Baltimore!

Two weeks until the big day!  Tomorrow I will start to taper, and this past week I did my last very long run before the race.

I made a first shot at it on Tuesday and literally got scared off the trails by a pack of deer.  Most close friends and family already know this unfortunate detail about me: I am absolutely terrified by deer.  Some people are scared of spiders or snakes or clowns.  I'm scared of deer.  When I see them while driving I usually have to stop and collect myself before I can continue, especially if they do that creepy thing where they stand there in the middle of the road staring for a few minutes before they finally decide to bounce away (and then just when you think it's safe to continue driving their friends that were lurking in the shadows bounce across your path as well.) 

You know what I'm talking about.

Anyways, I was six miles into my run on Tuesday and feeling good.  I was heading down a trail I frequent almost daily, totally in the zone, and all of a sudden I come up on a doe.  She was right in the middle of the trail staring right at me, maybe 15 to 20 yards away.  At first I couldn't breathe.  I found myself gasping for air.  The gasps turned into little whimpers and I  shrunk to the ground in kind of a squat, and started to cry.  She stood there staring at me for a minute or so before she bounced over some brush into the woods, and it wasn't until then that I realized there were 5 or 6 more deer in the brush on either side of the trail.  They all took off as soon as she jumped, and I stayed there for a few more minutes, nervous that another one would come galloping at me from out of nowhere.  Up until that point I was feeling strong, fast, and unstoppable, but when I finally got up from my pathetic crouch, I was still struggling to breathe normally, I was still crying, and I knew I was done for the day.  I walked the mile back to my house, still feeling rattled even when I got home.  According to a friend of mine, it's mating season, and I should expect to see them on the trails with some regularity.  Great.  The next day I made another attempt at the 20 miler.  I didn't see any beasts while I was out, and I did okay, but still the wheels sort of fell off at mile 19.  My legs just couldn't take any more.  I walked the last mile, not really feeling all that disappointed since I had run about 34 miles in 3 days.  Since I usually rest after my long runs, I had ended up doing an extra six miles the day I ran up on the deer.

Yesterday I decided to drive up to Baltimore for the Baltimore Running Festival. Before yesterday I had never been to a race as a spectator, and I really enjoyed the experience.  This race in particular was the first marathon I ran back in 2010, and this year my friend Laura was running in the half-marathon.  It was her first race at that distance, so I figured I'd go cheer her on and see the race from the other side of the tape.  It was exhilarating to relive the experience of finishing my first marathon, and to be there to support my friend as she finished her first half.  At the finish line I saw more than a few runners getting misty-eyed and I remembered how emotional I felt when I finished the race myself.  I had started crying as soon as I saw the tunnel at the finish line and when I finally found my dad after the race, he saw that I had been crying and got so worried.  Right away he started asking if I was hurt, what was wrong, why I was crying, and I couldn't find the words to explain.  I was overcome with so many different emotions that I hadn't really prepared myself to experience.  I was sad that it was over, proud that I had finished, thrilled to be done, and anxious to be able to go home and rest.  Plus my stomach was in knots from both the mental and physical aspects of the race.  This doesn't begin to sum up the sensational whirlwind that had consumed me that day.  At yesterday's race, I could see the bewilderment on the faces of some of the runners, especially the obvious first-timers, and it was a welcome reminder of the experience that I had two years ago.
The only disappointing from yesterday's race was that I was so in the moment that I forgot to take a single picture the entire time I was there.  Doh!  Luckily, Laura's dad was running with her and took this when I first spotted them by the lake:

Some comic relief for struggling runners.

I also had a less offensive message on the reverse side for when the kiddos were around:

Lots of runners smiled at me or proudly thanked me when I had it flipped to this side.

After I had my fill of post-race excitement I decided to head over to the Lexington Market to get a taste of what Baltimore does best.  

Tastes like Maryland.

I love love love any kind of open market atmosphere, and to put crabcakes and Natty Boh on top of that was the perfect end to a splendid trip.  Maybe next year I'll enjoy some crabcakes as a finisher, although I don't know if I could afford the amount of crabcakes it would take to fill me up after running 26 miles.

I'm sweaty.

If you don't believe me, ask my friend here:

I found this sexy beast right by the stairs to my apartment.

Love these colors!

For an iPhone camera, I can't complain.

I'm still surprised it didn't fly away when I got this close.

And for perspective, those little circles on the ground are where I dripped sweat while I took those pictures.  

It's embarrassing.  When I pass people on the more narrow sidewalks on really hot days I get so anxious.  I try to smooth my hair down and ball my hands into tiny fists.  It hasn't happened yet, but I'm so nervous.  I fear it's only a matter of time before I accidentally flick sweat onto a fellow pedestrian.

\

EWW!  Gross!  I know.  Forgive me.

This is why I've been making sure to follow up each run with a full bottle of this stuff per every 2 pounds lost during the run:

Splashguard is a must!

Anyways, it's hot.  We've all noticed.  Still, I feel like it's been a good week for running.  Last week on my long run I got to swing by my favorite mailbox in the area.

Last time I was in that neighborhood, I ended up hitting the wall later in the run.  Hooray, progress!

I've been experimenting with the RunKeeper app on my iPhone.  This app tells me all about how fast I'm running, like my watch does, but it actually tells me these things.  Like out loud.  And it plays music!  I'm very close to getting the timing just perfect, but I've nearly perfected the timing of my playlist so that my RunKeeper "coach" tells me my time/pace/distance/etc right when the dialogue about falling out the window starts in "Home" by Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros:

Okay I think that's enough playing around on the internet for the day.  Here's the stats from today's run:

Surprise long run and a jog down memory lane...

Before I start on today's run, I'll get the last few runs from the second part of last week out of the way:

Thursday:


Friday I was supposed to run, but didn't so I had to make up for it on Sunday (usually my rest day.)

Saturday:


And Sunday:

The exciting part about running on Sunday was that I made plans to spend most of the day at my parent's house, so I decided to run in their neighborhood.  I was living there for most of the training for my first marathon, so it was nice to run an old but familiar route.

Today was supposed to be an easy day.  I planned on running 7, but after 5 miles I was still feeling fantastic so I decided that I might as well get the long run for the week out of the way while the weather was nice and pleasant.  I ended up finishing 11 and I'm really happy that I made that call.  I finished about two hours ago and I feel much better now than I did after either of the recent 10 mile races that I did.  Success!  AND I got a few pictures today.  (I apologize for quality - I was using my iphone today since my garmin watch was dead, and skipped the digital camera.)

I saw a sweet bird in the lake behind Kingstown Center.

Yeah, poor quality, but I was stoked.

My best guess is that it was a great blue heron, but I'm no expert.

I also got to see not one, but TWO baby bunnies!  I couldn't get to my phone in time for the first but here is the second:

Too cute! 

Cotton-tail hopping away.

This happened to be on my favorite mile-long stretch.

It's a series of rolling hills along a paved path.  The path runs underneath these powerlines that create a convenient clearing with woods on either side.

Stats for today's run.

(Like I said, I had to use my phone today since the garmin was dead.)

There are plenty of lessons to be learned from distance running. Today's lesson: Humility.

Hitting the wall, bonking, falling apart, running out of steam, shutting down -- call it whatever you want.  That was me today, right near the end of mile nine.

I spent the rest of the walk home kicking myself and trying to figure out which of the many factors could have been the culprit that kept me from finishing the eleven miles that I set out to run today...  

Could it have been the heat?  Two summers ago when I was training for my first marathon I was in Paraguay, enjoying the perfect running weather of the Paraguayan mild winter:

This heat, on the other hand, is brutal.

Could it have been the three big hills that I climbed in the first half of the run?  My total elevation for today was 600 ft:  

First climb, 100ft

(Taken from top of first peak)
Second climb, 150ft 

Turned around to take a pic from the top of the second peak.

The third hill (not pictured because of length/windy roads) stretched over a mile and climbed over 250ft.

Was it too much that I logged six miles yesterday?  Did I run them too fast? 


Or was it the chili-mac that I had a little too much of, a little too late, when we had guests last night?

Worth it.

It could have been any of these things, probably a combination of all of the above, but mostly I think I was just far too cocky on my way out the door this morning.  

This isn't the first time for me to bonk on a long run, and I'm sure it wont be the last.  I need to learn from my mistakes and accept that there will be days when I find myself two miles from home with nothing left, and that's okay.  I made it home safe.  I'm still injury-free (knock on wood.)  And I'll be ready to tackle whatever's on the calendar for tomorrow.  Most importantly, the geese were there to cheer me up shortly after I slowed to a walk:

Lots of them.

!!!!

There were even a couple mallards.

I even got to see a gosling, but by then my camera had died.

Anyways, stats for today:

(the map is a little wonky because I stopped my watch for the stretches where I walked.)