March 5, 2008
The Marathon
Sunday morning arrived... far quicker than I thought it would.
I got up and while I caught a shower, Andy went to wake the poor girl that was on duty at the Inn to get me some boiling hot water for my oatmeal. I felt so sorry for her.
I got into my clothes and .... attempted to show my enthusiasm for the run that was about to take place. Andy decided that 
the world needed to know....
At 5h20, Jeff was there to pick me up and head to the start line. I had everything. My belt was in my hand with a good amount of Gatorade Endurance Mix in it. I had honey, I had some anti-shafing gel, I had water, I had everything that was required.
As we drove towards Universal Studios, my stomach started with the familiar fluttering of butterflies, but that quickly went away as I became more excited about starting the marathon. As we arrived at the parking area, it was clear that there was going to be an amazing amount of chaos with the arrangements. First they had 3 lanes merge into one. Then they had someone checking that you were involved in the marathon before pointing you to the parking area.
As we walked up towards the general loo area, the marathonfoto.com paparazzi overwhelmed us and asked whether they could take a quick picture or two. We managed 3 on our way and then it was time to pick up my fuelbelt, get rid of my shirt and head to the starting point. I said goodbye to Jeff and headed to the start line.
There was an amazing amount of people. I've NEVER run in a race with more than 2000 people, so this was quite and experience for me. Everywhere was feet, bodies, heads, arms... the smell of bodyglide in the air.... I held on to my bottle of water and sat down and did a few stretches in the shade of those standing around. The sun had come up and the air was already heating up.
Before I knew it, 8h20 had arrived and it was time to start.... I started off conservatively and felt pretty well. The first mile was mostly uphill with a nice climb. The crowd at the start was great. They cheered and went crazy and in general they were just making a lot of noise, which is exactly what I wanted to hear. The atmosphere was making me all giddy and it took everything in me to not speed up and burn up every ounce of energy I had.
The miles passed and I kept a careful eye on my watch to make sure I wasn't going faster than I should. At mile 13 I was still feeling great and only had 3 miles to go before I had to meet up with Jeff. My nutrition was holding up, my legs felt great, I still had 3 gels left... I was feeling awesome....
... but the marathon is unpredictable - it only takes one small thing to make your day go a little off.
Mile 14 arrived... and with it my stomach decided to feel unwell. I stepped in the queue to use the porta-potty and shortly afterwards headed off again towards mile 16. But with every step I now felt a little worse off.
At Mile 16 I spotted Jeff in a sec and he fell in next to me. He was so supportive and motivational and I felt quite bad that I was in worse shape than I would've liked to be. My left leg started hurting shortly after and then I just had to talk to myself and listen to Jeff and it all became roses and moonlight and fluffy bunnies!
The last few miles were increasingly difficult, but the one thing I did NOT want to do, was walk the last mile. So the last 1.2 miles were hobbled/run/jogged/run through gritted teeth.
As I crossed the line and collected my medal, were handed a drink, a blanket,
pushed towards the photographers and managed to get out of the chaotic finishers area with non-runners in, emotion started to overwhelm me. I couldn't believe that I managed to finish it! My legs were hurting so badly it wasn't funny.
I met up with Jeff in the family reunion area with tears in my eyes and we made it back to his car.
That evening we headed over to Jeff's where smsmh made the most wonderful supper. I was dead on my legs though and in dire need of a lot of sleep and we went home relatively early. The sleep I got was the most heavenly of sleep and I could not have asked for a more comfortable bed.
Posted by karinm at 7:53 PM | Comments (4)
The LA Marathon (The Trip)
On February 28th, 2008, at 11:00AM (GMT) I got on a plane to Los Angeles with Andy by my side. The 11 hours and 40 minutes on the plane was nothing compared to the 5 hours we were stuck on the I-405 towards Laguna Beach. We checked into the Casa Laguna Inn shortly after 9pm and after a quick call to Jeff quickly fell asleep - after all, our bodies thought it was well into the morning hours with the 8 hour time difference.
Friday morning arrived and after 4 or 5 or 6 cups of coffee, we had the most delicious breakfast before going for a walk on the beach and seeing the area around us. We headed back to the inn and an hour later Jeff picked us up to make the long journey to the McDonalds Quality of Life Expo to pick up my race pack and goody bag and to venture into the world of expo exhibitors. I managed to get away with a LA Marathon top, a running skirt, some shoes for Andy and various bars and nuts and things that the stalls handed me.
Then it was back to the inn for a quick nap.
During the course of the evening I met TC, smsmh and had the most delicious Lasagna to start the carbo loading for Sunday's marathon. TC was the cutest! Honestly, when he smiles, you can't help but melting. He's going to break hearts when he's older!
Saturday morning we woke up relatively late... I lie. We woke up at 7, had coffee at 7:30, breakfast at 8 and then decided to head to the town centre of Laguna Beach to watch the Patriot's Day Parade. It was something neither of us had experienced before and we had a ton of fun watching everyone come by. The kids that took part in the parade seemed to have a load of fun.
We caught some lovely Italian food afterwards and before I knew it, it was evening and I had to prepare everything for a very early morning on Sunday. I put my D-tag on my shoe, I put my number on my shirt (4 times), I put my socks out, my shirt, my Garmin, my fuelbelt... everything. And then I fell into bed and fell asleep while watching Without Limits.
Posted by karinm at 7:08 PM
January 1, 2008
The Year of 'I Can'
This year is the year of 'I Can'. No more excuses. No negativity. No doubts. Simply : I CAN!!!
I was sitting in my chair today, preparing my spreadsheet for the year and considering my options as to what I am going to do this year. So far there are only 5 things that are certain.
- I am doing the Stamford Valentines 30K (2008/02/10) (sadly without a partner in tow)
- I am doing the Los Angeles Marathon (2008/03/02) (hopefully with someone pacing me ;) )
- I am doing the London Marathon (2008/04/13) (without anyone else, but hey, the atmosphere will be soaked up!)
- I am doing the London Triathlon (2008/08/10)
- I am doing the Great North Run (2008/10/05) (atmosphere!)
As for goals, I have 3 :
- Run 1500 miles
- Lose 2 stone
- Finish an Ironman
And all of those can be measured - publicly, you'll notice the mileage in my sidebar... I'll have to let you know about the weight loss thing... and the Ironman finish will be announced in the form of a race report sometime or another :)
I can do this. Because this is the year of I Can.
Posted by karinm at 5:58 PM | Comments (6)
December 17, 2007
Another weekend Down
'Tis was a quiet weekend with a lot of cake, some running (lotsa running) and some fairly cold weather that left some lovely frozen drops on my top while out on my long run on Saturday morning. We woke up and it was well... well below zero. I went out into the lovely cold weather, started running and as my muscles felt like they weren't warming up, listened to podcasts while counting the miles.
Somewhere along the route I had a drink... and noticed small particles of ice starting to gather on my top. I thought it was a tad funny. The last time that happened I was running up a mountain in freezing weather and half expected it to happen when they started serving sherry at the water stations.
I finished the run and my hands felt like they were frozen in place... a hot shower later I was ok, but my feet felt like bricks and I spent about half an hour sitting in front of the tele before taking Elizma shopping in Nottingham. Andy and Fanie stayed home and made the most of the unlimited access to the television by playing endlessly on the XBox.
Saturday evening we went out for supper and on Sunday morning I woke up to some pressies and cards and a HOT mug of coffee.
The rest of the day was equally great and relaxing and even though I got a card that wished me a happy 30th birthday on my 29th birthday, I was fine :)
Now a new week starts - only EIGHT days until Christmas!
Posted by karinm at 8:02 AM | Comments (1)
November 29, 2007
Well, THAT was Unexpected
Yeah, unexpected. I'm talking about the pace that my run took tonight.
I was supposed to do between 4 and 5 miles at 10:15 - 10:30 pace... and somewhere, 4 miles @ 9:35 popped out. And I could've gone another mile if I didn't have a cramp in my leg since mile 2 and after 4 miles decided that it was enough with the pain thing. I felt so incredibly comfortable, but my legs were more than happy to go a bit faster than usual, even when we hit my half-a-mile hill and headed up it.
Once finished it hit me that I had run steady, but far faster than I was supposed to.
38:26? Yeah. Ok. I'll take that.
Even if it was a tad unexpected.
Posted by karinm at 8:24 PM | Comments (0)
November 26, 2007
London Marathon 2008 Here I Come
Lunchtime was a good time.
I got a Flora London Marathon 2008 confirmed entry! My acceptance letter and magazine arrived this afternoon and I whooped and hollered and nearly did some cartwheels around the room when I found out that I got an entry.
So tonight I shall celebrate. Because the third time was a charm :) And because, 6 weeks after the LA marathon, I'll be doing the London marathon :)
Posted by karinm at 3:31 PM | Comments (1)
November 23, 2007
One more Week
After today there is only 7 days of NaBloPoMo left. Woot! And so far I've kept it up. Barely. I've made so many nonsense posts that it could not possibly be rectified within the next year, but that's ok.
I've had blue sky to look at all day - quite a change from the past couple of weeks where rainy weather, snowy weather, fog, overcast weather and just general miserable weather had taken the sky hostage and made it terribly grey.
Tonight is a rest evening, but I'm considering heading out for a smallish 3 or 4 mile run to see whether my left leg is in need of a massage or some other form of treatment, or whether it will finally behave in a manner suited for legs that want to run a marathon in March.
But before then, I still have to get home and enjoy the sunset. :)
Posted by karinm at 3:40 PM | Comments (1)
November 22, 2007
Running in rain...Again
Well, that sucks. I went out for a run tonight again, and it rained. And it was quite cold with the wind blowing and all that. And I very nearly had a repeat of Tuesday evening's events with contorted muscles and all. I felt the niggling, but thankfully it didn't hurt. I slowed down when it started niggling and it seemed to stay at that point in time.
Andy was next to me during the whole of the run. He kept checking on me with 'Are you okay?' and 'Is your leg ok?' and 'Are you hurting?' I'm pretty sure that if I answered that it hurt or that I wasn't okay at any stage he was going to make me stop and drag my butt back home.
So, with the rain falling outside, me wondering about the London Marathon (despite the fact that I'm definitely doing LA), and Angel on the television, I bid you farewell for tonight. I have ice to put on my leg and stretching to do.
Posted by karinm at 8:16 PM | Comments (0)
November 14, 2007
I Shall Run
I found this in Vanilla's blog and although its pretty awesome how two people fight it out, what stuck with me, was the closing words on the video : the difference between ordinary and extraordinary is that little extra.
Last night I went to bed, fuming at an email I received from someone that I don't know and right now, really hope I never get to know. Without knowing me, he tried to give me advice that I didn't ask for and as it turns out, he's a bit of an elitist jogger. You know, one of those that finish a marathon sub-3:00 and figure that anyone that can't run a marathon sub 3:30 shouldn't be allowed to take part.
This morning I woke up and figured that I wasn't going to give him a direct response. If he wants to believe that the taking part doesn't count, then he is entitled to his opinion, but he's not someone that I want to talk to. I enjoy running and plodding and just because I don't run 10 miles every morning, it doesn't make me any less of a runner.
Now I'm off for a run.
Posted by karinm at 7:39 AM | Comments (1)
November 13, 2007
Day 2? Check!
6 Miles. Day 2. And I did it! I finished my second training session this week ... in cold weather, with my shoes a tad too tight, my garmin on my wrist, my gloves on my hands, my hat on my head. And this time I forgot the light. I was completely blind in the darkness of the run, but oh boy was it fun!
I pretended that I was sneaking up on people and had to restrain myself from trying to scare them as I approached them. A few dogs gave me some snarls, but thankfully they were on leashes and couldn't get their teeth at me.
The air wasn't as cold as yesterday, but my body still felt the chill. Afterwards the shower was such a welcome treat.
They're expecting a very cold morning tomorrow morning. Something tells me my double layer of clothing isn't going to be enough...
Posted by karinm at 7:35 PM | Comments (0)
November 12, 2007
Sub Zero
| Week | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | Total |
| Km | 0 | 3.01 | 5.23 | 8.24 |
This morning seemed like a good time to start running in the early mornings. Well, it seemed like a good morning last night while I was crawling into my lovely and warm bed and I hadn't seen the weather forecast.
Andy mentioned something about below zero, but I didn't really listen and this morning I woke up to a really cold morning. I mean, REALLY COLD. -3 degrees outside and ready to get colder by the looks of it. Was it not for the lovely, beautiful sun rising at 7am, it probably would've gotten colder too.
No problem, right?
I grabbed my long tights, a long-sleeved shirt another shirt to put on over that, my iPod, my garmin and I was ready. I started running and at first the garmin was a tad shellshocked at my decision to use it. It took roughly 250m to find a signal in the clear skies and then started telling me how slowly I was poodling along.
One thing I noticed this morning was the amount of early-morning dog walkers we have in our neighbourhood. I encountered 4 or 5 owners that could control their canines and another 5 or 6 that couldn't. Thankfully their dogs were small enough for me to not be completely terrified of them and I was able to escape unharmed.
As I finished my run, I started feeling a tad like I was drowning. My lungs had obviously had enough of the freezing air and felt like they were shut. I got home and took a 20 minute shower to heat myself up, but I could feel that I was outside.
Dressing made me feel a bit like the Michelin man. I put on the clothes I was wearing to work, a huge coat and then wrapped myself in a duvet for a good 20 minutes before I felt human enough to get off the couch and out the door and off to work.
But the run is done. The first one for the next 16 weeks.
Posted by karinm at 9:36 AM | Comments (1)
November 11, 2007
We Rode off into the Sunset
Whoever thinks that riding off into the Sunset sounds like a happy ending has obviously never ridden off into the sunset.
This afternoon we drove home from the in-laws and as luck would have it... the sun was setting ... and we were driving into this spectacular bright light that was at the end of the highway. Of course I was in the driver's seat and being a tad blind, the sun's glare was enhanced by my glasses that I was wearing.
Everytime we went underneath a bridge my eyes would burst into song for the relief it was getting, only for me to suffer a temporary 3 second blindness and star spell when we came out from under the bridge.
Needless to say, I mentioned this to Andy and he instantly started to suffer from white-knuckle syndrome I was so thankful when some clouds decided to save the day that I instantly stopped at the nearest Primo Coffee and got something to drink.
Unfortunately the time of day and sub-zero temperatures has kept me inside for most of the day and the only part of my body that's been doing any running since Wednesday has been my nose. Thankfully it decided to start taking a rest since this afternoon and I'm feeling a ton better now.
I'm sitting upstairs, too lazy to go to the lounge, considering getting out the dvd that's been in my bag since Friday and doze off even though it is only 7pm. I've already set my alarm for the new regime that kicks in tomorrow - an early morning swim followed by some work ... followed by a run.
I've run out of excuses, now the work starts.
Posted by karinm at 6:59 PM | Comments (0)
November 7, 2007
Last Night was the Last Night
Andy comes home tonight!
Andy comes home tonight!
Andy comes home tonight!
Andy comes home tonight!
Andy comes home tonight!
Ok, so I'm a tad excited because last night I started hearing imaginary noises while I was lying in bed, alone, in the dark house. I ended up finding a can of Deep Freeze spray and putting it next to the bed in an attempt to have some makeshift mace. This morning I woke up and realised that it was probably not the best idea in the world - the can has a childproof cap on and it wouldn't have been easy to get that off in a hurry. But it was the feel-good-thought that counted at the time I guess.
I slept like a log :)
Its a wonderfully cold morning with a lot of clouds and even more leaves off the trees this morning.
Quote of the Day:
A thing is not necessarily true because badly uttered, nor false because spoken magnificently.
--Saint Augustine of Hippo
Posted by karinm at 8:28 AM | Comments (1)
October 16, 2007
I'm in the Mood
I’m in the mood for a long bike ride. Out on the open road with no-one else around, my iPod tucked into one ear and the other earphone tucked beneath my shirt. Sadly this time of year it isn’t all that safe to go cycling on the road as it becomes dark pretty quick and some drivers find it hilarious to hit and run. Almost like a bad Britney impression.
So, during the week I’m pretty much stuck. I’ll have to make do with my trainer, my What It Takes DVDs and a big bottle of mixed water. The only wind that I’ll feel through my hair will be the wind that comes in through the open French doors that lead to our backyard. Thank heavens we can open both. On nights that it doesn’t rain or doesn’t look like rain I might even be able to put the trainer outside and cycle... even if the only view I’ll have is the fence ....
After a week of stomach aches and pains and plagues that had both myself and Andy cringing when we saw food, I’m ready to get stuck into training again this week – I’m doing the Lady Godiva Half Marathon at the weekend as part of training and am looking forward to another run with fellow runners. Its always fun (not to mention I like the shirt they sent me!)
Tonight I’m supposed to be doing an hour run ... I think. Or is that half an hour? I’ll have to check when I get home. LA is going to sneak up on me before I know it! Its only 19 weeks away now...
Posted by karinm at 1:47 PM | Comments (1)
October 7, 2007
A Quiet Weekend?
As the countdown to our trip to the US continues, so does my new-found fondness of training. Indeed. The fact that for the past few weeks I hadn't run an inch over 7 miles during any one run, didn't stop me this weekend. Jeff was in town and with his contagious inspiration and motivation and cheerfulness, I was not going to have a tough time :)
On Friday afternoon I picked Jeff up at his offices and we took the scenic, hilly, green, twist-and-turn-until-you-feel-like-you're-going-in-the-direction-from-whence-you-came route back home. It only took about an hour and a half before we reached the safety of home. A quick walk and some supper later sleep was my calling, but Andy and Jeff stayed up and watched some film - I think it has Star Wars somewhere in the title.
After a leisurely late lie-in, myself and Jeff readied ourself and tried to convince Andy that he WANTED to ride his bike and carry our water. Andy unfortunately didn't feel like playing along, but then again, he was on call and couldn't really leave the area and be more than 20 minutes away from home.
So out to the Cloud trail we went. Never before has 12 miles felt so short. Between various jokes involving various names I tried to catch my breath, but as soon as I did, the next one arrived and I would once again try to control laughter. It had more of a wheezing sound to it than laughter in the end :)
The run reminded me that that trail was there and I seriously do need to get there more often.
For the evening we headed out to a Mexican restaurant and a movie. Run Fatboy Run was a great feel-good movie that made me laugh ... its definitely worth the watch :)
Early this morning we had to say goodbye to Jeff. I was sad to see him go, but we'll catch up with him again in Feb.
Right now, I'm snoozy, sleepy, and in need of a night's rest.
Congrats to Juls that finished the Chicago marathon!
PS. South Africa beat Fiji in the Rugby World Cup earlier! Woo!
Posted by karinm at 6:41 PM | Comments (3)