Last Place Runner

I used my running shoes tonight for the last time until Saturday.

I had a 15-minute taper run tonight. The temperature was perfect for an outside run, but it’s been so foggy and wet all day. So I just ran on the treadmill. Afterward, I figured I might as well get as ready as I can for Saturday.

I think this race will be more organized than the turkey trot. My coach told us to be at the starting line no later than 7:55, so things should get going right on schedule.

So. That’s it, then. My bib is on, my chip is secure. And how cute are those knee socks?

I’ll see you after the race.

I had two 30-minute runs scheduled for Sunday and today. Yesterday was really warm and windy, but not windy in a bad way. So I woke up and got ready to run.

I did pretty well for a long time. Well, no, not a long time. But for 15 or so minutes. Then I had to stop and stretch my calves. Yuck! It was hard to keep my focus after that and I ended up really frustrated. I put in all my time, although not all of it was running. I wasn’t even sure if I should mark it off the training schedule I keep on the refrigerator.

We got a little bit of an ice storm overnight. It woke me up around 3 or 4 this morning. I wasn’t feeling great and I just wanted to sleep for the rest of the year. Less than a month is not asking too much! But I got up at 6:15 and I DID NOT want to run today. At all. Ever.

My team at work usually has a conference call with our boss in California on Mondays. It’s really difficult to manage because it starts a 1 p.m. and it is usually on a different floor in a different conference room every time. So getting to lunch and back and to my desk and figuring out where the meeting is makes for a hectic afternoon. But the meeting had been rescheduled for later in the week and I was more or less free to take a long lunch. My team of writers has not been able to work for more than a week now because of holiday stuff scheduled for the ecommerce site we work for. Funny, right? But we had all our work done weeks ago and everything else has been on hold to make sure Black Friday and Cyber Monday items deploy without crashing the site.

So, as bad as I hated to, I decided to suck it up and get my run in during lunch. I didn’t want to run outside because — after nearly turning on the air yesterday — it is 24 degrees today and the roads were slick in places. So I changed clothes and did a treadmill run. It was uneventful, other than my calves feeling tight at first. But I kept going because finishing that run meant I had made it to THE TAPER.

And that’s what I kept telling myself. My next run will be 20 minutes, then the run after that is 15. Then, hey hey, it’ll be time for another race! Sadly, though, there’s only one more group run. We’ll get our race packets Wednesday night and the next time we see each other will be at the race!

Of course, now that it’s over and I’m resting tomorrow, I’m so glad I ran. I’m always glad I ran, even if I’m not really feeling it. But this was the first time I just did not want to. And I basically told myself, “Well, too bad.” Now it’s done!

I had a breakthrough. Last week in our group pep talk, Coach said we were ready. Actually, he said, “It’s in the barn at this point.” I very seriously doubted that, but I’m paying for his enthusiasm.

My past several runs have either been really great or really just awful.

I’ve also had a lot of trouble sleeping the past many, many weeks.

Wednesday’s group run was 25 minutes, then Thursday was back to 20. Those were both OK, but I woke up around 2 a.m. Friday and never went back to sleep. By the time I was ready for work, I was in tears. My heart was racing, my skin was crawling and, for the grand finale, I fell while I was putting on my shirt. So yesterday was a long, miserable day.

It was a shame, too, because the weather was lovely. It was 55 when I left work last night, but I already knew I’d have to adjust my schedule to make Friday my rest day and do my run today. Rain is in the forecast for the whole weekend, and I told my husband last night that I hoped it would just stay warm and overcast.

I did some reading on my insomnia and found out it may be an easy fix. Several sources said magnesium might help. Apparently magnesium helps shut off your adrenaline, which is obviously all amped up if you run two miles at 6 p.m., then eat dinner, clean the kitchen, do the dishes, start some laundry, and spend the rest of the evening glued to the TV and iPad. I was exhausted last night (and several nights before that, too), but we went out after dinner and bought some magnesium. Usually I fall asleep easily and wake up after a couple of hours. I took magnesium before bed and, although I woke up several times, I was able to go right back to sleep.

I woke up around 5:45 this morning and knew that it was time to get up. I started some laundry and hung around the house until it was light enough to run. The forecast said the rain would start around 10 this morning, but it was 54 degrees at 6:30. I suited up in my running clothes and heart rate monitor and took off.

I tried not to have any expectations for how it would go. I wasn’t worried about distance. I just wanted to do my 25 minutes. Ten minutes, 15 minutes … the run was turning out to be a great run. An easy run. A slow run, sure. But it was one of those runs that made all the “bad” or “hard” runs worth it. I was doing it. I was making every dog in the neighborhood bark, but after six weeks of dodging cars parked on the sidewalks, I can’t say that I cared.

I ran 25 minutes and was still about half a block from home. I walked for a few seconds and decided to run the rest of the way home. It felt so great to start back up running after even just a short break. Easy. Peasy.

Thanksgiving is next week, so the group isn’t meeting Wednesday night to run. Coach said he was going to be at the Square at 7 o’clock in the morning on Thanksgiving if any of us wanted to meet him for what he called an easy run (this is a man who just did a 100-mile run a few weeks ago), and that’s the plan for now. So the next time I run with my group we’ll get our race packets. I can’t believe it. It seemed so far away. By this time two weeks from now, it’ll be over.

Until the 8K I’m doing on Valentines Day.

My usual running volunteer wasn’t at the group run last night. When the time changed, our normal route had to change, too. And we were running 18 minutes. Plus, my GPS watch was not picking up satellites and I had to make the decision to just run without it. So I was kind of unhinged when it was time to go and my usual running buddy wasn’t there.

It worked out fine, though, because the man who thought I was another volunteer on the first night ended up running with me. I’m a mid-pack runner, certainly not in the front but a long ways ahead of the back. So far behind and ahead that it can seem like I’m alone out there during group runs. But James kept me going.

Before we took off, Coach told us about the new route we were taking. He said some of us would definitely reach a certain spot, but I briefly considered the distance and stopped listening for what to do next. There was no way I’d make it that far in 18 minutes. But here’s a tip: Don’t ever stop listening when your running coach is giving you directions. Especially when you’re a pretty solitary runner and it’s dark AND it’s rush hour.

Again, James to the rescue. We crossed the square and passed the courthouse. Then an easy downhill eased into an uphill. James told me to shorten my strides going uphill. He’d get ahead, then run circles in a driveway until I caught up.

We ran past the spot where I stopped listening and onward toward the entrance of the art museum. Eventually, James told me we’d made our first mile. My watch wasn’t tracking pace or distance, so I wasn’t sure how far along we were in our time. We were to run 15 minutes then head back, running for the remaining three minutes, and finishing up with a fast walk for 12 minutes. When we were walking, I asked what time we’d hit the mile mark.

Remember when I did my first mile in 15:05? Running with James last night, and mind you he’s probably in his 50s, I ran a mile in 13:04. That’s two full minutes off my time!

I ran 20 minutes on my own tonight. I didn’t do quite as well as I did last night, but I still improved on 15:05. I hit the mile at 14:38. No, it’s not fast. But it’s faster. And I’m not out to win races. I’m running because it isn’t easy for me. Because I’m tired of being fat. Because I’m getting pretty close to 40 and, frankly, I really need something to do.

I didn’t mean to write so much about the group run. I wanted to talk some about how losing a little bit of weight makes a big, big difference. But maybe having changes to talk about will continue to be the motivation to run. So if you’re reading this, thank you, and I hope you’ll come back to see my progress — and know that it can totally be your progress, too.

I came home last night in a rush to change and tackle my 18-minute run. I had put chili in the slow cooker at lunch so I wouldn’t have that to deal with after work. I was nervous (which is a recurring theme in my running journey) about running in the dark for the first time and also nervous about how dumb my hair looks when I’m wearing my headlamp.

I rushed in and asked my husband if he had eaten yet. He hadn’t, but also, he reported, our dog had refused his dinner. I looked at our good old dog lying lifeless on the rug. I offered him a cookie, which is really just a word he knows to get excited about. Nothing. I held a treat under his nose. He just looked at me. So I picked up his leash, which always gets a reaction out of him. Going out the front door is better than cookies as far as he’s concerned. He got up and I noticed his neck was ENORMOUS.

Long, long, long, expensive story short, we wolfed down some chili and went to the emergency vet clinic. And I didn’t do my scheduled run.

Today was to be my rest day, which is good because I would rather postpone a run than miss it entirely. I worked from home today because the emergency vet wanted us to take the dog to his regular vet first thing this morning. I was awake all night long, and so was the poor pitiful dog. It was raining, too, which meant my longest run yet would have to be a treadmill run.

I worked for a while until the dog seemed comfortable and my workload was manageable. And then I sucked it up and did my run.

I tried to watch something on Netflix to help pass the time on the dreadful treadmill, but running and breathing makes a lot of racket.

Tomorrow night is my group run and we’ll do 18 minutes together. Then I think it’s right on to 20 minutes Thursday. My first 5K is just about a month away. I’m still pretty surprised I’ve come this far. It actually makes the rest of the training seem less scary.

The dog is on pain medication and antibiotics. He got a shot of morphine at the emergency clinic last night, and he happily ate breakfast this morning. That’s when I knew we’d probably be all right. We had breakfast for dinner tonight and he was able to give me the pitiful face while I ate my eggs.

I ran my first-ever mile on Friday.

Friday was Halloween and we live close to an elementary school. There are tons of kids in the neighborhood, and after encountering a few on bikes earlier last week, I knew I didn’t want to try to run after work on Friday with 200 Elsas and 205 Olafs. My Thursday run was 12 minutes and Friday had 15 scheduled. So I decided to suck it up and run during my lunch break.

I packed up all my stuff so I could change at work. But then I couldn’t decide where to go — the trail system runs parallel to my massive office, but it also leads straight across one of the most congested intersections in the region. So, I wasn’t too keen on that. I could change, drive to the dog park, and do my run over there. Then drive back, change, and … what about lunch? So, in the end I decided to just come home and run during lunch.

So that’s what I did. I had the streets to myself, which was great, but the wind was awful. I felt like I knew exactly what Bob Seeger meant in his song “Runnin’ Against the Wind.” I thought I would warm up some while I was running, so I went out in short sleeves. Bad idea. The wind had an awful bite to it. And at this point in my training, it doesn’t take much for me to slip into “I can’t do this!” mode.

Luckily, I’m naturally stubborn and bossy, so I kept myself on task. I knew I was going to run a mile on Friday. Because who can’t run a mile in 15 minutes? Jesus! But I can’t run a mile in 15 minutes. When my GPS watch hit 15:00, my mileage was at .99. I was not about to give up, so I kept going another five seconds or so and made it to the mile. It was amaze-balls.

Saturday was a rest day. I had seen on Facebook that my running shop had gotten the 2015 Brooks Adrenaline running shoes, so the old models were 40% off. That’s my running shoe! Even though my old pair is in no danger of wearing out soon, a bargain is a bargain. And who am I to not buy shoes on sale? So now I have a new pair for backup.

My husband and I also went for a bike ride Saturday afternoon. I wussed out at one point and had to walk my bike a few yards. He was all, “Use your gears!” and I was all, “My whatever-these-are hurt!” And he was all, “Those are your quads!” And I was like, “They’re on fire! I am a better runner than a biker!”

At one point, my husband said, “You probably want to run today.” And I admitted that I did. Not because I was addicted, like he said I was, but because I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to go out today and run 15 whole minutes like I’d done on Friday.

Later that evening I walked down to the store in our neighborhood for a head of lettuce. I was tempted to run some, but looking at all the squashed Halloween candy on the streets and sidewalks kept me focused.

I got up and did my run first thing this morning. It was another 15 minutes and I vowed I would not look at my watch until I got close to where I’d hit 15 minutes on Friday. I was going along feeling pretty good. I felt like I was going a lot faster than I was on Friday, so I finally checked my watch. At about the 7-minute mark, I was just one street away from where I was at 15 minutes on Friday. I started to feel pretty smug that I had taken that much time off my pace since Friday. But when I realized I shorted myself a block from the route I ran Friday, I wanted to curse the heavens.

We went to Springfield today to visit my husband’s uncle in the nursing home. After that, we decided to stick around town for some lunch and some shopping. We ended up stuck in traffic near the finish line of a half marathon! I got to see a woman come from way behind and zoom past a pack of other runners and through the finish line. It was so amazing! I rolled down the window and cheered for her. She smiled and then took the hell off for the finish.

Tomorrow is when shit starts getting real. Tomorrow is 18 minutes. Fifteen minutes is how long you have to put pants on after you order Domino’s. Eighteen minutes is like a DVR’ed sitcom if you fast forward through the commercials. The running times increase quickly and I just have to keep reminding myself that a couple of weeks ago, 5 minutes of running seemed like something only a lunatic would do.

I should’ve started keeping a record of this a few weeks ago, when I first ran for two minutes straight with my training group and I ran so slow that a volunteer thought I was also a volunteer because why else would someone run so slow if not to lend encouragement to the scragglers a the back of the pack.

After the first month, I am still a slow runner. The faster runners are 50 yards ahead of me. The slower runners are so far back that it seems like I’m the one bringing up the rear. The people in my training program are runners of all abilities. The volunteers are there to encourage, to run with us, to make sure we’re not having too much trouble on our solo runs, and to make sure we stay on track the rest of the week.

I run with a volunteer who is many, many months pregnant, and her 3-year-old son. I found that I could stay on pace with the little boy, so now this volunteer stays with me every week. The little boy had a bad cough last night, so he got to ride in the stroller with his dad, who ran way ahead of us. Although I sounded like the kid in the wheelchair on “Malcolm in the Middle,” the volunteer and I were able to talk the whole time I ran. She had to detour at the art museum and find a bathroom (the baby was doing a soft-shoe on her bladder) and she said she knew I could do it without her. I caught up with her on the way back. She was cheering me from way down the path. It’s amazing how much a tiny bit of encouragement can keep you going.

Most of the time, though, I’m on my own. I was nervous at first about running in my neighborhood. I was actually nervous about even saying that I am a runner. It seemed like a lie. It reminded me of the time Earlie bought Crystal the Walkman on Squidbillies. If you’re not familiar, Google it. Every time I got ready to run, I wanted to say, “I can’t be joggin’ and flippin’ tapes and drinkin’ my Sip.” But in the beginning, the running part was super short. Not that it felt that way the first time I had to run two straight minutes on my own.

But when you’re out there, covering your neighborhood on foot day after day, you actually get to see a lot of stuff. I’ve had dogs, of course, want to follow along. I saw a piece of delicious chocolate (in the wrapper!) on the sidewalk (I refrained). On Sunday, all decked out in my official 5K training moisture-wicking performance shirt, I saw three sheriff’s deputies blocking the intersection. I asked one if there was something going on that I should know about. We don’t live in an area where much of anything happens. I mean, the McRib finally hit the McDonald’s down the street this week and that was pretty exciting. But, honestly, I could hear cows mooing over the sound of my own freight-train breathing during my run that morning. The deputy said basically they were standing in the intersection to stop drivers and make sure they were wearing their seat belts. Which I thought was kind of weird for 7:30 on a Sunday morning. “Oh, ok,” I said. “I thought you were going to pull me over for how fast I was going.” Blank stare. “It was a joke,” I called over my shoulder.

During my run tonight, I saw a woman and a toddler on the sidewalk. I greeted them heartily and kept on my way. But the toddler yanked his hand away from his mother, turned around, and took off running after me. The mother apologized to me, but it was the greatest part of my run. Well, that and finishing it.

I had 12 minutes on the training schedule tonight, and then a walk for a total of 30 minutes. Tomorrow I’ll make the jump to 15 minutes. And no run I have ever done since that first two minutes (just 29 days ago — barely longer than it takes a man in London to wake up from a coma and find out there’s a zombie apocalypse) has been as difficult for me as that very first one. Not Sunday, when I tried to make a joke with local law enforcement. Not Monday when I made the leap from 10 minutes to 12. And I’m going to wager that even tomorrow’s 15 minutes will be infinitely easier than the time I ran two solid minutes.

Some day I’ll tell you the story of how I got here. Although, to be honest, sometimes I am still not sure of it myself.