Runner's Tag Questions

A blog I read recently had responses to these running questions, and I thought (since I'm short on substance right now) it would be fun to answer them and share.  He made a video and stuff, but I rarely watch videos by bloggers, let alone have the time and know-how to make one myself.  But I can answer questions, particulary questions about running! 

Here are my written answers for Runner's Tag.

1. How long have you been running?

I've been running for about a decade now.  I ran as punishment when ordered by our tennis coach in high school, then a few times for stress relief in law school, and then mostly for fitness beginning in 2003.  In 2003, my running was solo, sporadic and on a treadmill, and I ran a single 8 mile race slowly that year.  I started running distance (and running very regularly) in 2004, and I've stopped only once -- about 6 months off in late 2005 and early 2006 due to an injury.  I have a very funny story about my mother-in-law and that injury, and I will have to share it sometime. 

2. Why did you start running?

In May 2004, a friend convinced me it would be fun to train for a marathon together. She'd gotten me to sign up for all kinds of things that we'd abandoned in the past (rowing, which we did about twice, and Spanish for Lawyers, which I never even attended (but bought the book and paid to take!), I think a dance class, etc.), and I thought the marathon would be like that. But by the fall, suddenly we were up to 20 miles and I knew it was really going to happen.  We ran together for many years after that first season, though she stopped a couple times to make people, and is now recovering from knee surgery. 

3. What is the furthest distance you have ever ran?
I would say the New York Marathon.  I've done about 16 marathons, and technically, they're all 26.2 miles, but the year I ran NY, there was some pre-race confusion about where we went for bag check, so a friend and I ran about a mile to get to bag check and then ran back to the starting line, and by then the race was already underway, so we both kept right on going.  My chip measured the 26.2, but I know I ran at least a mile before the chip began recording.  Notably, I also did three walks of 27 miles each while training for the Bataan Memorial Death March Marathon in 2012, but NY was about 27.2, so it wins as my longest run ever.

4. What is your best running memory?
The day I qualified for Boston.  I can't say as a beginning runner that I always wanted to qualify for Boston.  In fact, my times initially were so slow, that I set goals like breaking 5 hours, then breaking 4:22 (a sub-10 minute mile, seemed elusive at the time), and then breaking 4 hours.  But at some point along the way, I started reading running magazines and socializing more with runners, including many faster than me, and the Boston seed was planted.  It seemed like a remote possibility, but it was a goal, and I worked for it.  I worked hard for it.  I finally got my first BQ in 2010 at the Medtronic Twin Cities Marathon.  Full post here. 

5. What shoes do you run in?

I started off in Sauconys, then made the switch to Brooks Glycerin, which I wore loyally for many, many, many years.  Within the last 18 months or so, I've also been wearing the Adidas Supernova Glide and the Mizuno Wave Rider, but the Glycerins also remain in the rotation.  Last week I bought the newest pair of the Supernova -- light blue in color. 

6. What are your favorite and least favorite distances to run or race?

Tough to say.  I guess the marathon is my favorite.  There's so much work that goes into it and things have to line up well for it to be a good race day.  I love that challenge.  And I love the calorie burn that comes with training for a marathon.  I also like the 5k a lot because even though it hurts like hell, it's just over so quickly.  My least favorite is probably the 10k.  For some reason I have never paced myself well at a 10k, and my 10k PR predicts me with a marathon time much slower than I actually run. 

7. Do you have a running partner?
Yes.  I have a group of running buddies that I run with faithfully about three days a week, four if we're feeling crazy.  As I've said before, it's a group of awesome friends and we've been through a lot together over the years -- marriages, divorces, job changes, deaths in family, babies, moves, etc.  I'm insanely lucky to have a reliable and stable and fun group of friends that keeps me accountable and makes me push myself hard. 

8. What is your favorite place to run?

Favorite around here is probably the Katy Trail, since I live near it and don't have to drive.  It's a 3.5 mile pedestrian/bike path through uptown.  I also love running at our local lake, but it's a few miles away, so I drive there.  The lake is a lovely 9.3 mile loop.  Favorite places ever to run are in a park near Lamezia Terme, Italy, about 10 minutes in the car away from my husband's family's house, near the lakes in Minneapolis around which the marathon goes in the fall, in Central Park in NY, and up in the north woods of Wisconsin.  Dallas doesn't hold a candle to any of those.  I love running whether there's pretty natural scenery, but it's a fine line since I really don't like running hills (though I know they're good for me). 

9. What is your favorite running accessory?

I would say my Garmin and its heart rate monitor.  In the days before Garmin, I used to love keeping track of my stats so much, but it was such a pain to do by hand.  I love that it all uploads automatically and I can get annual totals or any other kind of extraction that I want.  I like knowing my instant pace, my total time, my average pace, my total distance, etc.  I try not to obsess over instant pace, but few things beat the feeling of thinking you're really struggling and then looking down at your watch to see that you are in fact running a killer pace! 

10. Do you like outdoor or indoor running?

Outdoors all the way!  I try to avoid treadmill running whenever possible, at most a handful of times per year.  I much prefer running with friends, so obviously that's outside.  But even for a solo run, it's so much more interesting to be outside, and I feel like it's better training for my body.  Really bad weather will occasionally force me to the treadmill, particularly when we're in the North Woods for Christmas, but if we have bad weather in Dallas, I usually suck it up and run outside, or give myself a pass and take a rest day.  I did one treadmill run already in 2013, just because I was without a car, dropped off at my office, didn't know the neighborhood well, and I was solo in the dark at 6:30 a.m., but I hated most minutes of those 7 miles. 

11. What is your favorite time of the day to run?

I'm not sure it's really my favorite, but all my training runs start at 6:00 a.m. or earlier, so I'm used to early morning running.  It's kind of a necessity if you live in Dallas and want to keep running in the summer, when it's oppressively hot sometimes in the afternoon and evening.  I did evening runs for about a year when I was just starting out, but too many of those runs got canceled for other commitments (work, no one to go with, just ate/too hungry, sleep, social priorities, etc.).  I learned that I was most likely to follow through with the run if I did it early in the morning, then I hooked up with my running buddies, and now I rarely run at any other time of the day, though I do a social run in the evening about once a month. 
 
12. What races have you ran?

I've run the following races: 100 meters, 200 meters, 400 meters, 800 meters, 1500 meters, 1 mile, 2 miles, 5k, 4 miles, 8k, 5 miles, 10k, 8 miles, 15k, 10 miles, half marathon, 20 miles, and the marathon.  I've also competed in the long jump (and I sucked).  So I've pretty much covered all the major distances!  In order of frequency, the order is 5k (30x!!!), half-marathon (over 20x), marathon (16x), 15k (16x), 5 miles (11x), 8 miles (10x). 

13. What music do you listen to when running?

None -- the music I hear is conversation with friends.  I used to occasionally wear an ipod on the running-biking trail by my house, but a runner was killed there in 2010 following a collision with a bicycle, and I've never used the tunes since.  Her death taught me and many others a valuable lesson about awareness, which is reduced with headphones.  Full post about that tragic event here. 

14. What is the hottest or coldest weather you have ever ran in?

The hottest race would be the Chicago Marathon 2007, which was in the mid-90s and resulted in a fatality and the marathon being canceled before most participants had finished.  The coldest was a 15k race several years ago with my local bestie -- it had been sleeting and snowing the night before, and I remember that we discussed whether or not our eyelashes were freezing during the race. 

15. What are some other exercises you love?

I do a fitness boot camp with my husband three days per week that we both enjoy.  I also love Bikram yoga (the 90 minute, 105-degree kind!), but that's not really exercise, it's more stretching.  Beyond that, nothing else that I really love.  I'll lift weights and occasionally try other things, but running really is my staple exercise. 

16. Are you currently training for something?

Kind of.  I'm spending this season working on speed and then in late May, I will begin marathon training again, aiming for a PR on Sept. 29 in Berlin.  I have a few rough goals for the spring in terms of 5k time, but I'm not entirely confident the goals are attainable.  We'll see! 

17. What are your current or future goals?

I would like to run a specific time in Berlin (the time would be a PR by 11 minutes and change).  If I accomplish that time in Berlin or elsewhere, I do not plan to set any other marathon time goals.  I have a 5k goal as well, and I'll work on it this spring, but if I don't get that, I'll likely keep working over the coming years and see if I can do it. 

18. Advice for new runners
?
Commit to a race, then find a training group and run with them faithfully.  A group that runs together about 3-4 times per week is going to get you in shape to run the race and is likely going to result in a whole new circle of friendships.  I can't emphasize enough how wonderful a group is.  Many runners successfully train on their own for a race, but then sometimes don't stick with it.  An ongoing group training setting can help keep you going.   

19. Why did you start making running videos?
Not applicable.

20. Who will you tag?
Not applicable.

There you have it! 

Taking a Ride Home

So after my muggy and unusually warm commute to work yesterday morning, I planned on running home, as usual.  I've gotten pretty serious about watching the weather, so I knew that yesterday's forecast was a warm and humid morning, storms coming in around 10 or 11, storms rolling out by 1 or 2.  I'm lucky if I leave work at 5:30, and that's only happened about twice ever.  Usually it's between 6 and 7, with a vast majority of nights it being 6:45 when I turn off my computer and head home. 

I was hoping to leave work early, around 5:30, and it actually seemed plausible.  Lunch time came and went with no rain or storms, but I just assumed maybe they'd gone south or north.  Hadn't even considered the possibility that at 7:30 a.m., the weather forecasters were still unable to make an educated guess at what would happen in the next 6 hours. 

This is what the sky looked like to the northwest at about 3:00:

This is what the sky looked like to the northeast at about 3:00:

 

See over the east how the sky is supposed to look?

 

Within half an hour or so, it was pouring.  So I called my husband and asked if he'd pick me up on his way home from work.  He ended up working a bit late and running an errand, so by the time he picked me up, it was after 7:00 and it had stopped raining, so really there was no reason I couldn't have run home.  But I took the ride, and thus, yet another week goes by where I don't do all 8 scheduled runs...  Oh well!  

What is wrong with this picture?

Jan. 29 at 4:51 a.m.

 

 

Wow.  It may as well be June or something.  It was a hot and sticky morning, but at least the wind helped.  I wanted to quit after 5 miles, but I hung in until about mile 6, then I let a few of my friends slowly slip away and finished about a minute behind them. 

 

 

My group run today was about 7.8 miles.  We were done before 6:30.  I then drove home, made a smoothie, watched the news for a little while, and then headed back out to run to work.

 

I'm proud of myself. 

 

This is actually going to be my first full normal week in terms of mileage.  I did about 15 over the weekend (5k on Saturday, 12 miles on Sunday).  Then I'll get about 15 miles with friends this week (Tues and Thurs, about 7.5 each day on average).  Then I'll have about 18 miles of commuting (round-trip Tues and Wed, and then into the office on Thurs).  And I should have a couple miles total at boot camp during the week (Mon-Wed-Fri).  That is going to put me at 50 miles for the week.  Wow.  It's weird for me to be running this mileage and not be in marathon training. 

 

Guess we'll see how it works out for me...

 

Maybe I'll try to get a ride home one night this week to save a few miles.  

FMM: Getting to Know Each Other

My weekend was lovely, but not as productive as I'd hoped.  I missed out on perhaps the most important thing on my agenda -- calling my baby brother for his birthday on Friday.  I called him Saturday around lunch time and left a voicemail, but in my family, birthday phone calls are important and I feel awful that I didn't make one.  I thought about him so many times on Friday during the day and was waiting for the right time to call.  And then we stayed at dinner pretty late and I didn't think about it on my way home.  Ugh.  I left him a message on Saturday saying that I'd worried it was too late to call, but that was BS.  Sometimes people call really late at night and joke about getting the call in just under the wire.  But we'd sent him a card and I did think of it several times that day, just didn't actually dial.  I'm irritated with myself.  Fortunately he called me back on Sunday on my way to a party with my running friends and we got to catch up for almost an hour. 

The 5k race on Saturday was a mess.  Typical Lewis George (aka Mellew) race.  It was supposed to start at 8, but the start was actually at 8:23.  The excuse?  Apparently more people came to register that morning than expected.  And apparently it's more important to make more money than it is to hold a race that people have already paid $30 to enter.  His races are always so poorly organized, I have no idea why I did one again.  Well, I do know why -- it was because this run promised donuts.  Good donuts.  On the course and after the race.  That to me is a fun reason to run a race on what is normally a rest day.  But no, it ended up being just plain glazed donuts, nothing spectacular.  Very disappointing.  My time was slow but I think I still managed to be toward the top of my age group, which was nice, but it mostly means that it was a slow field.  But I was proud of myself for eating a donut hole at each of the 5 donut stations on the course, and I ran near my friend the whole way, which was nice.  I love having company. 

The rest of the weekend was nice.  I brought a friend with me for her first Bikram yoga class ever.  She did really well.  She sat out several postures, but she stayed in the room the whole time.  And she's a natural at locking her leg, which is so difficult for me, even now after all these months. 

My long run on Sunday was only 12 miles and I would not say it went well, but it was okay. 

I'm expecting another hectic week at work, but hopefully less stressful than last week (did I mention I had to fire outside counsel?  that was a painful conversation).  Since it's Monday, here we go with Friend Making Mondays. 

Now it’s that time…If you’ve taken part in FMM then you know the rules. If you’re new, please take a moment to answer this week’s question on your own blog then add your link in the comments section here at: www.alltheweigh.com so we can all see your FMM questions and answers. Please invite your blog readers to add their links here too so everyone has to opportunity to be seen. The idea is to connect with other awesome bloggers so take a moment to post your own FMM post and comment on a couple of other posts. Now it’s time for this week’s topic!

Getting To Know Each Other

 

1. What is your favorite color?  I've never really had a definitive favorite.  Today, I'd choose blue.  I usually would say red or blue, but sometimes maybe purple or pink.

2. Share one or more of your talents.   I was a stud at boot camp this morning, front of the pack.  I don't really have any talents that come to mind, so that was a bit of a stretch.  Maybe a talent is that I'm decent at learning bits of languages?  I don't think it's really a talent since obviously many people can do this and learn many languages to the point of fluency, but I tried to learn the basics of Thai, Russian, Bosnian and Chinese when we traveled to those places.  I speak Italian and French. 

3. If you were spending the day getting to know someone new, where would you want to go?  I love running with new friends.  Spending a few hours pounding the pavement gives you a chance to talk about all kinds of stuff -- and in some ways, running together is like the car effect -- there's no direct eye contact, so sometimes it's easier to have conversations you wouldn't otherwise.  It's just so nice to talk to someone while running since no one is distracted by phones, family, or other obligations.  You're just wholly present in the moment. 

4. What is your favorite meal?  Tough call, I like so many different things.  My husband's favorite meal is what we had for our rehearsal dinner and I think it's becoming my favorite meal as well -- pizza, fries, gelato and beer, preferably in Italia. 

5. Do you prefer to text or talk?  I text far more often, but spending an hour on the phone with my baby brother this weekend reminded me how much I really do prefer connecting my talking. 

6. Share something about yourself that might surprise someone that you’re getting to know.  I come from a very large family. 

7. Do you color your hair?  Never have, not sure I ever will.  I live in Dallas, which strikes me as a very superficial city, and I don't want to feed into that.  It just feels unnatural and misleading, like you're not content with who you are naturally.  I wonder if my answer would be different if I were single. 

8. Do you wear glasses or contacts?  Contacts.

9. What is your favorite breakfast food? I do smoothies pretty much every day, but this morning I supplemented with a grapefruit sprinkled with splenda.  Ooh, it hit the spot! 

10. Would your friends say that you’re sarcastic?  Probably, but not overly so I don't think. 

11. Do you prefer salty or sweet? Depends on the day.  Usually salty.

12. What is the first thing you notice about the opposite sex?  I've said before, I hate this question -- the first thing I notice is I think the same thing every single person notices.  You notice sex, general build and height, and race or skin color.  I think it's absolute BS to say you notice smile before you notice race.  Or that you notice eyes before you notice if someone is rail thin or heavier.  But if the question is really what is the first thing I consider to determine if I'm attracted to someone, I'd say arms or smile. 

13. What is the last movie you watched?  In the theater, Zero Dark Thirty.  On TV, something on Lifetime. 

14. Are you religious?  Not overly. 

15. Are you a neat freak, a slob, or somewhere in between?  Somewhere in between.  I am good about keeping things put away, but I don't freak out if we have a clean dishwasher waiting to be unloaded and dishes stack up in the sink for a few days until we have time to unload.  But for the most part, on any given day, it would be no big deal if someone came over to visit and wanted to scope out the entire house, including our bedroom and even our closets.  It's generally pretty orderly. 

16. Share something from your bucket list that you hope to do someday.  I have a big picture book with a two-page spread for every country in the world (though the very recent ones (Kosovo, Montenegro, South Sudan) are not included).  Some day, I want to be at the point where I can open it at random and have a 50-50 shot of having been to that country.  That would mean that I've traveled to about 98 countries total.  I'm about halfway there right now, so lots more traveling is needed. 

17. Are you a risk taker, or do you prefer to play it safe?  I probably play it safe.  I want so much to travel to Israel and Egypt, but it just seems too risky to me.  I like my routine in general, and don't mix it up enough probably. 

18. Have you ever worn braces?  Never. 

19. Would you rather spend an evening at a theater or at a club?   Depends who I'm with.  I'd say theater 90% of the time, but I love going out dancing with my brothers' wives and some of my friends.  I haven't done that in ages (but actually, I haven't been to the theater in a long time either).  Wait, unless this question meant movie theater -- then I'd definitely say I prefer a club, far more memorable. 

20. If you could have three wishes, what would one of them be?  Continued fitness improvements for about 10-20 more years, and then I would hold steady.  

Now it’s your turn to answer this week’s questions. Don’t forget to come back and link up in the comments! Happy Monday!