training for a race – A Mama's Blog

I’ve been running again. I have been running shorter distances, but working on building speed. A few months ago, if I didn’t run five miles at a time, I felt like I wasn’t working hard enough. I honestly can’t remember off the top of my head, the last five mile run I had. In the back of my mind, I know this is not going to get me to a marathon in October. But right now, it is good enough.

All my aches and pains have vanished- I have not had any more knee pain since I stopped pushing as hard as I was. Since I am injury free, and working my way out of the physical and mental groove I have been in, I decided to enter a race.

I felt like I needed a challenge I had not taken on before. Since I know I am not ready right now to tackle a half marathon, and my body seems to be doing well with shorter but faster runs, I signed up for a 3K (1.86 miles) in July. I checked the top times from last year, and was pretty excited to see the times I was currently running were in the range with the finishers in the competitive field. My current time is nowhere near the top level, but it was there. With competitive runners.

I stared at the computer screen for several minutes, wondering if this was right. If I had to run this race today, I would finish somewhere in the middle among competitive runners. I would be near the top for my age group. The race description said the area’s fastest runners show up for this race, and with such a short distance it is quick! And it is going to be hot! It is outside, at 6PM. I am NOT a warm weather or heat runner. The last few weeks temperatures have been in the 90’s at 6PM. This is definitely one of the most challenging things I’ve tried.

But I was not going to let heat stop me, so I signed up for the race, in the competitive division. So I am now training for what will be my first race in 2 months, and my first competitive division race. I have three weeks until race day to get faster and deal with the heat. It has been hard. I have dropped an average of 30 seconds off my time so far, and I hope I can keep adding to that. I want to finish well, but even if I am the last person to cross the finish line, it feels good to be running and training again.

I’ve realized I might not make the goal of running in a marathon by October. I never gave myself the option not to. But when trying to reach any health or fitness goal, you have to have a little wiggle room. If you never allow yourself room to fail or to be unsuccessful, then I don’t think you can ever allow yourself to reach the level of success you want either. Success and failure go hand in hand- you can’t have one without the other.

Not every training run for this fast intense race, is a success. Sometimes the heat gets to me. Sometimes my time is slower than the previous time. But all of this is paving the way for me to have success- hopefully in a few weeks in my first competitive race, and when the time is right- a marathon.

(Cross posted at Choose You Blog– a new campaign by The American Cancer Society to help encourage and support women to put their health first in the fight against cancer. )

I have never “trained” for a race, and I hesitate to even use that word. Training sounds serious. I like the word “preparing” better.

Last week I was able to start preparing for the Race for the Cure, not at a gym, but at a local playground. Now you see why I don’t really consider myself “training.” I don’t think serious runners train at a playground. Since I am not a serious runner, but a mom, who also has to watch two little boys most of the time, while I prepare for the race, the playground is working out for us.

The first time we went to the playground, the boys rode their scooters. From our house, it was probably just under a mile. I discovered there were two bike paths at the park. The first one was probably not more than half a mile around. The boys did great following me on their scooters as I ran.

I liked the path, but after four times around, (with breaks), the boys were getting tired, so I decided to take them up to the playground above this first path. There is a much smaller path I could run on, while the boys played at the playground. Here it is: (can you hear Eye of the Tiger playing right now?)

I am guessing this path is probably not more than a quarter mile around. Since I am not a serious runner and am not training, I don’t have any fancy GPS running watches, or anything like that. The best feature of this path was the boys were occupied on the playground (they are on the red climbing thing):

I ran around this path about seven times. The boys were exhausted by the time we got home- they still had to ride their scooters home.

On Thursday evening, I figured out that if we drove to the park, the boys could play much longer, and wouldn’t be so tired, which would mean more running time for me! It worked really well. They started getting really into it, and would stop playing every time I ran by the playground. They would stand there, and hold out their hands for me to high five them. Ryan ran around with me on the path a few times. I told them I would get them some whistles, so they could be proper coaches.

I followed the advice Sonja had given me and didn’t try to run fast at all. I had a lot more energy, and I didn’t get tired and have to walk any of the path. I ended up running 20 laps. I ran for thirty-five minutes. I wasn’t sure how close I was getting to 3 miles, I figured I was at least in the ball-park.

On Friday night, the boys and I went to my dad’s house in Denver to spend the night. While they were roasting marshmallows, I went on a run. My dad told me where my sister used to live from his house, was 1.2 miles. If I could run there and back, I would be just under 2.5 miles.

I started to run, and felt great. I had to tell myself to slow down and not run too fast. I must have had a really good pace because I felt like I could have kept running. I reached my sister’s old house. I thought about going a few more blocks, so I could be really close to 3 miles, but it was getting dark, and I wasn’t in an area I was really familiar with. I headed back to my dad’s. I only stopped once, and it was to take this picture on the Washington St. Bridge right above I-25:

About two blocks away from my dad’s house, I started to get tired. But I was also excited that I had been able to go so far, and realized that I would actually be able to run the 3 miles for the race! When I got back, I had run 2.4 miles in 35 minutes. I figured I could do 3 miles in 45 minutes.

On Saturday, my knees and hips hurt! Running on concrete will do that. Plus, I had been running in really, really, old tennis shoes. I think they are at least five years old. I decided even though I am not training, I wasn’t going to spend a fortune on new shoes, but it was time for a pair of actual running shoes. Here is a old shoe-new shoe picture: (it shouldn’t be too hard to guess which are the old shoes 🙂 )

Yesterday evening, the boys went to their dad’s house, so it was the first time I was able to time myself, and see how far I could run. I had measured the distance in the car and measured 1.5 miles from my house. I wore my new shoes, and it took me a few minutes to get used to them. I also started feeling really sluggish as I started off. I couldn’t really find a rhythm. I was running faster than I wanted to, and had to force myself to slow down several times.

At 1.4 miles, everything started to click. I reached the 1.5 mile point, and turned around to run home. I didn’t check to see what kind of pace I was on. At 2.5 miles, I just sped up. I felt really good, and decided to run faster. A car came up behind me that I had seen, and I ran off to the side of the road. At the last second, (and I mean second) I saw this HUGE hole. I had to leap to get across it, and I just barely cleared it.

I felt a surge of energy and ran faster until I got to my house. I looked at the time, and even with starting off slow, having to run off to the side of the road every time a car came, and the dodging-the-hole-episode, I was thrilled to see that I had ran the 3 miles in 41 minutes! I was also happy that I didn’t have to stop and walk any of it.

Race day is in 13 days, and I feel very confident where I am right now. I wasn’t sure if I would even be able to run/walk 3 miles. I am going to set a time goal. If I can run the entire distance, and if I can do it in under 40 minutes, then the training preparation will have paid off.