my dissertation is a question I am still sorting out, but –

Wait, what? Writing my dissertation? Didn’t I have to pass some PhD exams first, you ask? (Or I ask, rhetorically?)

Well, yes, I did, and yes, I did – I finished my oral exams yesterday, so I’m all officially ABD (“all-but-dissertation”, in gradschool speak). This means that the only thing left to do (HA!) before graduating is write (and, uh, I guess defend) my dissertation, which then means I can get a job being all teachy-like somewhere. But, yes, this was a huge hurdle, and I’m glad to have cleared it. I definitely cracked open a celebratory Hopslam last night when I got home. 🙂

In other brief running news, just for fun, I’m running a 5k Saturday morning to see if I can achieve another 2013 goal: the sub-25:00 5k. It’s a hilly course – actually, I don’t know what the exact course is, but it’s a neighborhood course that has several hills and I kind of like that it’s a “show up and we tell you where to go” sort of race – so I’m not sure how this will shake out, but I feel ready to do some sprinting for a few miles. I’ve been having good success with recovering slowly and safely after my half two weeks ago, and the race benefits a good cause, so why not?

So, that’s that for now. If you follow me on Twitter or Facebook, this was all rather redundant, but oh well. 🙂