Rock ‘N’ Roll San Jose Race Recap

Today my knee hurts, I’ve wanted a nap since I got up this morning and I feel like I’m fighting off a head cold, but I don’t care one bit BECAUSE I AM A HALF MARATHONER!

Yesterday, I ran the Rock ‘N’ Roll San Jose Half Marathon, my first race if you don’t count the Turkey Trot 5k I ran 3 years ago. As mentioned previously, I had pretty much failed at training and felt completely unprepared for this race. So, I was thrilled to finish the race in 2:10:44 without having to stop to walk once!

But the best part about this experience was that I truly had fun running the race. That, I did not expect. I expected to feel a sense of accomplishment once I crossed the finish line. I hoped to have a few moments of runners high when I wasn’t wishing I was curled up in bed like most sane people on a Sunday morning, but I didn’t anticipate enjoying every last 13.1 miles of the course.

I should mention that, despite the fact that our hotel was strategically located one block away from the starting line, I came flying out of the port-o-potty and barely made it into my corral before the horn sounded and the race began. A little helpful hint: nerves will be running high and you will have to go to the bathroom several times before the race starts. Plan accordingly.

It's official - I'm doing this thing!

Working on our form

Jen gets fresh with the mannequin

So, without further ado, here are the biggest takeaways from my first half marathon…

1. Adrenaline is my friend. I knew I would be both excited and nervous on race day, and everyone told me that you can run a lot farther during a race than you can in training, but I had no idea just how much of a boost I would get from the adrenaline that was pumping through my body when the horn sounded at 8 a.m. that morning. I felt like I could have kept running and running. I had a stupid grin on my face the entire time because I was seriously riding high on the rush of running my first race. It’s no wonder people sign up for this insanity again and again.

2. Running with other people rocks. I have always been a lone runner. I like the solitude that allows me to get lost in my thoughts and I like to work on my own speed and distance without worrying about whether or not I’m holding someone else back. I find it annoying when people try to talk to me while I’m running. It messes up my running zen. Just a heads up in case you and I ever pass each other on the trail. But surrounded by 13,000 other runners of every different shape, size and speed, all running the same course, I felt a strange camaraderie with this huge group of runners. Even the guy in the pink tutu. It was an amazingly communal experience.

3. I am more competitive than I like to admit. I don’t usually think of myself as a competitive person. I tend to engage in sports for the pure enjoyment of them, and I’ve never been the kind of person who needs to be the center of attention. My family may disagree. Running this race, however, proved to myself that I do have at least a little bit of a competitive streak. If it wasn’t the sly sense of satisfaction I got every time I passed someone on the course, it was the way I sprinted the last 300 yards to pass everyone in my pack to the finish line that finally convinced me of this truth.

4. Technology fails; keep running. I was totally pumped to run with my Garmin GPS watch so that I could track my pace and distance the entire 13.1 miles. But my stupid watch was still trying to find a satellite when the horn sounded and didn’t connect until almost .5 miles into the race, so I had to rely on mile markers to gauge how far I’d run. Somehow, I also brilliantly managed to stop the timer around mile 7, which had me completely confused for another mile and a half until I realized what had happened. Needless to say, I spent more time futzing with my watch than I did focusing on form and breath. But, in the end, it did help me keep my pace right around a 10 minute mile the whole time and I think that consistency is what helped me finish strong.

5. I am capable of much more than I give myself credit for. This was probably the biggest lesson I learned from running my first half marathon. I had so many fears going into this race. Fears that I wouldn’t be able to make it to the finish, fears that I would embarrass myself and people would wonder who I thought I was trying to run 13.1 miles. I was afraid I would injure myself, and that I would be so miserable by the end that I would never want to run again. Instead, I felt my legs come alive, I felt my spirits soar and I felt my body do what it was meant to do as I gave it all I had. To everyone else I was just one of the 13,000 people who crossed the finish line to claim her medal that day.

But me, I feel like I can finally, confidently say: I am a runner.

Also, the best part of running a race is the license to throw dietary restrictions to the wind and stuff your face afterwards.

Oh yes, yes I did.

How NOT to Train for Your First Half Marathon

Tomorrow, I will run my first half marathon – The Rock ‘N’ Roll San Jose.

I would love to be able to give you some great advice about how I trained for this race and what my expectations are for race day. But the truth is that I probably did everything wrong and am just hoping to make it to the finish line without peeing myself or crying publicly.

I feel pretty unprepared to run 13.1 miles with any sort of dignity, but I’m going to do it anyway. I know that somewhere I have it within me to finish the race, but it may not be pretty and it certainly won’t be fast.

So, instead of writing a post about all of the techniques I learned while training for my half marathon, I decided that the best thing I can give to you all is some solid advice, personally tested, on what NOT to do when you’re training for a long distance race.

1. Buy a book about training for a marathon and wait until 1 week before the race to read it. I sifted through piles of books on running long distance races at Borders a couple months ago when they first started their store clearance sales and finally settled on one called Marathoning for Mortals. I actually opened the book for the first time just a few days ago and started reading about all of the things I should have been doing months ago to prepare me for this weekend. I guess it’s too late to tackle that 4 month training plan. Oops.

2. Fail to run. I hadn’t been running much for a couple years when I decided to sign up for the half-marathon. I figured that entering the race was the kick in the pants I needed to get me running regularly. False. This summer ended up being one of the busiest on record and I can blame it on any number of factors, but the truth is that I simply didn’t run enough. Turns out running is kind of crucial to prepping for a race. I should have read that book earlier.

3. Take up a new sport and accept a challenge in another, while you’re supposed to be training for your race. Along with trying to run more this summer, Aaron and I joined our local climbing gym so we’d have a sport that we could enjoy together. I also participated in a yoga challenge at my gym that was a fundraiser for our local food bank. It required me to increase the number of times I practiced at the studio this summer. While cross-training is an important part of race training and yoga will always be my number one banana, trying to throw myself whole hog into 3 different sports in the same summer was probably not the best way to get race ready. Not to mention, I injured my foot on those evil little climbing shoes that turns out were too small for my feet and had to stop running for a few weeks so I could heal.

4. Desperately try to cram. The bad news is that you can’t cram for a race, as much as my procrastinating self wanted it to be true. It’s not like studying for a biology test. Training for a race takes time, and trying to run too much too quickly is only a recipe for injury. I know this because as soon as my foot started feeling good, I laced up my neglected sneakers and hit the pavement hard. And then it took me a full week to stop walking like I was 95. Slow and steady gets you ready for the race, folks.

But, I’m not completely hopeless, and there were a few things that I did right that I think will help me cross that finish line on Sunday.

1. LOTS of  yoga has made my muscles stronger and looser, which should benefit me greatly on race day.

2. Investing in the right equipment was a definite good move on my part. In particular, I love my Garmin Forerunner 305 GPS watch. It dramatically changed the way I ran. I now know what my distance and pacing are at all times and it’s caused me to run faster and longer than I ever did before. I also bought a running skirt, which I swear makes me run faster. At the very least, it makes me run fancier.

3. Being in relatively good shape to start with gives me a certain sense of assurance that I can do this. I’m not going from couch potato to half marathon overnight. I do exercise frequently and, while I’ve never run 13.1 miles before, I’ve gotten close and I know my body can take me there.

4. Sticking with it is what’s going to get me across the finish line. There were a couple times that I was this close to dropping out, but my dear friend Robin (whom I’m running the race with) talked me back into it every time. Eventually I just had to give up the expectation that I was going to finish with any kind of dignified time and just know that I will cross that finish line. Even if I’m foaming at the mouth and it hobbling like a 95 year old.

So, in a nutshell, what have I learned from my half marathon training? Training is important, but if life gets in the way, run the race anyway.

Race recap coming on Monday!

Waste Not: At the Dump

I’m finding myself in a new position. No, I’m not talking about yoga, though I did manage to hold a headstand the other day. I don’t like to brag.

I’m talking about being in the position of not being financially stressed all the time. Not laying awake at night wondering how I’m going to pay my car insurance this month, or trying to calculate the day I will finally be done paying off my student loans.

Paying off my debt and getting married this year have finally launched me into the category of people who are able to both put new tires on their car and pay the plumber in the same month. I don’t mean to brag, but my life is pretty fancy.

But while Aaron and I are enjoying the simple pleasures that combined incomes afford, we’re also trying to plan wisely for our future, budget for the unforeseen, and live generously. The weird thing I’ve been noticing lately is that the more financially stable I’ve become, the more frugal I’m getting. For instance, I’ve recently started washing and reusing plastic sandwich baggies.

I’ve become my mother.

Probably it has something to do with getting older and gaining more of an awareness and a growing disgust for the depth of consumerism in our disposable culture.

Which brings us to the dump.

In the last 3 weeks, Aaron and I have made 4 trips to the Sonoma County Landfill, and I am here to tell you that it has become our new favorite hangout. That’s right. I love the dump.

I’m not crazy. We do have a good reason for this. Recently, we’ve embarked on an endeavor to become urban gardeners and transform our property with edible landscaping in the front yard, vegetable boxes on the side yard and a zen and herb garden in the back. But growing vegetables requires compost. Lots and lots of compost. And mulch. Lots and lots of mulch. And do you know where you can get heaping bags of beautiful, rich compost and mulch for less than the cost of lunch?

If you guessed the dump, you are correct.

Drive into the county landfill, cruise past the recycling center and wind your way up the slopping hills of trash and you’ll find a magical little gardening mecca where local yard trimmings and chicken poo are turned into rich soil and mulch for your yard.

Ender is also a big fan.

Guarding the goods.

Because we are urban gardeners, we don’t own a pickup, so we had to fill feed bags and load them into the back of my car. But, you save money doing the grunt work yourself, and the most surprising thing was that we actually had fun doing it! There was something deeply satisfying about shoveling our own compost and hauling it home to place in our garden. It’s a feeling you won’t get buying a bag of soil from Home Depot for four times the price.

I have definitely become my mother.

Sidenote: Shoveling in flip flops is not recommended. I am currently sporting half a toe nail on my left foot.

On one of our trips to get more compost, we swung by the recycling center to drop off some old bender board that we tore out and discovered a world not unlike something you’d see in a post-apocalyptic movie. They pile up peoples old stuff – everything from bikes to file cabinets to cassette tapes – by category and you can root through it all and purchase anything you find for pennies.

You think this sounds like a terrible way to spend a Saturday morning? You will change your mind when I tell you that we found all three original Star Wars soundtracks on LPs in near mint condition.

Another man’s trash…

So, perhaps you now understand why I love to go to the dump. Or, perhaps you still think I’m crazy and need to get a life.

But my mom is about the most awesome person I know, so I’m going with it.