Rest and Relaxation

R&R is something all runners should take after a season of consistent training. Jer and I decided it’d be good to take a weekend to ourselves and get away from the city, the technology, the hustle and bustle of the day-to-day grind. We both took Friday off a couple weeks ago. We went out for a nice morning run, went grocery shopping for the weekend necessities, and stopped by Starbucks to make sure we were wide awake for the trip to the farm. The farm, or the cabin (it has a bunch of different names), is a piece of land on 40ish acres with a lovely little house on it that has all the basic needs. It faces a lovely little pond, which unfortunately was basically dried up when we were there.

Marzuki wondering when we're gonna get there

The 2.5hr trip went fairly well. After being on the road for a very short time I realized that I didn’t bring a single memory card for my camera!! What a dufus! I really wanted to spend some time getting more familiar with my camera, so we stopped by a Wal-Mart in La Grange, Texas and found one there. I’m so glad we did too! I had a good time messing around with different camera settings.

Dex showing his dad some love

One of the things Jer and I were really looking forward to was seeing how our two furry children would react to being unleashed in the “wild”. Would they run away and never come back? Would they be too scared and stay curled up by our side? If they saw a cow would they run in fear or try to play with it? Well, they had a blast to say the least. The first thing they did was sniff the cow poop that was scattered everywhere since the pond was completely dried up and there weren’t any barriers from keeping the cows away from the cabin. Marzuki and Dexter got a little adventurous, but they never went too far. They always came anytime we called for them. It was a very rare occurrence if they didn’t have smile plastered on their face when they were awake.

Happy Doogles to say the least

Jer and I spent time talking about life, sipping on coffee and mojitos on the porch, watching our doogles run their little hearts out, cooking delicious meals, playing multiple games of scrabble, starting camp fires, taking tons of pictures, going on mini-hikes, catching up on sleep, and just enjoying nature! It was great. We ended up staying Friday and Saturday night because we were having such a fun time. The one thing that we got from the weekend was realizing we definitely needed the break. It got us excited about the future and made us realize we love our dogs WAY TOO MUCH!! 

Here are some of my favorite pictures from the weekend : )

Dex ALWAYS took the short cut

Running through the trails

He's so fast

Dex chillin where the pond used to be

This photo makes me smile the most-he's such a goof!

The cows drinking what little water is left in the pond

Marzuki trying to get himself out of the mud he sunk into

And here we have him mid-shake attempting to get the mud off!

San Antonio Marathon (Em Edition)

I've had a good week to reflect on the marathon and to try and figure out what exactly happened. For those of you that don't know I made it through half way before I started "hitting the wall"...hard. I tried to hang on and just finish the race, but I started getting random foot pains in my right foot at about mile 19. I dropped out at 20 because I could tell it was changing my stride and I didn't want to seriously injure myself long term by hobbling the next 6.2 miles. But by that time I was already running low 7's per mile.

Jer and me mean-muggin' before the race

I've never been more prepared to race the marathon than I was on that day. Mentally, physically, and emotionally I came in to that day ready to conquer 26.2 miles of downtown San Antonio. My mileage was in the high 90's, low 100's the entire season. I took my workouts by the horns this time around instead of being scared shitless like I was last year. I was also not afraid of the race itself, it was no longer an "unknown" for me. I feel like the taper towards the race was great, my legs felt very fresh leading up to the race. The funny thing about last Sunday was even though I was going through the missions at a slower pace this year compared to last, the miles seemed to come quicker this time around. This is one of the little things that reassures me it was not a mental problem by any means.

oh you know, just running next to Desiree Ficker, no big deal or anything

During the early part of the race I was completely fine, unphased even, by the conditions. Just look at the pictures prior to mile 12..."oh look, there's Em! She's having a freaking blast!" But then, out of no where, it starts getting ridiculously hard to hit 6:30's even. Keep in mind, most marathoner's "hit the wall" at around mile 20, mine was 6 to 7 miles prior to that. Something just wasn't right. I couldn't, and still can't really, figure out why my body was having this hard of a time hitting paces that I was easily hitting in workouts, on much more tired legs. My body was completely shutting down. During the middle of the night, after the race, I woke up because my legs were throbbing, as if I'd run the entire race. Again, this was another reassurance I didn't just wimp out when the going go tough - I put my body through hell that day, it just wasn't giving me the results it usually does.

It's a bird, it's a plane, noooo..it's the FOG!!  haha..still have that smile on!

I scheduled an appointment with my doctor earlier this past week to get a blood test. I wanted to see if a low ferritin level could have been the culprit, but with a level of 107, compared to the 8 I had in March, we knew that low iron levels weren't the reason for my massive blow up. It made sense too since my workouts prior to the marathon felt great. The doctor suggested that it was primarily because of the atmospheric conditions (completely shitty ass racing weather) and my previous history with my asthma that had led to me crashing on race day. That answer doesn't sit too well with me. Jer and I both ran a half marathon in Houston 3 weeks prior, and did a marathon simulation at a much faster pace than I went on race day, in very similar conditions (63, with 100% humidity). I didn't come anywhere close to crashing, in fact, I felt great! The only difference between the two days was that the weather the couple days prior to Houston were just as crappy as race day, compared to the marathon, where things had been very pleasant leading up to that day. Perhaps my body just freaked out and tried preparing itself for the worst since it didn't have time to get used to the nasty weather.

Regardless, I hate not knowing exactly what happened, especially when I know that I was so much more prepared for it. That's the downside of a race like the marathon. I came in more relaxed...like NOT throwing up before the race like I did last year, and ready to take on the world, well the marathon anyways : ) It is very frustrating, especially knowing I don't really have much in the way of results to show for this past season. I trained trough all of the races I did, in hopes of being that much more prepared for the marathon. It's a real bummer to say the least, but one of the great things that has come out of this is figuring out what kind of person I am when things go horribly wrong. Last Sunday was the day I had been training for since June! Day in an day out went into preparation for November 13th. Well things didn't go anywhere near as planned and I still came out of it yearning to be a better runner, even though it's looking more and more like I didn't have a whole lot of control of what happened on race day. It's made me realize that I have a serious passion for this sport of mine, and that makes me really excited about the future! One of the best things that did happen that day was seeing my best friend, my inspiration, my husband  finish SECOND OVERALL WITH A 3 MINUTE PERSONAL BEST!!!! I mean seriously people, he ran that much faster compared to last year in MUCH crappier conditions. I was/am really proud of him. He trained his butt off and it really paid off for him. It definitely put me in a much better mood knowing that he killed it.

My better half

So that's that. I never want to be one of those people that only talks about the good/great races and never mentions the complete blowups. For those of you that are wondering, I've had quite a few people ask me, NO, I will not being doing another marathon within the next month in hopes of hitting the trials standard. It was NEVER the plan to race another marathon if things didn't go right in San Antonio (Jer and I talked about it a good amount before and during the season). I was already cutting it pretty close, for me, if I had qualified, to compete at the trials just two months later. The plan was, if things didn't go the way we planned, then I'd focus on having a freaking blast in the early months of 2012..oh you know, like indoor races and what not : ) There will be plenty of time to talk about the winter and spring season though, I don't want to get ahead of myself, which I already am. Oops!

I will leave you with a quote from one of the greatest, living, coaches out there.

"The genuine athlete must have a strong spirit, vigorous and sane, not easily demoralized or defeated. This resolute balance, allied to intelligence, is the mixture necessary for success" -Vigil.

Race Recap: San Antonio Marathon (Jer Edition)

I think that for runners, more than any other group of athletes, it is sometimes very difficult to be completely satisfied in a performance. No matter how well we do, we often have a mindset of “well, I could have done just a little bit better”. That’s pretty much how I feel about my race on Sunday. I PRed by a solid 3 minutes, but I lost by 2 more. I put myself in a position to do something really good, and I executed, but now I find myself thinking about how to put myself in a position to do something great. Anyway, on to the actual recap.

Sunday was not a pleasant day. Since I had been compulsively checking multiple weather forecasts for several days in advance, I was aware of this well in advance, but that didn’t make me any happier about it. At race time it was 63 degrees with a dew point of 62, far from ideal, but also cool enough that I wasn’t feeling terribly hot while waiting around for the race to start. One big plus was that it was very overcast, since direct sunlight can drastically increase how hot one’s body actually gets during a race.

I did about 5 minutes of jogging with Em, some light stretching, and then a few strides from the start. During this time, I also grinned like a moron every time Shalane Flanagan, Brent Vaughn, or any of the other OTC peeps came striding by me. I don’t often warm up in the same area as Olympic medalists.

So the race went off, and I sauntered off the starting line at what I figured was a reasonable pace. I had decided once I was sure the weather would suck to not shoot for any particular time, since I didn’t know how my body would respond as the temperatures got higher. I definitely wanted to PR, and I figured even in bad conditions there’s no reason I couldn’t run 2:32 pace and still be able to finish strong the last 10k. My first mile was a little too fast (5:38) but I intentionally eased off the pace for 2 and 3 (5:47, 5:49).

Great photo taken by our friend Mark Wright early on in the race.

At this point, I could tell that David Fuentes, who is a friend of ours, was going out at a fast enough pace that I wouldn’t be able to see him much longer. I felt very good about my preparation for this race, but at the end of the day, David’s half marathon PR is 4 minutes faster than mine - if I was going to beat him, I was just going to have to run an even paced race and hope that he would come back to me. Going out with him wasn’t really an option (he went through the half marathon mark about 30 seconds faster than my half marathon PR), so I was essentially stuck in no man’s land. I caught some half marathoners, stayed as relaxed as I could (repeating “calm down, stay calm” over and over in my head) and just tried to get through the early miles using as little energy as possible. Most of my miles in this section were between 5:40 and 5:48, with the exception of one quicker one (5:34) when I saw my family around mile 9. I also took a gel, for the first time in a serious race, around mile 10.

The marathon splits off from the half marathon around mile 11, and at this point the spectators confirmed what I was already pretty sure of: I was in 2nd, but was over 4 minutes behind 1st, and at least a couple minutes clear of 3rd. Plus side is I could essentially coast in if I wanted to and have 2nd locked up, downside is 15 miles is a long way to go with no one anywhere near you. I hit the halfway mark at 1:14:53, but I was still feeling really good.

All by myself...don't wanna be...

I remember going back and forth between periods of feeling really confident and strong, and periods of questioning whether I was in for another blowup like last year. At this point the longer tempo runs paid off, at least mentally; since I had already gone through a few workouts where I had to go 18+ miles, it wasn’t anything terribly worrisome during the race. Around 18 miles the sun came out completely, and I realized it was pretty damn warm, but I had been throwing water on myself already and that seemed to be doing the trick.

At 20 miles (1:54:30 or so) I knew I just had to run 35:30 for the last 10k to get under 2:30, which would have been amazing. I had been averaging about 35:30 per 10k thus far, so I really started to get pumped up around then. I knew I had to be catching David, but at this point there was no real way to get an idea of whether he was 8 minutes or 2 minutes ahead of me. All I knew is I couldn’t see him, and I was rapidly running out of real estate. I stayed pretty steady through miles 21 to 24, all between 5:40 and 5:50, but I was definitely getting outside of my comfort zone. Just a sip of water through all of the water stops, as I didn’t have enough oxygen to spare for actually drinking much. I also lost the coordination to throw the water on my head, so it mostly ended up flying onto the road behind me or drenching my jersey.

Mile 24!

By mile 24 I had pretty much accepted that I was getting 2nd - David would have to stop and take a nap at that point for me to catch him. But I got an absolute TON of satisfaction in running sub 6 minute pace on the same route where, last year, I was on the verge of throwing up and running 7:20 miles. During mile 25 or 26 I spotted a co-worker with a giant sign that read “Jeremy Daum is my hero”, which pretty much made my day. Mile 25 was 5:53, and mile 26 was 5:58, and then I was in the finish chute feeling pretty damn pleased with a 2:30:34 marathon. I ran the 2nd half in 1:15:41, a good bit faster than the 1:19:50 I closed in last year. Considering temps were in the 70s this year, versus 50s last year, it was a vastly better performance and a really great way to finish the season.

Last quarter mile of the run..all up hill!

Finally! The finish line!

So I’m happy. But not completely satisfied. I have some thoughts on how to improve, but that’s a discussion for another day. For now, it’s the magical off-season, and I’m going to enjoy some much needed relaxation time with my darling wife and my cute furry children. And coming soon, my first spring marathon. Maybe in better weather?

Awards Time!

Race Day

Good morning everyone...

It's marathon day.

It's a little humid and gross out, but we're going to just play it by ear in terms of figuring out a pace. Emily is bib F2 (which I think technically means she's #102) and I'm bib #3.

Here we go!

The marathon countdown continues!

So the past couple weeks have been crazy busy/exciting! Jer and I are days away from the San Antonio Rock n' Roll Marathon! As Jer mentioned in the previous blog post, we've put in great amounts of mileage and tough workouts, compared to what we did last year and now we're simply counting down the days until we're on that starting line!

3 weeks ago we competed in the Houston Half Marathon with the goal of making it somewhat of a marathon simulation. The plan was to run 6ish miles before the race in hopes of getting our legs a little tired and then competing in the half marathon by hitting goal marathon pace. We both had a blast, not to mention negative splitting the second half because of how excited we got. It was good training for taking water in on the run and making sure we don't throw up the GU we tried out as well. It'll be our first time taking GU during the marathon. Last year we  really didn't think about it until it was too late to really try it out, so instead of potentially sabotaging our marathon we relied on water and Cytomax.

Anyways, it was a ton of fun. I got to run with people pretty much the entire way except the last 3 miles, that doesn't happen very often, especially in the longer races. It was also great getting a feel for what goal marathon pace is during a race. Although I did get a little excited and run faster than what I was planning on, I definitely don't see myself getting that carried away during the marathon. I know better : )

Jer and I are in taper mode now and will leave you with some pictures and a little movie from the Houston Half Marathon.

RACE VIDEO

Mr. Daum's Delicious Pasta Dish

Before we even hit the first mile..all smiles : )

Jer roughly half a mile from the finish

That face = maybe a little faster than marathon pace

Self-braiding..it's a gift

Below is added bonus. One of the things I LOVE about Houston/Clear Lake (besides Jer's family of course) is Morning Kolaches! I literally force Jer to go there with me ANY time we're visiting. One time I even persuaded Jer's brothers to pick up a dozen of them before they came to visit us in San Antonio. I have looked everywhere for something that is similar to their mouthwatering Bacon & Cheese Kolache here in San Antonio, but it's hopeless. I will forever rely on this shop, that unfortunately is closed on Sundays, to get my fix. Luckily, we were able to pick some of these bad boys up the morning before the Houston Half on our way to pick up the packets. They are truly a delight! (Yes, I know I'm obsessing over something that is in every possible way bad for you, but averaging ~100 miles a week has put me in a state of mind which is guilt free when it comes to what foods I eat.)

They are not lying here folks..there truly is an explosion of flavor!

These are soft, buttered rolls filled with...

oozing cheese and diced pieces of bacon!