Believe to Achieve

legs ALWAYS (lower calves to feet) so stiff and achy in the morning I wonder if I can break into a jog.  After about a half hour to an hour they feel a bit better.  But today after hot flashes all night -- night sweats etc.... yup that's the fun of being a woman over 40-- my levels are probably at zero because when I started to run  I felt sooooo depressed.  I decided to just keep one foot in front of the other.  Maybe I am doing too much in too little time?   I feel so Unprepared to "race" st george.  My feeling is to go out and relax and run for me.  Today I realized (again, emphasis here) that my stinkin' garmin needs to be thrown in the gutter!!  I ran a hilly 10 miles and then begrudgingly ran my two fast.  I was soooooo talking myself out of it.  The sun was beating on my face after leaving my house at 8am and getting to the last two miles around 9:20 am.  Did not plan that well but it was quite similar to the heat of SG at that hour.  Fond memories.  Okay -- here is why my garmin sucks--- I started to run my two fast and after about 0.2 miles I looked at my garmin (MISTAKE)-- it said 6:00 pace even. I was like HOLY CRUD slow down girl BUT just before I looked at my garmin I said to myself "I feel like I am running about a 6:30 pace or slower-- better check myself-- I thought I was running slow!!!!!  BUT looking at my pace and seeing it THAT fast "FREAKED me out so I mentally slow it down.  And then what do I do?  Keep checking my garmin over and over cause surely at some point my effort and the reading of the garmin will come to terms with each other and soon the garmin will WIN out as I succumb to the numbers and slow completely from the head games!!!  HOW pscyho is THAT!!!!!!!  I need therapy to get off this thing!!   First mile-- 6:14, second mile with zigzags and uphill finish 6:22.  AP 6:18.  Hmmmmm looks like a time trial OFF the track would give me the 19 minutes I want.  : D.    AP for 12 miles = 8:00.  Recovery first 10 miles ; D.

not a run day but made it one, i mean "run early morning before work day".  recovery run from my recovery run.  up at 410am for 8 before wok at Utah Valley Hospital's pediatric unit.  LONG busy day.  legs throbbing after work.  bed at 8:45 pm.  Seriously!! AP slow-- 8:45.   didn't even think of going faster, didn't care one iota!!

somebody shoot me now... even with going to bed early my legs were just achy when I awoke.  "old lady syndrome" I guess.  managed to drag my sorry butt out on to the streets at 420am!!!.  First mile 9:23. AP 8:26.  Even busier shift on peds.  discharged all my patients only to turn around and get the new admit -- very sick kid!!!!  didn't get out of work until 710 pm!!  drove home the 30 minutes.  LEGS THROBBING SO Badly that I now have ace wraps around them both!!!  What is the deal????  hope my legs come alive for the last time trial tomorrow!!!    I haven't done a time trial  having worked two busy shifts the days before so this should be interesting.  6 second improvement is all I ask.  trying to be optimistic but i feel so the opposite body wise.   The thought of racing SG makes me sick right now-- if you asked me to run 26.2 tomorrow I would spit at you!!!  I think I am reaching at the bottom of the barrel here.  I am supposed to be excited and eager and my body is having a major DOWN week!!!!  Eeeeks!!!!  My legs feel like they get when my iron level takes a nose dive!!!  must be all that heel strike hemolysis!!!

Big    L   bigger Q   (that's right I am a big loser and  quitter!!!).   I can't even fix this font!!!  Man alive I hope this is the bottom before just before I get to the top!!!  I should have realized the signs (entry from yesterday tells it all, the ace bandages and massive fatigue).  I got up at 5am thinking I would go out at my usual time but it was even darker and colder so I thought I would wait for my kids to go to school.  So I packed their lunches and sent them on their way at 8am.  Got out the door a little past 8 and ran to my first "road block" on the way to the track. I had to take a "detour" to run around all the digging going on by the AF hospital.  First hint.  Then when I got to the track my disappointment turned more sour-- CHEERLEADERS (about 25 of them) practicing on the field in the middle with their two instructors standing ON the track conducting them.  FLIP OUT.  I already have anxiety about running fast on the track but to have 27 women staring at me????  I was super self concious and it shows in my super way off first lap split-- 1:28:86!!!  Like HELL-OOOOO way too fast!!  this only made me more anxious and by the 10th lap I lost it when I had been looking at my splits and then saw overall time of 16 minutes flat with two laps to go.  There was just NO way on this green earth I was going to run a 3:00 minute 800 right now even though my first 800 was 3:01:97  (this would get me the 19 minutes I wanted).   It was a quick math check and my mind and body caught on extremely quick and I stopped dead in my tracks on the track 15 seconds into the 11 th lap (QUITTER).  I was super depressed at myself but every passing lap in front of the cheerleaders was getting to me and so was the high fat costco apple strudel muffin I ate at the end of my shift yesterday (you all know the ones, super yummy and super stay in your gut for several days feeling).  My legs weren't particularly fatigued, but they felt weak,  I felt super anxious-- - how I got at mile 16 at SG and saw my plummeting splits and panicked and "lost" the race.  I am feeling like such a loser.  But as penance I got back to the starting line within a minute and ran my last two laps with the added 15+ seconds on my watch and ended up coming in at 19:18 (minus the 15 secondms = 19:03!!!!!)  I finished the last two laps in 3:03:41.   I would have been faster but midway thru I looked at my watch for the total time for the time trial and was like "oh my I am not even going to beat my time from two weeks ago" so I started slowing then I remembered the extra 15 seconds from going over 10 laps before restarting my watch(I didn't reset my watch) and was like "silly Julie"  you are so mathmatical, run girl!!!".    I am sure it would have been 3:00 straight up.  Okay---so I felt very sorry for myself-- going out too fast and bombing the second mile then totally quitting and then trying to go fast again after stopping, I felt like I had lead for legs.  I was so angry after sittting and contemplating my fitness for about 15 minutes that I got up and ran 2 x200 meters in 41 and 42 seconds each.  I think I have a little touch of the flu.   The kid that came in last night to work was very ill with serious diarhea and try as we did to keep things clean he was going every where!!!  Poor kid.  You know that weak feeling you get when you feel flu-like? The achy joints and impending doom feeling last night should have been a give away.  Splits are dismal-- 1:28:86 (what am I running the mile repeat????), 1:33:11, 1:35:11 (where I needed to stay at), 1:36:22 (first mile 6:13:30!!!  7 seconds too fast!!), 1:36:19, 1:36:48, 1:37:67 (anxiety mounting), 1:39:35 (what the heck??   2 mile split 12:42:99 (easy math here and I am thinking  I could get this, 6:21 pace-- hmmmm all I need is a 6:20 last mile....if ONLY), 1:38, 1:39:13 (freak out!! it is here that I see 16:00:12 for  2.5 miles and do my quick math and tell my body NO!!!)  TOTAL LOSER!!  I regret it fully now but my mind and body worked quickly against my spirit that I didn't have time to spit at them!!  But I am taking my 19:03 anyway I can get it right now.  I must lift myself up from the bottom and climb to the top.  I am never again running a time trial with cheerleaders on the field. 

I washed my orange mizunos yesterday and today I tried them out on my 18 miler (was going to be 16 miler and then detours happened and I was further away from home up in Alpine so I just ran my Alpine loop 18 miler but had to walk 0.6 miles home--wasn't going over 18).  Okay so my mizunos are losing cushion and feel squishy also---squishy but not cushiony??? hmmm is that possible???  the forefoot has lost all its traction on the right foot.  Yup my right foot has been taking a beating from my left foots lack push off due to the plantar fascitis and then ankle nerve trauma.  I have a lot of scar tissue on my left plantar fascia- I no longer feel much on the bottom of my foot-- it radiates to my ankle now.  I really am not a smart runner.  I am like the oldest on the blog and the stupidest.   When I ran my first marathon I ran 3-4 times a week.  I wiped myself with a poison ivy leaf on my first 16 miler and had an all summer case of poison ivy rash  and was on steroids for two months!!!!  It was all over my legs and hands.  The other area was the first to go, thankfully!!   I have plenty of "stupid runner"stories to fill a 50 milers worth.  Like I think about Rachelle-- smart runner-- does it right and gets it done.  Me???  I don't know-- maybe it is my lack of sleep and full time job and mom to three kids now but in my late 20s when I started running more than once or twice a week I was STILL stupid.     HOWEVER I did not start to get fast until my late 30s-- I think 39 is the year.  I took a lot of time off to have kids and get fat.  I enjoyed holidays instead running on all them.  So after October 6th I am taking a leave of absence from competitive running.  My body-- nerves mainly-- they are in so much pain every day--need a long break.  My nervous system is shot.  As far as SGM goes I am trying for a PR.  Subthree would be wonderful but honestly mathmatically it doesn't make sense to my brain and therefore it is NOT my full intent this year.  Last year the first master woman was Julia Cassidy--- 50 years old mind you--- and she ran a 2:58!! I have decided she is an alien.  Okay-- truth be known-- she was a track star in high school and college and her husband is a running coach.  Not many woman can run that fast over 50!!  so I may have to come to a realization about sub three unless my body heals with some time off.  I worry that time off at my age only will make me slower but either way it just has to happen.  I am exhausted from all this no sleep, working fulltime-  working nights for two of the last three years and now my nerves that hurt all the time.    I will do my best come race day with how my body shows up on Oct 6th.  Slow first half and a negative split is my plan.  Sleeping well is also my plan.  So the next two weeks-- TAPER madness begins!!   one brief SW on the TM, one 5K at my house, and two miles at MP the week of the marathon and NO running before work starting next week!!  Today I ran 18 miles-- hilly route into Alpine.  At mile 12 a woman passed me with a smile-- I was bored and was not pushing the pace at all, about 8:15 pace-- she cruised by me-- she was dressed like me-- black miniskirt and pink top---It woke me up from my slumber as I watched her legs come up from behind her in perfect form (unlike myself as I have been criticized by Hawk from runner's corner and TOSH physical therapy that I don't engage my glutes when I run therefore I don't have an efficient push off) just like I see Rachelle in all her stellar marathon photos!!  So pondering about WHY don't I run the effiicient way I tried to run and focus on lifting my leg behind me and you know what????  I gained on that woman that passed me very quickly--- I am 43 how can I change now??? IT did NOT feel natural at all but it made me FASTER-  VERY NOTICEABLY as she was 20 seconds in front of me and I gained on her in a few strides.  So very weird (JAKE???).  Anyway.... I ran easy for the first 14 miles (I think AP was 8:07 here) and then ran two miles at 6:47 and 6:44 on the flattest part of my run-- barely any down hill, in fact the first mile had a dip-- so down then up.      Just before running these quick miles my body was rebelling.  It did NOT want to run fast at all but once I got going it felt good.  However-- after two miles I was done-- I made a left hand turn towards Deerfield Elementary and the sun was beaming in my eyes and I had to swerve and slow to miss a car that was turning right that I just was not in the mood anymore. I was reliving painful moments (in my mind) of how awful the last few miles of SG can be.  But I do have memories of how wonderful those miles can play out.  I so want that day to be October 6th.    Cooler temps and a tailwind please!!!  AP for 18 miles = 7:53.  Ran last 0.84 miles at 6:55 pace after slowing to a 7:33 mile for the 17 th mile.   Iced in AF river for 8 minutes.  Ahhhhhh!!!   sorry long post. 

ahhhhhh......sleep in and to work at 6am.  No running.  So glad.  Just need a break.  : D.