the bumpy roads, that i'm back on

and, life, and three months happened.

here are some updates:

1. i ran that Around The Bay relay 15k at the end of march like a complete boss. took me about 1:20, and felt great. my teammate did her back half (with all the hills, mind you) in like 1:11, but we are not going to feel bad! in fact i felt awesome, and this was very affirming because i had been quite worried that my training was insufficient. but i felt like: i could have happily done another 6k! so the spring half marathons will be NBD.

this, you will now guess, was the height of foolishness.

2. training continued as it had been: running enough, but not running far enough. the days after the Around The Bay i was sore, but no tragedy. and so i kept it up -- not running far enough (weather continued to be barking loopy, with hot and ice and sleet and wind and flood and mud and sunshine in a total lottery-type rotation), but still getting miles done. got some new shoes, did some runs with (faster) friends (little bit of pain), fought my IT band a little...

but then! it was time for the April half marathon. run by the police, in fact. two big climbs out of (and back into) the river valley. the course of my first half ever, back to conquer it again, now like more of a pro. right!... well, no, i was still going to be undertrained, but i'd done two 15k-type distances since ATB, so i expected to hurt the last few miles, but manage it fine.

3. 48 hours before the race, i got a fever. ugh. like, shivering/sweating in bed all night type fever. nice, good, great. obviously i had no time for this, but i cancelled all my friday work outside the house and tried to get it together. by saturday night i felt pretty good again, so i decided sunday morning race time was a tentative go.

4. my friend picked me up, drove me to the race, provided a calming presence which let me believe it would be fine. we got the starting line, the weather was unclear, i was obviously going to be too hot as always at march/april races... and we were off! and i was doomed!

at 2k, i thought 'this was a bad idea'. at 4k as we were climbing up out of the valley i was like 'well, my legs are tired today'. at 6k i felt a silent tear of sorrow fall down my cheek -- like in a black and white movie, silent and tragic, it was really moving you guys -- and i thought really seriously, for the 10th time, about quitting.

thinking of quitting 6k in is ... well, you have 15k left. that's a long time to spend deciding if you should have quit, like, an hour ago.

but i didn't quit. i found somewhere in my running soul this bloody-minded determination of endorphins and stubbornness and former fat girl whatsit, or something? ... i don't know where i found it. but i was like: i know the rest of this route, i've run all of it countless times, and there's only one more big hill, and fuck it, you are NOT going to quit. so i ate all my swedish fish, and i drank energy drink at every aid station (which by the way tasted like sweet phlegm -- da FUCK is that flavour? why did its inventor hate people with taste buds?), and i silently cursed, and i never (really) walked, and i finished.

took me 2:02, whereas on a good day i think i should have been able to manage 1:56 or so. but when i finished ... yeah, well first i felt like shit. then i ate oranges and bitched at my friend and her friend and snotted a bit. and then i felt better!

5. but by that night? ... oooooh, not so much better.

two days later i headed for vancouver, where i did work and talked to lots of people and ate out and ran around Stanley Park's gorgeous sea wall. i was stiff sometimes and my throat was sore, but i sort of tried to ignore the fact that my fever would still come back some nights, and i was mostly keeping it together but still somehow ill.

when i got home from vancouver i had 36 hours turn around time, and then i flew across the continent for a two month stay. and once i arrived?... then, the sick really took over. by the end of that week, i had to give in and seek medical help, get immediately diagnosed with strep throat (which was by then killing me) and languish suffering until the amoxicillin kicked in. even after that, there was weakness and constant napping. i did some yoga and practically invented new moves like Napping Warrior.

and so with one sick thing and another -- i missed TWELVE days of running. may 3-15. looking back at my vaguely-annotated history: since 2010, the only times i've gone 12 days without running involved either hospitalization or crutches. this was a serious lack of running.

have i mentioned i'm signed up for another half in two weeks? ahem.

6. so thursday evening, i went for my first comeback run. it was 40 minutes. it was not fast (garmin is banished right now so as not to cause despair). it was in no way impressive except that i did it, and i felt fine afterwards. woot! last night, more yogalates to even things out.

7. so then today i met the friend who is running this half in two weeks with me. it's from Dexter to Ann Arbor, Michigan. we ran it together two (?) years ago. we both had bad races. well, we both executed things incorrectly. for my part, i will say that it was quite hot, and i made an ambitious start, and i held this great pace until mile 11, when... the proverbial wheels came off, rolled into a ditch, burst into flames and got the plague. so, this year was supposed to be a bit of redemption. however we are both feeling a little underprepared (see, all of this post so far)... and we have been having slightly hysterical facebook conversations like: so! we're running DXA2! we're possibly gonna die? yes, true. ok, good, let's die together...

8. right, so we ran today. she has been doing actual long runs, like she's paying attention, and so this week was her longest training run: 12 miles. i thought, probably after one 40 minute run in 13 days, let's not run 12 miles. just a nod to sanity for a change. ... so we met up, and i planned to peel off at some point. the running together was perfectly easy (always easier to run with someone else...) but then when i peeled off i was alone, and i also didn't want to retrace my steps but that meant taking a detour... and so turns out (i just checked) i ran 8 miles.

those 8 miles took me 80 minutes, although there was a fair amount of waiting at those lights and pausing to text, so i think i probably was running about 9:50 average. that's obviously slow, but it's still only my second run in recovery, so i'm going to count this as a win.

9. overall thoughts: running thus far this year has been an exercise in willpower. i have had some great runs, and some great endorphin highs, but it hasn't been the quite the same joyous affair. however, energy is returning, and warm weather is here/coming/about to get gross (uh, 2/3), and i see some good running times ahead.

10. after DXA2, though -- i am kind of without goals. i need another race to aim for! ... i think that's what i'm feeling, anyway. there has been a lot of loose talk about summer 2015 races -- it seems i know some runners with a thing for the Yukon, land of the Midnight Sun (bonus) and Epic Mosquitos (red flag)... but let's burn that bridge when we come to it next year. more to the point, what will i be doing with the rest of my summer?

so: on the lookout for an epic october-type race. and maybe a trail half in september. and something else in july... probably should leave that one till i am back to the tundra, since michigan in july is often like a humid soup full of hot stinksteam, and actually i'd rather run in the snow. ... so! onwards. including foam rolling and real stretching and more weight training and speedwork (eventually!) and nuun-drinking and the whole sweaty thing again

as for right now: recovery calories.