I'm Rugged

Well the aforepost mentioned Rugged Maniac obstacle course has come and gone and I am fine. No injuries and a good time was had by my friends and myself. I had signed up originally for this with my fellow trainer and bootcamp trainer, Kindal but a few weeks later another friend of mine, Tyler, also decided to join in on the fun and signed up for the 9 a.m. wave with us. I'm so glad we went at 9 a.m. I woke up at 6 a.m. to get ready but walked outside and it was FREEZING (ok not literally freezing as in 32 degrees but it was 46 degrees and that's pretty frikkin cold to me). My plan was to wear my tri shorts and my tri suit top which isn't that much clothing but it was too late to make a change at the the last minute. I threw on some extra layers of pants, long sleeve shirt, and fleece and headed on my way to Mt. Pleasant at about 7:15. Classically I was at the race super early but as I stood there and the sun came up the layers came off and I was quite comfortable.. UNTIL the no-seeums came out. If you don't know what a no-seeum is it's a horrible gnat-like bug that bites you and swarms in the what seems like hundreds of thousands. I, unfortunately, had not thought to bring bug spray. REMINDER to SELF, bring bug spray to the P200.

The starting line had good energy and they were playing a wide variety of music to get us pumped up. Tyler, Kindal and I stood around chatting while Corley held all of our stuff (he was the official spectator, NOTE: it cost $10.00 to get a spectator ticket but in hindsight no one was really enforcing this rule so I'm pretty sure we could have gotten away with not paying the fee). Corley was also the official photgrapher, from left to right Kindal, Me, Tyler.

While waiting I saw Noah who has a blog called Moore on Running that I found earlier this year when searching for information on the Palmetto 200. I had to introduce myself since I follow him on Facebook and follow his blog. It's always fun to meet people you have interacted with and never actually met. I will see him again at the Palmetto 200.

At about 8:50 we headed to the start line to wait for the our wave (the first wave) to take off. The frikkin bugs got WORSE with everyone packed together and somehow Tyler, Kindal, and I ended up at the VERY front. I don't mind being in this position but I thought it was funny that we didn't even try, it just happened. People around us were jumping up and down and doing all kinds of warm up to get ready, I was dancing to Highway to the Danger Zone.  

When we started I wasn't prepared for the rough terrain, I am no trail runner by any means so I slowed it down to avoid twisting an ankle as we ran through what is normally corn fields. Honestly it was a lot more running that I expected, I SUSpect that it was this way for a lot of people because I eventually saw a lot of those super warm up people walking. 

The first obstacle we came too was a bunch of bamboo that was tied together across the path. Some people went over.. in what became a theme throughout the course I was small enough to go under, so I stayed to the left and crouched down under all of bamboo in the obstacle.  After that we ran, and ran some more with no more obstacles in sight. I had figured that with 14 obstacles they would be more closely compact. Next we came up to a series of wooden walls that we had to go over, then under, under, then over. They were probably 4 feet high and the clearance below was enough that you could roll under them. No problem, then back to more running. 

At one point we passed a water station from which I took a cup, this was the WORST tasting water I had ever had. It was warm and tasted like they had collected it from the fields during a rainstorm. I ended up tossing it on my head.. seriously it was only a 5k I didn't need shit tasting water THAT badly. 

We came upon more obstacles bundled together after that. The cargo net that you had to climb up and then jump down onto a big pad (thank God, I had bad visions of jumping off things and breaking an ankle). Then there was a tire obstacle where you had to run over and through hanging tires, and after that was the walls you had to go up and over. I had been nervous about these but it turns out that they were about 7 feet high and if you could jump up and grab you had ledge at chest high to help you get over it. Sadly, Kindal got sand on her hands and jumped up to grab the wall, pulled up and lost her grip. She ended up falling down straight on her back which took the wind out of her. OUCH! She was trooper though and got right back up. 

My memory gets bad here. We did more running.. and I don't really remember the order of the obstacles. We had to go under some bamboo which was covering a hole in the ground, through some plastic tubes that were kind of corrugated and hurt my knees (once again I realized I was small enough to crawl hands and knees instead of army crawling through). I found myself passing more and more people and kind of kept challenging myself to pass the next chick that I could see since I knew I wasn't that far back as far as girls were concerned. 

After the bamboo was a dirt hill we had to go over and then another one we had to go up, on the downside of that was a slide which launched us into a pool of water. It was kind of shockingly cold and refreshing at that the same time. In the water there were some pipes floating that we had to either go over or under. I snake crawled over 4 of them and was surprised at how much I lost my breath doing this. The last two I went under. I was SPENT at this point and wondered if I would even be able to pull myself out but I could see the finish line and I was kind of competing with another girl that I had caught up with so I pulled up and ran towards the finish. The final obstacle was a mud pit covered by barbed wire. Again a lot of people got REALLY muddy here by army crawling. I managed to crawl on all 4's and remained quite clean. I was still neck and neck with the girl from Trysports and I started yelling at her that we were going to have a photo finish as we both sprinted. 

Seriously I still don't know who won. I've never been that close in a race before. I will be interested to see the results. I don't know what time I finished in because I was too busy trying to beat the other girl and I didn't even look at the clock. At the finish I took a bottle of water, used it to rinse of my face, threw away my shoes and put on the other shoes and socks I had brought and enjoyed some beer. I would like to thank those people who dropped their beer tickets at the registration area, we managed to get 5 beers without paying because we kept finding beer tickets on the ground (for the record I had 1/2 of one beer). 

I would say that it was a good time. The obstacles weren't nearly as hard as I thought they would be which is good.  I thought it was a pretty fair race. Maybe I will consider doing the Mud Run this year to see what that is all about. 

* Since these are ramblings please ignore spelling and grammar mistakes. I type a draft and then I publish it.. that's what my blog is all about. 

I'm Tweeting

Well I'm trying to hop on the tweeting bandwagon again. So if you're reading this and you tweet, follow me jho_417 is my tweet name. Tweeting seems to take a lot of effort though, I don't know why I feel that way, I just do. But I'm going to give it a go and see if I can get into hashtags and tweets and followers. Maybe I can pick up a few Charlie Sheen rejects.

This weekend I have the rugged maniac adventure run. I start in the 9 a.m. wave, in hindsight I should have gone later in the day so that it would be a littl more than 52 degrees when I hit the first muddy water obstacle... brrrr??? But then again it would be a day killer to have gone later so I'd like to get it started, done, have my one free beer and then sianara.. I'm sure I spelled that wrong since it's underlined in red squiggly. Google suggested Sinatra, Sianna, Sian, and Siana. I have no idea what any of those are minus Sinatra so I'm going with what I wrote. Anyhooo... the rugged maniac is a 5k obstacle course run where you go through mud pits, over cargo nets, 7 foot walls, logs, etc. At the end you jump over a firepit.. here is what they show on the website for the firepit jump:

When I looked at the pictures for the Jacksonville event here is the fire pictures from there:

I'm sorry is that a fire or an ashtray? Oh shit there's a chick on crutches in the background. Did she do that during the event? I'm kind of freaked out that I am going to hurt something and not be able to do the Palmetto 200. I'm definitely going to take it easy on this in fear of f-ing over my P200 team.

If I haven't blogged about the P200. It's a 200 mile relay race from Columbia SC to Folly Beach SC. You and 10 other lunatics run through the day and night to make it to the finish line. I have a great team and I am excited and nervous. Planning this thing has been quite a challenge. I'm sure it will all be worth it once we cross the finish line. I wonder if we get medals??

www.Palmetto200.com

Absence

For all of my faithful followers out there I would like to post and say I'm STILL here. I know, I know it's been too long since I've blogged. I ran the Myrtle Beach Half marathon, the one I was so concerned about running in my previous post and I set a PR. Now me being me I have to say it wasn't MUCH of a PR but overall it was a great race, i felt good afterwards and I ran my best half marathon with minimal training. I don't know if I've blogged about everything I have been up to but I wanted to give a rundown of the things that have been going on in my life in the past 6 months or so:

- I went to the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade
- I went to Myrtle Beach
- I went to Las Vegas
- I ran a half marathon in the pouring rain and got 2nd place in my age group
- I ran the Charlie Post 15k and got 2nd in my age group
- I am running a 200 mile relay with 10 other people on 4/8/2011
- In June I am going to an RRCA course to become a certified running coach. I'm not sure what I am going to do with this information but I am excited about it!
- Perhaps I should get a computer certification since that is my day job and career of choice.

I should have blogged about all of those things. You can bet your ass I am going to be blogging about the Palmetto 200 relay. www.Palmetto200.com

Boring post I KNOW... I will try to make it more interesting next time

4 weeks away

I watched my sister-in-law run her first marathon today and along with it I saw many people who were also running their first half marathons,  and I remembered the feeling of being there and having the nervous anticipation of waiting at the start line. I'm glad that I could be out there to help Felicia and other runners along the way, it was a kind of pay it forward to all those people who supported me during my tough moments in a marathon or half marathon. I handed out chocolate, tissues, and oranges to runners who seemed to greatly appreciate it. I can only hope it helped them. 

As of now I'm still trying to get over a cold and my lungs are tight and yet I would like to go for a long run tomorrow. I still have no hopes of trying to set a PR for this half but I do have a hope of looking forward to it a little more. 

I just learned that a good friend of mine passed away today, he was too young. We hadn't spoken in a while but had been in touch through Facebook. I knew of his life now when otherwise I would have lost touch with him a long time ago. It's amazing how close the Internet can keep us. His passing makes me want to run more, to celebrate life while we have such a precious gift. I will celebrate Dane's life because that's what I feel I should do. I pray for those who are missing him most, his wife and parents. Hug your loved ones a little more because life can be short. Say a prayer or have a moment of silence for those who are taken too soon. Most of all, life your life to the fullest. 

I have to admit something.. I've been struggling. I don't know what it is but my desire to run is gone and I seem to find every excuse to not do it. I am still running about three times a week and working out about three times a week but that intensity that I used to have, it's not there. It's hard for me to write this because I don't know who is going to read it and with me being a personal trainer and motivator I feel like I am not supposed to have these issues. But we're all human and we all struggle.

Honestly, the time when I worked out the most was personally for me a very hard time in my life. I used running and working out as a coping mechanism. But now I'm happy in my personal life and I'm unhappy in my physical fitness life. Why is that? Why can't I have both. It's absurd to say but when I used to run I would think about problems in my life and then I would let them all slip away and I would feel free. Now.. I'm just happy. I have a few things here and there that I can ponder on while running but not too much. I know it's stupid that I'm complaining about having no issues in my life from which I need to escape from because that's a GREAT thing to have. What I hate is that I've put on weight and I can't seem to take it off. Fat and Happy? I guess I am for now. I keep signing up for races hoping that they will motivate me but instead they seem impossible.

My performance in the marathon hurt my pride and I'm trying to bounce back from that. EVERYONE has a bad race, a bad run, a bad experience. Why am I letting this define me? I keep going over it and over it in my head
and the answer is to just get out there and do it. I need to get rid of this mental block in my head and find that determination again.. does anyone have any suggestions? I have 6 weeks to a half marathon and the most I've run is 40 minutes. Grrrr


Frustrated.

Marine Corps beatdown

I've tried to write this blog a few times in my head but each time it just makes me kind of sad. I guess I should be happy that I finished my second marathon, and that I had a chance to see all of those people doing their best to finish. When I originally ran Disney I was completely inspired by the crowds and I had expected to feel that same way in DC but there was just something missing. The crowd was great, don't get me wrong but I lost my heart.

After all of my training I did everything wrong. I started off too fast. I suspect I averaged less than a 9 minute mile for the first 14 miles. To put this in perspective I was trying to do a 4 hour marathon which would have been 9:10 miles. I was probably about 20 - 40 seconds faster than I should have been and it caught up with me. It's funny how you feel so good one mile and then the next you feel it starting to slip and you think that the second wind is just around the corner.

I made it to mile 17 on the hope that I would get that second wind, all the time while watching my GPS watch track me slower and slower, and then my head came into the game. I should say that I had wonderful people who were running the race with me and that I had met, through them, a wonderful group of people who had come out to support us. But suddenly at mile 17 I felt very alone and I started to wonder why I was doing this. I had already done this once before, what did I have to prove? Who was waiting for me at the finish line that knew how many hours I had put into training? So I walked and I cried.. and to me that was defeat. I like to think that I am invincible and facing the fact that I'm not is a sore subject. I started to think of all the people I was letting down by walking and how much I was letting myself down. When I would try to run I would be at 10:30, 11:00, 12:00 and then the cramping would start again.

I can't remember how much I walked in those last 9 miles. It seems like it was more walking but I haven't reviewed the data from my watch yet. At mile 25 I was determined to 'run' the last 1.2 so I shuffled. At one point I felt kind of like I was dragging my leg behind me and wondered if it would be appropriate to break out into the Thriller dance since it was Halloween and all. The memorials and monuments I passed are kind of hazy. There was a washington monument or something, a whitehouse lawn where some dude lives. The Federal Reserve which probably holds a bunch of money... I wasn't even really inspired to see Iwo Jima at the end. I was just done. I was beat, bruised, and for some reason I still didn't think it was a good time to eat.

When you start a marathon you are treated like GOLD.. everyone is all about you, the runner. When you finish the marathon you are just herded like cattle and plopped out on a street hoping that you can find the people you are supposed to meet up with. Oh and that bag we so graciously brought to the finish for you?? Yeah it's about a half mile down the road, just walk down there. By the way, here's an 8 oz bottle of water for you and a rotten banana. The shuttles to the hotel? They are about a half mile too but be warned that the line to get on the shuttle is literally a mile long and if you want to take the metro.. it's closed due to all the people? A Taxi, sorry they are all taken. You could just walk 3 miles back to the hotel though.

I spent about 2 hours shivering on the ground somewhere while NOONE offered to help. I had about 5 mental breakdowns and 1 fit of near vomiting. I managed to not vomit until I was finally reunited with my group of people and we were able to get a taxi who took us on the usual fear-for-your-life taxi ride back to the hotel. I thought I might die, not from the taxi ride, but just from how horrible I felt.

I did get my medal at the finish line.. how bittersweet... more bitter. I'm better now but my pride is still hurt. It's going to be a long, long time before I consider another marathon. Don't let my story deter you from yours. I had a great time at Disney. I just made too many mistakes at MCM that lead to all of this. I should have listened to myself when I thought I should slow down at mile 5 and this probably all could have been avoided.

Anyway, that's my MCM story.

Realizations

My marathon is on Halloween, which is about 3 weeks away. I have a different feeling about this one that I did my first one. Things are going well as far as training and I'm pretty sure that I will make it to race day without having any injuries but this has come at a price.. weight gain.

When I signed up for the Marine Corps Marathon I decided to suck it up and go 'down' to a Novice III program from Hal Higdon instead of the Advanced I that I did before. My main reasoning was because Novice III had me running 3 days a week as opposed to 5 and it had me training longer (24 weeks instead of 18). This meant that I would have less wear and tear on my legs and I would get to rest them more. What I didn't realize was that it would mean essentially mean that I was doing steady state cardio for 4 months on top of not having as much time to workout due to my crazy schedule.

Hence, 6 lbs. I weigh more than I have in years and I'm highly disturbed by this. At this point, I have 3 weeks of training left and I am injury free so I don't want to start doing all kinds of crazy intense plyo to get the weight off. I just want to make it through the marathon and then I am going back to plyo, intervals, weights, and running 5 days a week. I can't wait to get back into it. I'm sorry to say no more marathons for a long while. I will be doing some halfs but those are manageable. I may be hanging up my marathon shoes.. it kind of makes me feel like a failure to say that but then again it's not too shabby to run 26.2 miles twice, 20 miles 4 times, 18 miles 3 times, over 15... countless.. 13.1.. pssshhhtt.. that's nothing.

I will let you know how MCM goes.. I suspect I will be just fine.