The Joy of Running

CHRISTIAN

February 21st 2010 ~ Ft. Lauderdale ½ Marathon

I did not want to run the Ft. Lauderdale Half. It’s really early in the morning, it’s cold, and you have to deal with down town traffic and parking. But I signed up because the mileage worked perfectly into my training, and I might as well get an official time and pace out of it. And Maria was running it too.

Yeah, nothing really worked out very well.

Maria took a nasty spill a couple of weeks before the race and by race time her knee looked like she was smuggling plums along side her kneecap. And the forecast called for really cold weather for the weekend. I don’t really care for running in the first place, but running in the cold is not my cup of tea.

My longest run before the race was an easy 10 miles I completed with under 8 minute miles in a strong wind. But that was in the middle of the day with a warm sun beating down. I had to wake up at 4:30am to get to the starting line by 5:30. I tried to warm up and stretch a little before taking place in the shoulder to shoulder corral of runners who would be slowing me down at the start. The horn signaled the start and we were off to a blistering pace of a 15 minute mile trying to get out of downtown Ft. Lauderdale. I could have power-walked faster than that. In fact I think I saw someone coming out of the 24 hour supermarket carrying heavy bags keeping pace with me as she walked to her car…

I stopped just short of the 2 mile mark to use the toilet, when a cramp hit my right calf so hard that I almost fell down before I could slow down. I never cramp. And having something like a calf cramp 10 minutes into a run seemed impossible.
Whatever it was, it wasn’t going away. I tried every conceivable stretch I could think of as I watched the most unfit looking people run past me. I was wasting valuable time. And the thought crossed my mind that it would be a relatively short walk back to the car and I could be home asleep before 7am. But I started back up. I now had a modified limp stride that was pretty painful, and must have looked pretty foolish. We headed North up A1A (the beachside road) and got to see the sun coming up over the Atlantic.

Next to cramp was my stomach. While easier to run through, it was considerably less fun dealing with the portable toilets. I do not recommend having to use the portable toilets.

I must have broken through some pain threshold at about mile 7 because if became easier to run. I don’t thing my cramp went away, I just think my stubborn brain got tired of sending alerts to my body. Mile 10 had the best station of the whole race. A few kind souls manned an unsanctioned beer station, pouring ice-cold beer for runners. I stopped and grabbed a beer and it was so delicious that I had them pour me another. I slowed relished my beer as I walked the distance it took for me to drink every last drop.

Then I had an easy 3 miles to the finish. It was fairly anticlimactic, to be honest. I was just happy to be off my right foot. My limp stride was wreaking havoc on the rest of my right leg that was trying to take the weight off my calf. Walking was tremendously painful. But there was a beer truck pouring pints of beer to runners and cheerers-on alike. Maria met me at the finish and we had a few beers before heading out for breakfast.

I ended up finishing 13.1 miles in 1 hour, 48 minutes and 56 seconds. My pace was just under 8 ½ minute miles. Not too bad considering the time spent on the side of the road dealing with my various cramps. That is the last time I slam beer and oyster shooters the night before a race…

Let's Have a Party

MARIA:

Our first fundraising event is set for Friday March 12th, when we will be holding a Happy Hour Benefit at YOLO Restaurant from 5:30pm to 7:30pm. There will be plenty of door prizes and a silent auction, as well as drink tickets and appetizers generously provided by YOLO.
Please come join us for an awesome evening to support Focus Birmingham and enjoy a couple of drinks at the end of the work week,....and bring your friends too!
For details click on the Flyer on the left.

Cool Runnings

MARIA:

The first week of training has gone pretty smoothly…except for the cold weather. Now, I know that the UK is having one of the worst snow storms on record, but we are having some near record lows ourselves, and even South Floridians are contemplating moving to warmer climates! So, because I couldn’t bear to deal with the cold, there have been a couple of runs on the treadmill at the local gym.

I find running on a treadmill excruciatingly dull. If you’ve ever run outside I’m sure you can relate. When you run outdoors the scenery and the ground are constantly changing, you have to be aware of people (and traffic in the cities), and you are both physically and mentally engaged in the whole experience. Not so the treadmill. To me it’s the exact opposite – total disengagement of mind, body and soul. I have to give myself mini goals for each miles to be able to get thru the training otherwise I’m tempted to cut the mileage and jump off the treadmill, telling myself that at least I ran ‘most’ of the miles.

An observation: Having a news channel and a sports channel on the TVs in a gym is not sufficient distraction to get thru the workout. What about showing people training for or running a marathon? Or bodybuilding competitions? Or bike racing? Wouldn’t that be more physically inspiring than political debates and discussions about sports personalities on steroids?

For my sanity, I can only run a few miles indoors so I did have to brave the 40 degree (F) cold on Sunday to run my eight miles. I layered up: as well as a sports bra, I also wore a sports top, dry-fit t-shirt, long-sleeved cotton shirt, dry-fit zip-up jacket, long trousers, woolly hat and gloves (and socks and running shoes, of course). The hat and gloves made all the difference. The weather forecast shows improvement with temperatures back up into the 70s (F) by the end of the week. I’ll be glad to shed the layers and the soul zapping treadmill.

And so it begins.....

MARIA:
Our marathon story starts on December 2nd when I received an email from my niece, Fiona, asking if I would be interested in running the Norway Midnight Marathon. Fiona works for Focus Birmingham and the idea to run the marathon and raise money for the charity came from their Events Fundraiser Andy Kilminster. Andy was aware that I had run the ING Miami Marathon in January 2009 and the Bank of America Chicago Marathon in October 2009, and thought I might like to run another.

Ok, so the Norway Midnight Marathon takes place in Tromso on June 19th. At that time of year the sun doesn’t set for two months, from the middle of May to the middle of July, so although the race starts at midnight you are running in daylight. Now when I read about this my first reaction was: how awesome would it be to take part in this very unique marathon? And, to run for charity makes it an even better experience. I emailed the information to my boyfriend, Christian, who immediately decided he wanted to take part too.

Now there was a small catch…I was already registered for the Virgin London Marathon which takes place on April 25th. I’m a novice runner so partaking in two marathons a couple of months apart seemed quite daunting. There would be little time to recover from the first marathon before I’d be back in my running shoes training for the next. And what if I injured myself?

Then I thought: I'll be fine. I'll make it work. And, since I'm running London anyway I might as well run both marathons for Focus?

Fortunately, Andy had a charity spot in the London Marathon and Christian was up to the challenge of running both events…..and thus Team Focus was born.

Since there were 2 of us, running 2 marathons, in 2 months, in 2 different countries, it was decided we would aim to raise $20,000.....

Training and fundraising start January 1st.