The Active Joe

Bought a Hydration Pack - the new UltraSpire Surge

noreply@blogger.com (Libby Jones) — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 18:26:00 +0000

I have a big race I'm shooting for in 9 weeks, the Gorge Waterfalls 50K.

I planned to use my 20 oz Amphipod handheld that I LOVE. I had sent friends Fiona (@theasgwifey) and Alicia (@trailscaredycat) someone's race report about the 50K. I was telling them I contemplated converting to Ultimate Direction's Wink hydration pack because so many girlfriends have it and really like it (even referred to as #bestpackever in my twitter frunner girl circles). But it was so expensive, $90, and I'd already missed out on the sale when they were changing out an older version of the Wink. And did I need to spend $90 when I had something that worked? And I'd just gotten a good deal on a running vest, so did I need the couple pockets?

From Ultimate Direction's website - the Wink that my friends all love using (older version was lighter blue and grey)

But then Fiona brought up from the race report I'd sent them that there were rock climbing and slippery conditions all over this race course. And it might not be a bad idea to have both hands free! Such a good point, Fi!

I went online again yesterday. Because of the change over into a new version of the Wink, I was finding a lot of stores were generally out of stock right now. Boo. But in looking around, I happened upon the UltraSpire Surge. It just came out on the market December 15, so it's brand new. I was happy to find that iRunFar had a detailed video review of the Surge.

From the UltraSpire website - a picture of the Surge pack in purple. I ordered it in Blue!

I watched it, read the tons of comments after the review, and then Googled around some more. I was worried it wouldn't fit well on a woman so wanted to check, since it's gender neutral. But the two sternum straps are lower than most. I'm more on the flat-chested side, so that's less of a issue. At the same time, I'm bigger than the average woman, both in height and weight. 5'8" and 153 pounds. Reading more and more, it appeared I'd be okay. They have lots of room in their cinch straps.

This pack is constructed by some longtime ultra trailrunners, so I loved the little details. The pulls for the pockets and the clips are even thought through as something you should be able to do with cold numb fingers or while wearing gloves! Love!

So I ordered it, and while supplies are limited until February, I'm hoping I get the email shortly that they are shipping it! I'll post how I like it once I get to try it out!

First Long Run Post-Surgery - Trailrunning with Friends

noreply@blogger.com (Libby Jones) — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 03:59:00 +0000

After sinus surgery January 5, I was cleared to start easy running again Thursday, January 12. So 4 miles that Thursday with a walk/run with Alicia, 5 miles Saturday again walk/running with Alicia, and then decided to join dear frunner girls Alicia, Catherine, and Fiona on a trail run Sunday at Brockdale Park by Lake Lavon - a new location for me.

Picture by Alicia. Out on the trails with my frunner girls!

I was told it was 5 miles south to the dead-end at the next park, and I thought I probably wasn't up for 10 miles roundtrip. But I would see how I felt and do what I could. I could always turn around and walk back so the girls would catch me when they came back running.

This trail is heavily traveled by horseback riders. And with rain early the previous week, the trail had turned into soft deep black clay. And then cover it completely in the pockmarks of 8 inch deep sunk-in hoofmarks. I passed some riders late in the run and asked them about the trail, and they said it's NEVER that bad. Yippee. Welcome to Lake Lavon.

See all the divots!

It was an ankle-turning nightmare of a trail. Welcome back to running too!!! We all managed to get through in good health.

Divot closeup

I actually felt really good, never felt like I really pushed too hard. At 5.07 miles on the Garmin, we weren't at the southernmost park yet. I was nervous about how far I'd gone and how much further it would be, so I said I would turn back and probably be walking a lot of it, so they would catch me soon anyway.

I still felt great on the return trip. All my complaining that I thought it was uphill most of the way on the out portion came true, I wasn't hallucinating, because I was able to try to ride some of the gentle downhill. I had run 1 hour, 19 minutes on the "out" portion of the course and decided it would be cool to negative split the "back" portion. Of course, feeling chased, as I tried to stay ahead of the girls - I didn't want them to have to wait for me by passing me on the way back - that didn't hurt my determination and pace either. So I took less walk breaks than I expected. I finished 4 minutes faster than the out at 1 hour, 15 minutes. And I beat the girls back by a few minutes - that park ended up being another 0.15 or so further from where I'd turned around.

Beautiful view! Beautiful day!

So my third run back was a 10 mile trail run in harsh terrain for 2 1/2 hours. I hope my return to running continues to go this smooth, but we will see! You take it day by day, and you never take an active day for granted!

Overdue: Race Report for New Years Double, From the Race Director - Part 2, DAY

noreply@blogger.com (Libby Jones) — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 02:24:00 +0000

A friend suggested they'd like to see a race report from the actual race director. I thought it was a fun idea. So first I wrote about Why I Love Race Directing, and then I wrote Part 1 - EVE race. Today I tackle the joys of producing the same race TWO exhausting days in a row.

The Unexpected
After going to bed New Year's Eve about 11:30 pm, hubby Steve couldn't get to bed with our two dogs being a little wired up with the ruckus outside of people celebrating and little firecrackers. About 12:15 am, he heard a boom and it woke up the baby. He rushed upstairs to take care of her, raised a fist with a "hooligans", and I went to look out our bedroom window into the grassy area next to our house. I expected to see some kids being idiots, and I'd have to go outside and scatter them. Instead I peeked through the blinds and saw flames.

Panic! Evacuation! We got the kids, and the dogs, and evacuated the house within a minute and a half. Someone had shot a firework too low, and the mortar had exploded in the greenbelt, sparking the dead grass and catching it on fire.

High school kids having a party across the street and neighbors helped put the fire out. Had the wind blown the other way, we clearly would have lost the house. The fire came within 50 feet of the house. It was one of the scariest moments of my life.

That dark line on the left is the burned area, the house on the right, yeah, that's my house.

Learning to Ask for Help
This has been my lesson of the last 6 months. I act like I have everything under control, and I need to learn to ask for help when I'm in trouble. Steve and I got the kids back to sleep after the fire quickly, but we were twitchy, nervous wrecks. I kept looking outside for more fire. I couldn't help it. I posted on Facebook what had happened with a begging for help for the upcoming race day. We were already exhausted from a 19 hour work day making Day 1 happen.

1:30 am, dropped asleep until 4 am. Wow, let's do it all again after the scare of our lives and on 2 1/2 hours of sleep. This truly had turned into, as my friend Mike called it, the "ultra of race directing." At 5 am, I reposted, now to the New Years Double Facebook page, what had happened and asked again for help. It was hard to put myself out there and be so open and vulnerable with tired we were, but I've been learning that people really do want to help, they just need to know you need it! I didn't want to seem overly melodramatic, I mean we were all okay, the house was okay, the kids were okay, but it was the wear on me and Steve that needed to be addressed in the day ahead.

Another Day, Another Attempt at a Great Race
5:30 am. At the race site. Cold. Still shaken from the night. Happy to have asked for help, but still scared enough that I'm almost in tears any time someone brings it up.

6:00 am. Thankful for Ryan, who heeded the call for help and came to help my husband Steve set up all the aid stations. I met Ryan waiting for the airplane back to Dallas from the Hood To Coast Relay, and had only seen him one other time, at the Chupacabra 10K race. But runner friends come in all frequencies of contact! We're all still connected by our love for the sport!

6:30 am. The DJ has told me he has some changes to try with the sound system to help reduce the chance the neighbors call the police on us again. He sets up. Great job as usual, Jon, with your own Plan B, as we had NO calls New Year's Day morning from residents. We really want to be good neighbors and a good community event, so this made me really happy.

7:00 am. Volunteers are checking in and reporting for duty. I'm seeing how smooth it's all going when 70% of your runners have already done the previous day's race. They all already know what to do, what to expect. It's really nice.

8:15 am. The energy isn't quite as high today. Everyone looks kinda sore and tired. But the challenge of the double is too great to avoid.

8:30 am. Volunteers at the second aid station report that runners are saying an arrow on the course has disappeared. Steve runs out to that spot. He thinks it's hilarious how nice all the runners are, yelling out, "It's that one that's missing." and guiding him to the right spot. That's what happens on day 2. Looks like the wind had picked up and just taken that sign straight off the wire frame, or it was teenagers up to no good (happened last year to a couple signs on the old course)!

8:45 am. 5K finishers are coming in. I think everyone's going to mingle over their victory a little, visit with and cheer on finishing 5K friends, get some food, and make their way to the Challenge Plate table. I guessed that one TOTALLY wrong. Beeline of runners to the Challenge Plate table. Luckily, a great group of volunteers are over there. I run to the timing company and ask him to print a couple more copies of the previous day's race results for checking off the Challenge Plate eligibility. So appreciative he could jump aboard Plan B too! Get those back to the volunteeers, I man the megaphone, and start directing people to individual lines to move that line through faster. Luckily, while the volunteers and me are feeling rushed and panicky, the runners seem to be in good spirits. They're hanging out like I thought they would, but they're doing it in line.

Best Group of Runners I Could Ask For
The rest of the morning goes pretty swimmingly. This was really the greatest participants I could ask for. They used the trash boxes, which we helped along by having plenty and trying to make sure the aid stations knew to spread them out. They treated the volunteers immaculately, again helped along by pre-race notes on Facebook outlining the awesome groups that would be volunteering and reminding people to thank a volunteer. Calm, courteous, excited, you guys really rocked.

A Very Touching Moment at 2 PM
In my call to arms about the "almost fire", I had asked for help at teardown time of 2 pm. And help with picking up race signs. And a ton of people turned up. Sabrina brought her battery-operated moped to go out on the trail and pick up signs. Tanya has crutches and walked part of the park to pick up signs, and her friend Lydia picked more up. My sister Elaine ran the 5K to earn her day 2 medal and Challenge Plate and picked up the park perimeter signs as she ran. Elizabeth masterminded the start/finish for those still completing the race so I could help direct all these volunteers that showed up. To Jeanne, Rachel, Susan, and many others I'm not sure I even got your names... thank you! Even hubby Steve was shocked at how quick the UHaul got loaded. I was so out of it and tired, I'm not sure I thanked everyone enough. I tried. I was also really emotional watching strangers come help. I can't tell you how often you look around at about 1 pm, and *zoom* all your volunteers have just disappeared. It's a lot of trash and hauling and work after that point, and I've been there multiple times where there's no one left to do those things. I took a moment and snapped a picture of this awesome crew of volunteers.

Again, Just Because the Course Closes...
...Doesn't mean the race is over. Back to the house. I'm posting race results, checking Facebook and Twitter, checking the email address for the race. Steve and my sister are washing out Gatorade coolers. Then the long trip to Irving to the storage unit (thanks to Heels and Hills for lending many pieces of the aid station equipment), unload everything, and back home. Day ended about 6 pm, at which point the kids were tired and frustrated. But thankful for my parents who let Steve and I go out to a short celebratory dinner, complete with our own glass of bubbly (Cava) to celebrate the new year, and two days where we felt like we changed lives.

Overdue: Race Report for New Years Double, From the Race Director - Part 1, EVE

noreply@blogger.com (Libby Jones) — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 01:29:00 +0000

A friend suggested I should write my own race report about the New Years Double, from my point of view as a race director. Well, first attempt turned into a general, gushy "Why I Love Race Directing." So now that I've gotten that out of my system, on with MY New Years Double race report... (This is DAY 1, the EVE race. Click here for the Part 2, for the New Year's DAY race)

Packet Pickup
I could not believe how many people showed up an hour before packet pickup even opened on Thursday afternoon! Picking packet pickup hours are always tough. You want to balance the best use of the volunteers' time with the right hours that people will want to pick up their packets. Too many packet pickup hours and it'll be hard to get enough volunteers, and your volunteers won't feel very useful if they are all just standing around and fill only a handful of packets in an hour. But too few hours, and it's going to be crowded.

So Thursday was CRAZY. It's really hard to train a whole bunch of volunteers while people are standing in line an hour early. It was really stressful for them - I've gotten used to it, but they were feeling the pressure! And even the volunteers expressed surprise at people who couldn't understand why their packet couldn't be filled early. Do you not see the stack of shirt boxes here and the unorganized bibs? Do we look ready to do packets early? But I get it, it seems really easy and obvious until you try to do 2,000 bibs and shirts and packets in a compressed small area with a handful of volunteers.

Awesome volunteers doing an amazing job at packet pickup

I guess everyone had off Thursday afternoon based on the lines. Looks like we need longer hours on Thursday next time! Meanwhile, Friday was much quieter. But those Friday hours seemed appropriate, with a steady flow of runners.

Friday at the Race Site
Tents went up midmorning. Managing and unloading a race site while having packet pickup across town? Tricky. Happy for return volunteers that I could trust to get it done. Friday night, Elizabeth helped me put out race signs in the dark. Over 100 race signs but I had them organized by section, so it went quickly, which means just a couple hours.

Saturday, EVE Race
4 am wakeup. At the race site by 5:15 am. Packet pickup was a smooth process, and it was evident a lot of people had chosen to pick up ahead of time. There was so much energy in the air. It was incredible.

7:00 am. A lot more volunteers show up. Happy for the help of my sister Elaine, who is my Volunteer Lead for the day.

Alicia, left, sponsor for the National Honor Society students who were volunteering, and Elaine, left, my sister and Volunteer Lead for the race

7:10 am. One aid station has not shown up at the dropoff time for supplies. Hubby Steve, who's in charge of all aid stations and the big UHaul truck of supplies, has to move on to the next aid station and will come back to see if they show. Sister Elaine (Volunteer Lead) and I prep for the possibility of rerouting some of our volunteers to this aid station. Luckily, they are there and going when Steve gets back.

7:20 am. I see Suann of Team Wheaties Fuel and remember I need a pic to show the Wheaties people that the samples they gave us (courtesy of team member Judy E.) made it to the race site to be handed out. So we pose!

7:55 am. The police show up. Oh goodness. Neighbors had called in to complain about the noise from the sound system. The police officer was very nice - he didn't think it was too bad - but we abided and turned it down.

Frunners (Runner friends!)

8:15 am. Time to start the first race. Ready to see how this corral system works in practice.

Choosing the size of each corral and seeing how moving each corral with each wave start is a complete guessing game. It's not like we all have a race director's manual that says, "200 people in Corral B? Give that corral 40 feet of room for gathering." Wouldn't that be nice. It was really cool to see the front runners in each corral. They seemed to enjoy feeling truly elite for the day. And they're all off! As a race director, it's the moment of truth - how many people will fit on this trail? Would my guess be totally off?

8:25 am. Same start process with the 5K. Let's get this party started. Sigh of relief once they've all gone. What's done is done.

Time to get ready for 5Kers to finish. Prep the food, get the medals ready, and prep the aid station for the first loop finishes of the half and full marathoners. The calm before the storm.

When the 5K runners start coming in, the next check for crisis... is the timing system capturing everyone? Yes? Great!

5K finishers are loving their medals, makes me so happy to roam around and see the reactions. How many 5Ks give you a finisher medal AND a tech shirt? And how can you not be inspired to perhaps take on a longer distance watching these fast half marathoners and marathoners come through the end of their first loop?!?

9:00 am. Word comes that a handful of runners have completely blown through some volunteers, cones, and signs and had to be called back onto the course. Amazing to me how much some runners can zone out. Steve heads out to the site and they move around some signs and add some more cones. Life must be different when you run as fast as some of these speedy people, but I don't really zone out to the level that I could miss signs, cones, AND volunteers directing you. So always surprises me.

Half Marathoners Come In - How Is The Course?
10:00 am. Half marathon runners start finishing their race. And how does everyone feel? Do they hate me for giving them a multi-loop course? I feel good that at least the course was well-communicated: you know what to expect. It's 2 loops for the half marathon and 4 loops for the full marathon, and it was documented that it was city-paved concrete trail since everyone's feet handle distance on terrain differently.

So the reaction from runners: they're happy! They aren't mad at me! In fact, the volunteers are so awesome, the energy is so high, that the course is just one big runner party! People are high-fiving, chatting, encouraging each other. They feel like the time passes quickly since they are often looking for oncoming runners to spot their friends. And they love that they get to see their friends often, regardless of their pace. It's exactly what I hoped for. It's a big race (because 1000 each day IS big) that feels like a small race. Even my husband Steve says that each time he visits an aid station, he's surprised how many runners he recognizes seeing again and again.

This race had the best spectators!

They love Marci's awesome handmade neon-colored signs. They love their volunteers. They love the spectators. It's a touching moment for me because I feel like I put a lot of heart into events I help produce, and today feels like a day that the volunteers felt that and reflected that towards the runners, the runners felt that and reflected it back to the volunteers. :-)

What a big sigh of relief!

10:45 am. Short dance party and love fest in the middle of some friends, where I can really jump up and down and feel happy for what's happened today.

11:00 am. Half marathon awards time. People seem to enjoy the awards. Like last year's smaller day-only half marathon, the awards are champagne flutes with the race logo and the word WINNER on them. 1 for half and 5K and relay age group winners, 2 for overall and masters winners in every distance. And 2 for top winners in the marathon. So if you can place both days, you'll get 2 or 4 flutes - you can get a full set. These are cost effective because they are all the same for both days and for overall versus age group winners. I expect annoyance from some top winners at the awards not being specific or special enough, but I don't get it from anyone. That's a good sign!

Does everything end at the course time limit?
Never! Pack up some things, clean up others. Go home to post links to race results, answer any pressing questions across all the platforms (email, Facebook, Twitter). Wash out all the Gatorade coolers so they won't be sticky/ucky for day 2. Load up the truck and take 2nd day medals and Challenge Plates to the race site. Steve and I review all the numbers for aid stations and adjust for the next day based on how day 1 had gone. We then realize that not all the finish line water was delivered, and we're short 12 cases. So a run to the Walmart to stock up, especially in case it's hot. Always better to have too much than not enough. Bedtime at 11:30 pm.

Next... the details of Day 2, the DAY race in Part 2 HERE.

Why I Love Race Directing

noreply@blogger.com (Libby Jones) — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 19:17:00 +0000

I hadn't blogged about the New Years Double and then a friend suggested I do a Race Report from my perspective as the race director. Cool idea! Although finding time for it was harder than I thought. As I sit recovering from sinus surgery and at a moment where I'm awake and not currently on a pain pill, I'll try to spill out my thoughts quickly. I want to tell you about my love for putting together running races, and then next time I sit down, I'll prepare a little race report of my race weekend with the New Years Double.

My Elevator Speech on Me and Race Directing

My name is Libby, and I have a passion for race directing. Yes, I'm a runner and love running too. But what an adrenaline surge to put together a run for others, and then what a fantastic payoff when people cross that finish line and have that huge smile on their faces. It's a moment where you feel like you had an impact in someone's life. Really truly. It's absolutely addictive.

And yes, I can have thin skin. But I'm working on toughening it up. People need to recognize that this race comes from passion and is put on by one person, not a team of staff members. I need to understand that people don't realize when they are critical that I feel like I'm putting a part of myself out there, vulnerable, ready to be rejected. I'm learning that sometimes people want changes that they don't realize will cost them more money to put into place, money they usually don't want to pay. And I'm learning that the races I produce are not the right races for some people. And that's okay. If you're my friend, I hope you'll still support me, but if my race isn't your cup of tea, I get it.

However, if you question my motives or objectives, you obviously don't know me at all. I'm about as open as a person can get, and trust me, if I was making a six-figure salary directing races, you'd all know it. And the entry fee wouldn't have started at $45 either. Instead, it's a chance to raise a lot of money for a great cause, and a cause that is important to me, because I'm the race director and I can choose that. (for this race, the money is actually going to several different awesome causes!)

But I've watched something I create change the life of another. I've seen sobs at the finish line. I've seen people drop to their knees at the finish and praise God (although please recognize that may cause me and the medical staff to come running!). And those race days are each engrained in my memory for all eternity, and they carry me through each of my days and each of my own runs. And I'm thankful for each person who has been a part of it all!

My sister Elaine on the left and me on the right - race day at the New Years Double

Sinus Surgery Update

noreply@blogger.com (Libby Jones) — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 14:36:00 +0000

I'm conscious and not drugged up and feeling pretty okay for a second, so I thought I'd pop in to update how yesterday's eventful day had gone.

Yesterday morning I had sinus surgery where my ENT, Dr. Thrasher, cleared all the gunk that had completely closed up every sinus passage and to further open up the passage openings. He gave me a 70% chance he was going to have to fix my deviated septum in my nose just to get up there.

This surgery was the result of about 18 months of sinus problems. It probably all got rolling with a couple bad colds during my pregnancy with Sophie. Then I just could never quite shake some sniffles since then even with a few occasional sinus infection treatments. Finally, in the last 6 months, I had lost my sense of smell.

Luckily, I have a pretty decent pain tolerance so when Dr. Thrasher saw my CT scan, he was floored. Most people would have been in pretty intense pain with what he was seeing. It was the beginning of December, and we had to postpone the surgery to January 5 because I'm the only one on a day-to-day basis who is making the New Years Double race happen. I'm happy for all the race week volunteers, but there's no one at my level in the process if I was sidelined.

When the doctor went in yesterday, he was amazed at what he saw. I was given the award for worst sinuses of the year by him, har har, and even though it's early in the year, he thinks it'll take most of the year before he has another person to rival my title. In fact, the buildup and pressure was so bad up there that it had now begun to actually bow the bone in my nose. Hmm, maybe that explains the headaches I'd been having off and on for a week. Good news is he didn't have to fix my deviated septum so that should speed up my recovery a little.

Surgery took 2 1/2 hours. I was completely out on general anesthesia for the surgery, so they got me up and moving around after about 1 1/2 hours after surgery was over. Steve went and picked up all my meds - still on steroids, plus Vicodin pain pills, plus an antibiotic. Well, Steve shows me the antibiotic and it's in the family of drugs that contains Levaquin. If you aren't familiar with Levaquin, heed this warning: this class of antibiotics has been found in patients to cause tendon rupture, particularly the Achilles tendon. So it's rare for it to be prescribed to athletes unless there's a lack of communication going on between doctor and patient, or it's really the only option. So you NEED to tell your doctor if you are a fanatical runner, and you should even ask, "Is this Levaquin or related to Levaquin?"

Dr. Thrasher knew all too well about my running, we'd talked about it quite a bit, so I was really surprised he would prescribe that. So a couple rounds with the doctor's call service, and now I'm on the phone with him directly. Looks like a case of managing expectations in my part and not 100% clear communication to a Type A athlete on his part. I had been told 10 days to 2 weeks totally off, and then I'd be able to go back to normal athletic activities. Well, Levaquin has been shown to cause problems for several days after the 10 day dose. So that was my issue with the doc is that I planned, when I was cleared in 10 to 14 days, to go back to heavy weight sets and 20 miles per week of running, maybe with speedwork or hillwork mixed in, and that's seeming to go against this. That's when we finally met eye to eye, and he now told me 10 days until I can start "light jogging" again and ANOTHER 7-10 days until I'm back to completely normal running and strength training workouts. Is there another drug antibiotic he could put me on so I wouldn't have that extra 10 days? No, not given what he'd given me in the past and how bad it was when he went up there in the surgery. So it'll be about 3 weeks before I'm back running. Since my miles were already low through December, I'm anticipating it taking some time to get my base back up.

Meanwhile, recovery's going okay. I'm pretty tired, but I managed to sleep off and on through the night. You bleed pretty continually although it's starting to be less and less each time I change the gauze. Without the mask with gauze across my face, you wouldn't know anything had happened. Bruising on the face would actually be considered a bad sign. I haven't taken a pain pill since 1:30 am, but may do a couple throughout the day if it helps me rest and recover.

And I live vicariously right now through all my runner friends. So I'll enjoy the next 3ish weeks of reading all your workouts, your runs, your races, while I recuperate! ...And I'm pretty worn out now, so back to bed!

Why Bother with 2012 Goals Right Now

noreply@blogger.com (Libby Jones) — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 05:29:00 +0000

I love making goals, I'm goal-oriented, I'm driven by my goals, I don't think goals are rigid and are a moveable, adaptable target, I've even written about running goal-setting in a Texas running magazine. I'm all about goals.

I started 2011 with a 1 month old baby and a fresh bright-red C-section incision scar and 2 weeks of recovery to go. I didn't really make many goals because I didn't really know what to expect when I got running again. I had an amazing running year, but my goals and achievements grew organically as I was learning how my body was going to act this year.

Now I go into 2012 in the exact same place. No fun with another year of not being able to make many goals. I've been light on my running, as planned, in December, as I prepare to direct a large race event this New Year's weekend. I've started with a new trainer who is helping correct many of my biomechanical dysfunctions by strengthening, stretching, and adapting different muscular groups. Let's put it this way: I now have butt muscles. Never did before! And I will be starting 2012 with sinus surgery, postponed a month due to race production demands, on January 5th.

The doctor has said 2 weeks of no workouts of any kind. Then, as an athlete, he doesn't think I'll feel fantastic until at least 4-6 weeks post-surgery.

So yes, goals are on hold. I'm deferring my awesome 1-of-only-250 race entry into late March's Gorge Waterfalls 50K, I had to cancel pacing Derek at Rocky Raccoon 100 Mile in February, and I'm slightly on hold as a runner right now.

I have some thoughts brewing on some fun race plans for May and onward. And still plan some races in March and April that are regular parts of my spring schedule. But let's just see how January and February treat me. Then we can revisit this whole goal thing.

And yes, I'm beyond swamped preparing for Saturday and Sunday's New Years Double races, but I thought it was a priority to get my burning thoughts down on paper, so I prioritize the 5 minutes it took to ramble here. ;-)

Body Composition Changing for the Better

noreply@blogger.com (Libby Jones) — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 05:29:00 +0000

About 6 weeks since my last body fat check, Donnie (my new trainer) and I did a check on Saturday. Since each trainer can do it slightly different on a 7-site skinfold caliper method of body composition testing, we expected we could see a small amount of difference so we're considering this a baseline for future measurements.

Happily, the number was LESS! I went from 22.0% to 20.7%! I'd lost 2 pounds too.

To put it in perspective, since I started strength training 3 hours a week in mid-May, I've lost TWENTY, 20, TWENTY!!!!!!! pounds of JUST body fat, and GAINED 7 pounds in just lean muscle mass and blood volume! That's just crazy to think about. It's like taking my 1 year old baby girl and turning her into just squishy fat ball (but same weight) and I've lost that. Okay, that was kind of gross, but a good visualization for me of what kind of heft 20 pounds is!

Ironically, while the gym's standard report says 19.1% is the low end of optimal (so I'm on the low end of their optimal range with still another 1.6% to go to hit the edge), my BMI is still on that edge between normal and overweight. For the purposes of post-meal, having clothes and shoes on weighing in, I'm still 159 pounds. I'm a solid Athena (over 150 pounds) in the race weight divisions. And that's perfectly fine with me. This is why the number on the scale specifically isn't important. It's if it moves up or down that I concentrate on.

A Good Day in Race Directing

noreply@blogger.com (Libby Jones) — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 05:38:00 +0000

I've had a rough few weeks - it's mile 24 of this race directing marathon metaphor. Everyone has these times where it all just feels too much, it's all so overwhelming.

But today was a good day. After 3 days sick, I woke up feeling better today. After a couple days of routine pre-race crises (yes, each really is a behind-the-scenes crisis, I'm not being melodramatic on that wording, but every race has them in the weeks leading up), today was a good day.

I had a crucial vendor that was stressing me out because I couldn't get the fellow to communicate, call back in a timely fashion, get the equipment committed. I got a new contact today and an immediate callback to the voicemail I left. Oh, so things should go smoothly sometimes? Wow, awesome!

I was able to get an announcement out to race participants that I'd been working on for the last month. What started as a "Hey, wouldn't this be cool?" email to a company turned into a partnership for giving something really fun back to all the registered runners. And it was so fun to see the surprised reaction from everyone to the news, and the excitement. Their excitement gets more even more excited for race weekend!

I got more progress on another offering for the runners I've been working on. One more piece to fall into place, and I can't wait to be able to announce it too.

Then, dinner out at Gloria's with the family. A rare moment where I wasn't so stressing out that I couldn't enjoy it.

Finally, a hard workout - 1 hour of strength training with my trainer. Rocked the 3 one-legged squat sets in between alternating legs 90 lbs each on the leg press machine. Felt strong!

So the bad days do come with a balancing out with good days! I needed that reminder after recent days. It was SUCH a good day!

A Friend's Analogy of Race Directing to Running a Marathon

noreply@blogger.com (Libby Jones) — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 18:04:00 +0000

I called a friend of mine yesterday about the meltdowns I'm having right now with the race in 17 days. Even when we do something we love, some days just suck and I had vented about that yesterday.

So this friend had the best analogy. She said that the process of directing a race is like personally running a marathon.

My Finish Line: Race day, the happy runners, the smiles at the finish line.
Mile 1: Setting this race in motion for this year.
Mile 6: Wow, this is really real. Completely the feeling when I pulled the trigger on announcing the race and opening registration. In a marathon, around mile 6 is when I have the "I'm really doing this?!?" moment.

And right now, I'm at mile 24. And life sucks at mile 24. Even when you're prepared, which I know I am, in that moment of the race, you don't often feel very prepared for those final miles, and even if you're prepared, it hurts anyway.

You have your breakdowns that can happen at mile 24 of your marathon. Where you just need to cry sometimes. It doesn't mean you won't get to the finish line. And there's nothing wrong with having that breakdown. I shouldn't let anyone fault me for having the breakdown, because I'm human.

At mile 24, you aren't sure you want to run a marathon again. Why would you do this again? It's hard, it can be painful. It was an awful lot of work. Of course, most of us after the marathon sign up for another. So it's how we felt in the moment, not how we felt overall about the experience.

So right now, while life is a little rough, and I feel fragile like one more thing out of perfect position will shatter me, I remember that there's just 2 more miles to that finish line. And that feeling at the finish line is awesome.

So "Dear Diary", yeah, mile 24 is kinda not fun right now, and I need to not worry about anyone who feels I have no right to talk about that feeling. This is my blog, my party, I'll cry if I want to. And voicing those thoughts and getting them out into real words versus ucky undefined feelings, is what got me to a place where this friend could offer up the "race directing is like running a marathon" analogy. And it was so helpful I had to write it down. I'm sure I'll be referring to this again at future races I work on!

The Dirty Side of Race Directing

noreply@blogger.com (Libby Jones) — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 17:23:00 +0000

I should start by saying I leave myself very vulnerable when I taught about my experiences race directing. A race director friend thinks runners don't want to know, and if they know, they don't care. I don't find that to be the case. I think once you've seen a glimpse of the other side, behind the curtain, your perspective changes mightily. This is just my reality, every race and every race director is living a different one. But I'm always open, you always know where you stand with me, and this terrible honesty is endearing to some and a moment for attack by others. There's the disclaimers, do what you want with it.

So beginning of last week, I saw the ENT doctor who told me I indeed needed sinus surgery. My sinuses are completely inflamed and closed up and we had tried a strong cocktail of antibiotics and steroids, 5 times a day, for the last month to see if any of it could be fixed or if surgery was the only option. It didn't work. And I'd run two 50Ks through these medical issues too.

The part that sucks, but it's reality, is that I couldn't have surgery immediately because there is no one to take my place as a race director for the New Years Double. There are too many details to pass along and there's too much work to do if I'm sidelined for a short time. And that's if the surgery went well - what would happen if the surgery didn't go that well for my recovery time?

So January 5th I'll have sinus surgery, putting it off a whole month because of this race. I'd like to say the decision was easy - but I'll be honest, it wasn't. In the meantime, more drugs to manage it until we can get me in the operating room. And now I've come down with a cold - which wouldn't normally knock me on my butt, but when you can't breathe through your face and your sinuses are already full and painful, it's completely sidelined me.

A friend who is a race director says runners don't care. They don't want to know what's behind-the-scenes, they just want to go race. And they don't know or care that there are these moments as a race director where you have to choose... Me or Them. And race directors typically choose THEM. I co-directed a 4,000 person half marathon, and was at a race site for 8 hours, just 2 weeks after my first daughter was born. We want people to have a good experience.

And for all this, most of us are NOT doing this as a business. And it's funny because I'm coming to realize over the years the biggest incorrect assumptions runners have made...
a) Someone is getting rich off of every race that's over 200 people or an entry fee over $20,
b) There's a large race committee behind every race who all feel equally accountable and will give up their sleep and personal health
c) That the standards for all races should be the same

A race director friend had someone come up and tell her I must be making so much money off the New Years Double because they multiplied the half marathon current entry fee times the sold out entries. So first you aren't even taking into account 5Kers in the mix, coupon codes, early registration fees. But the part most runners have no idea is that every little piece of a race costs more than you will every think.

For the New Years Double...

Those little plastic pieces with your race number on it that you pin to yourself and many throw away after? $600.
Those silver heat-retaining thin metallic-y blankets a half marathoner or full marathoner will get thrown over them at the finish line? $1000.
Just two tents at the race site? $3,000.

So all that money coming in, it doesn't line anyone's pocket. A lot of it goes right back out the door to pay bills, and then money goes to the beneficiary. And yes, if for being solely responsible and sacrificing my own health choices and working 1,000 hours on an event, if I want to get $1.84 per hour, I should be able to do that without justifying it to the world. It's doable to be all-volunteer for a 300 person 5K that's been in the same logistical set-up for the last 10 years. But new events, large events, and events bigger than a 5K, take hours of preparation people never see.

And why would you expect the same of a small charity event that you expect from a national conglomerate that has a staff of 40 producing a near-similar event in 20 different venues each year? That constantly surprises me.

But these are the days, when I feel awful and sick, that you wonder why you don't raise the entry fee $15 per person, sacrifice quality to make it 4000 runners instead of 2000 on a 12 foot wide trail, and get paid big bucks for the sacrifice. Especially when everyone already thinks you're rolling in dough from working 1,000 hours, and intense hours near race day, working on an event anyway. When 4% of the runners will hate anything you do, because that's just their own unhappiness or them imposing their own expectations on you. When something's going to go wrong behind-the-scenes race week that will stress you to the point that hair falls out - it happens with every single race. But my heart, and my gut, know that's not the intention. I do this because it's my passion, it's my give-back to the sport I love, it's worth every smile at the finish line.

And as I blow my nose and work with the portalet guy this morning on set-up/teardown hours and exact potty locations, it's that visualization of happy runners achieving their goals that keeps me pushing forward.

Update: As someone pointed out, yes, I chose to start volunteering and hten race directing. But as with anything, some days still suck. Why should I talk only about the fun awesome days in this "Dear Diary" that is my blog?

1,000 Miles Since Having a Baby, and a New 5K Personal Best

noreply@blogger.com (Libby Jones) — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 02:40:00 +0000

I thought I was going to take 5 or so days off running and strength training - no work outs of any kind - because I'd been feeling overdone and overtrained since not taking a break just after my first two 50k races just two weeks apart.
But today's Sophie's birthday. She turned 1 year old today. A year ago I had a C-section and our second daughter was born. I am extremely blessed.

But as I've also talked occasionally on the chronic medical condition I face each day with, my health is a constant aspect of this life that I focus on and celebrate. And so I realized tonight that if I ran 1.6 miles, I would hit 1,000 miles for the year. But with the date that Sophie was born, and the fact that I then had to sit out 6 weeks of mandatory C-section recovery, that means I could also hit 1,000 miles in the 1 year since having a baby!!!

So why is 1,000 miles in 2012, and 1,000 miles a year after childbirth a big deal to me? I didn't count miles run before 2009 but in 2009 I ran 457 miles. In 2010, while pregnant, I logged 426 miles + a lot of miles on the elliptical thanks to the pregnancy. So with one month left in the year, and having sat out the first 2 weeks of the year, I'm already over double my biggest previous year!

This has been a great running year for me, and I am thankful every day for that. And I recognize how hard I had to push myself this year to come back from the harshness your body endures physically and hormonally through pregnancy, childbirth, and postpartum, and I look like darling Sophie and see how worth it the fight has been, especially knowing that for the things within my control, I'm giving myself a larger chance of being around for a LOT of her birthdays.

SIDENOTE: I also had an amazing run. Instead of 1.6 miles, after a 1/4 mile slow run warmup, I changed my run posture a little based on a general physiological observation my new trainer had made about me yesterday. And all of a sudden, the speed came from nowhere. I did a personal best in the 5K on this training run, took 49 seconds off my previous best to bring me to 31:09!!! Hmm, might need to run a 5K race this month to see if I can reproduce this and make the PR official!!!

Scary AND Excited at 2012 Race Plans Firming Up

noreply@blogger.com (Libby Jones) — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 20:02:00 +0000

Part of the plans I've already made for 2012 scares me... and yet I'm SO excited.

Two things from yesterday:

1. Gorge Waterfalls 50K - Hood River, Oregon.

After friend Jennifer posted a picture of this gorgeous race on Facebook, I couldn't get it out of my head. I looked at their website and was instantly enamored. I'm not a fast runner, I'm not trying to get a high placing at a race, but I love being out on the trails and how that's the best way to see everything it has to offer.

Check this course description from their website:

This is one special course! When I ran it I was constantly being blown away by how many waterfalls there were and by how amazing they were, I literally lost count within the first couple hours. First, at the start, is 282 foot Wahkeena Falls that you run right past before you've even had a chance to get warmed up. You climb from the start gaining 1500ft in the first two miles(don't worry this is the only climb of this magnitude in the race--the others are much less steep and don't gain as much elevation) and pass the otherworldly Fairy Falls. As you start dropping back down towards the valley floor you pass numerous other small falls and cascades as you make your way to the viewing platform at the top of the 620 foot Multnomah Falls(the tallest falls in Oregon and possible the 3rd tallest in the country!). After leaving the viewing platform the course switchbacks it way down the mountain with views of Multnomah falls pouring out from the cliff. At the bottom of the switch backs you've only gone 4 miles but you already seen numerous amazing waterfalls and have had views of the Columbia River Gorge. You're just getting started!

As the route heads east following the Gorge Trail and paralleling the river it continues to show off many of the best aspects of Pacific Northwest trail running. Super fun single track that rises and falls gently(most of the time) as it weaves in and out of creek drainages. The trail is mostly in the forest but every once in a while it pops out into clearings with Moss covered rocks and views of the river. Sometimes it follows a creek sometimes it crosses the creek on fun bridges. There are many more big waterfalls including the 80 foot Ponytail Falls that you run right under and 289 foot Elowah Falls that you'll run so close to the base of you'll get wet from the mist!

Sounds beautiful and memorable, doesn't it? Now the scary parts...

Major Dallas-sized mountain in the first couple miles - it's not the worst mountain, but for a flatlander like me and to put it at the beginning, that's a little scary. We're talking 1200 feet gain in constant switchbacks over a mile. And then back down the mountain.
Infrequent aid stations - From their website: "There will be two full aid stations(mi 10.9 and 20.2) and three water only aid stations(mi 5.5, 15.4 and 25.5)." I've done two 50Ks and never had to go more than 4.5 miles between full aid stations. So this will take some practice especially since I already know I need to work on my 50K nutrition plan.
The weather - temperatures in the 40s and wet, very wet.
9 hour time limit - this will be tight for me. More speedwork on the trails in my future!

And then the question of can I even go. The video game Steve's producing comes out next year, so it's up in the air what his schedule will be like, and someone has to watch our kids. So there's a solid possibility I won't even be able to go.

But it's worth taking the risk of losing or deferring a $60 entry fee. So when the race opened registration yesterday at 10 am, I was on my computer, punching the keyboard to get in. They had said it could sell out that day, but more likely within a couple weeks. Well I'm glad I went for it because the race sold out within 12 hours!

2. Pacing Rocky Raccoon 100 Mile - Huntsville, Texas.

I'd been planning for a while that I wanted to go to the Rocky Raccoon 50Mile and 100Mile on February 4 to see, cheer, and love on all my frunners (runner friends). And I knew so many first time 50milers and 100milers in that mix too. Quite a few first 100milers. And starting at mile 60, they are allowed pacers.

So then I thought of course I want to help my friends succeed the best they can, I'm a pretty solid consistent pace runner, even though it's a slower than average pace. So I thought that could help someone. Derek's tried a couple 100 milers, and he's a total teddy bear of a guy.

Yesterday I TOLD Derek, yeah, didn't ask, but told him I was going to pace him miles 80 to 100 of the race. He has a multiple 100-miler finisher buddy pacing him miles 60-80 which will be hard to live up to that guy. It's scary to feel responsible for getting someone to the finish line, since you can have your own crappy run day that day. But I know I can do this. Nothing like 20 miles at 3 in the morning through trails and using every skill and strategy in the arsenal to get a fellow frunner to the finish line of his first 100-miler. I can not wait to see Derek succeed at this race!

Different Not Bad... It's Just, Well, Different

noreply@blogger.com (Libby Jones) — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 04:11:00 +0000

Mid-May I finished my first 20 mile run and walked into the gym I had been paying for monthly for 3 years and not going to AT ALL, and said, "I need help." My core muscles were somewhere between weak and non-existent, with just having had a baby 6 months before. And I said, "There are ten weeks until my very first marathon. What do we need to do to make this go well?"

On a recommendation from a friend, I wanted Donnie to be my trainer. Well, we needed to start right away and Donnie was out of the country for another few weeks. So instead, I trained with the head of Personal Training at the gym, Jeff.

Jeff was great at gently working with me on my food, helped me lose 11 pounds and about 8% body fat, and I gained a lot of muscular strength. I was glad I'd ended up with the bigger basketball guy who had run one marathon, Grandma's in a 4:45, and could tell me he thought it was totally hard.

I saw Jeff 3 times a week, almost without fail, those 10 weeks until my first marathon at the San Francisco Marathon. The race did go well with all the running prep I had done and all the strength training prep he and I had worked on together. I had continued religiously to go 3 times a week since then, through now 3 marathons and 2 50Ks in 4 months.

Well, Jeff's moving, and suddenly too. I was excited for him, he's moving back up to Minnesota after 8 years in Texas. But what does it mean for me?

Ironically, I'm back to Donnie, the fellow who was originally recommended to me by a fast runner friend! Tonight was my first session with him, and it was an hour long evaluation of everything that's wrong with me. He described it as a sort of character assassination. He put me through a series of exercises and stretches and watched me run. He took lots of notes AND took the time to explain what he saw, and how it connected to different things I had noticed.

So Donnie's focused on stretching and strength-corrective exercises. He didn't even ask me about my goals in the first session, which is kinda weird. I'm so goal-oriented. But I think this will be good for me. It also gives me hope that I could see some speed come out of these correctons, which is what Jeff believes will happen since he thinks Donnie's very good at this biomechanical evaluation stuff. It appears I'm pretty efficient and doing a decent job with what I have, but what I have is a pile of bones with a series of twisted pieces, "external rotations", "inversions", "eversions", so maybe no wonder I'm almost 1,000 running miles into the year and still never an 8-minute mile in the pile.
... Or maybe we'll do all this, it will let me run an extra 10 years without hip or knee problems, and I'll just always be the speed I am now. Big shrug on that one!

I got home and told hubby about the session. I was a little pouty, and he gave me a big hug. I'm in a couple days mourning period - mourning the loss of a trainer I'd come to love, a routine I was set in and enjoyed, and simply mourning the change in my life before I pick myself up and just move on.

So Donnie's different. And that's not bad, it may well be very very good in the long term. But for now, for me, it's just, well, different.

Thankfulness - for Family, Health, and Friends

noreply@blogger.com (Libby Jones) — Thu, 24 Nov 2011 15:58:00 +0000

On Thanksgiving, I want to give my thanks. I'm incredibly thankful for my family. I've been blessed to have been with my wonderful husband Steve for 16 1/2 years, for more than half my life at this point! We've had two gorgeous children, Marissa (4 years) and Sophie (1 week from turning 1 year old). My sweet girls.

Sophie and Marissa - October 2011

But I have to give so much thanks for my current state of health. This could seem like a warped emphasis on my running obsession unless you knew that I have fibromyalgia and at one time suffered greatly from the condition. I was basically bedridden, dosed to high heaven on painkillers, and couldn't work even for some time.

So beyond my family, my running and everything it has brought me is what I give a ton of thanks for on this holiday. And especially the health I've worked very hard for since Sophie was born by C-section 51 weeks ago. Here's a review of my running for the last year, with an emphasis on the amazing friends who have been part of it all and the journeys I've taken.

SUMMARY OF 2011 YTD:

I made a ton of new friends, and I'm blessed to some new time seeing some of them every couple weeks.
I formed a new running club, North Texas Runners, that has about 130 members.
I ran two long-distance 200-mile relay races (Texas Independence Relay and Hood To Coast Relay).
I ran my first trail race and then found the addiction to trailrunning (Grasslands, Hells Hills, Chupacabra, Rocky Raccoon, Wild Hare).
I ran 5 half marathons (Austin, Dallas Rock N Roll, Grasslands, Big D, North Trail Half) and 2 25Ks (Hells Hills and El Scorcho), bringing my lifetime total to about 30 halfs/25Ks.
I ran my first 3 marathons (San Francisco, Kauai, and Chicago)
I ran my first 2 50Ks (Rocky Raccoon and Wild Hare).
I cheered on my fellow runners (Hottest Half).

JANUARY 2011
Mid-month I was cleared to start running again. 2 weeks later, I discovered that 1 good long run on the last day of the month would tip me over 50 miles on my first 2 weeks back running post-baby. I asked for help, and my friend Michelle answered my call. So thankful for her help in my recovery as we got a long run in on a weekday night in the cold and dark.

FEBRUARY 2011
I had a 6 week recovery from the C-section, and then I came back to do 25 miles a week right away. I did the Austin Half Marathon 5 weeks after I was back running. I traveled with my friend Elaine and even met twitter friends like Arlyne (@acokertx) on the course!

Elaine and I before the race start

Twitter Love!

MARCH 2011
I organized another team this year for the Texas Independence Relay. 12 ladies, 12 friends, 40 relay legs, 203 miles.

Team Mad-Dames

Sharing a van with 4 other ladies brings some strong bonds of friendship. I forever love Elizabeth, Corina, Shannon, and Elaine!

Next was my first ever trail race at the Grasslands Half Marathon. It was my first race also representing the San Francisco Marathon after I was chosen as one of 15 Ambassadors from across the US. At Grasslands, I stayed the night before with Fawn, a crazy awesome trailrunner and mom whose a role model to me more than she may even know.

I was caught mid-bite of bagel. But Greg and Michelle don't look like they're about to do a trail marathon!

Me, Michelle, and Erik

After surviving the sand at Grasslands, I did the Dallas Rock N Roll Half Marathon the next weekend. A cold race, but I was able to hang out with friend Tracy the last 3 miles, and Elaine afterward.

APRIL 2011
My first trail 25K, Hells Hills, kicked off April with a big road trip of friends down to Bastrop, Texas. This race was an eye-opener and made me officially hooked on trailrunning.

Katie, Me, Dat, Julie, Greg, Corina, Derek, Sarah

Big D Half Marathon was my first half marathon so I ran that one again this year, marking my 5th time to run it. It's a chance to see a ton of runner friends too!

Before running Big D

April 2011 was also the first meeting of a new running club I had formed called the North Texas Runners. Frustrated by so many people I met up in Collin County who loved to run but trained alone because the drive to and from Dallas' White Rock Lake wasn't convenient, I wanted to give people a chance to connect, run together, and informally train for the same goal races.

Kickoff Run for North Texas Runners - April 16, 2011

A trail run later in April with good friends is good for the soul!

Me, Erin, Corina enjoying trails at Lake Grapevine

MAY 2011
I ran the North Trail Half Marathon and for the first time ever, had miles before and after the race. That's something I thought was previously for crazies, but it's just part of marathon training! Thankful for Lesley running before and after with me so I could do my first 20 mile run.

Late in the month was a run with the Beer & Bagel Group at Lake Grapevine, although it was more bloody marys & breakfast burritos.

Me, Fiona, Corina, Erik, Michelle K, Stacy, Gretchen, Michelle B

JUNE 2011
I turned 31 at the beginning of June and celebrated my own way. Instead of a party, I hosted two runs and invited all my friends, in an attempt to run 31 miles in my birthday weekend. Thankful for all the friends who didn't laugh at the idea and came to help me accomplish it - 20.5 miles Saturday and 10.5 miles Sunday. It was such a good birthday!

Some of Saturday's Run Crew: Robin, Amanda, Marcie, Shannon, Dana, Me, Fiona

Sunday run crew - Me, Mike, Corina

Later in the month, a long run in Allen with friends.

Catherine, Lesley, Shannon, Me

JULY 2011
I ran my 3rd 25K race at El Scorcho, a midnight race in the Texas heat. It was a hard race for me, my first time to puke on a run, but my spirits weren't shattered. Plus I had shared that evening with so many good friends - thankful for the cheering of friends like Corina, Cassie, Megan, and Marci!

Yay for Tutus! A guy I had just met, Corina, Megan, and Me.

I ran my first marathon at the San Francisco Marathon! It was a great experience.

With my BEST friend and husband

AUGUST 2011
I then set up a gummy-bear-and-ice cheer station like at the Hottest Half again this year. Shannon and Greg joined me and we had so much fun cheering on the runners and seeing friends.

Shannon, Me, Fiona, Corina, Marci

Later in the month, after recovering from being sick, it was great timing for a group trail run at Erwin Park. 16 hot icky Texas summer miles.

Alicia, Me, Lesley, Shannon, Kristi, Sharon

I finished off August running the Hood To Coast Relay with Bart Yasso on the Runner's World Team. I had won a contest when raising money for the Bear Necessities Pediatric Cancer Foundation to earn a spot on the team. It was an amazing experience at a great race, running in the middle of the night and making new friends!

SEPTEMBER 2011
I had come home from the San Francisco Marathon at the end of July and immediately signed up for one of those marathons I'd always wanted to do: Kauai Marathon. Known for being hilly, hot, and humid, it was also tagged as "beautiful but brutal." I had an amazing time, traveling alone and running this unique marathon. But even when I travel alone, there's always time for friends. Bart was there again and got to see and chat with him, I made new friends Joanna and Jessica, and I even ran into Twitter friend Eva (@evatesq) three miles into the race!

Eva and Me at Mile 3

OCTOBER 2011
My third marathon in 70 days! I ran Chicago Marathon, because I had signed up in February when I decided to do San Francisco Marathon because I didn't want to be a one-and-done marathoner. Again, I traveled alone but I'm always with friends. I met up and hung out with Amanda A., Dana, and Amanda H., and got to catch up with SF Marathon fellow ambassador Page over pizza after the race. Running with 44,999 other people is something I will not soon forget.

Dana, Me, Amanda A., Amanda H.

Against my better judgment, I couldn't resist a chance to run with friends and signed up for El Chupacabra, a trail 10K at Rockledge Park in Grapevine in the dark. Luckily, I didn't fall. Unluckily, Shannon did. But I loved getting to run with some of my favorite runner girls.

Catherine, Me, Shannon, Alicia

NOVEMBER 2011
I started out November running my first trail 50K race at Rocky Raccoon. Just like my first marathon, I had a perfect race day. And I'm still amazed my body could let me run for 8 hours, 20 minutes. I traveled with the best running companions ever with Corina, Alicia, and Fiona, and was able to run with each of them at different times through the 31 miles. But I also got to see friends Fawn and Tony!

Fawn, Me, Kerry, Fiona, Tony, Corina, Alicia

Driving home the day after the Rocky Raccoon, I committed to the crazy plan to run my SECOND 50K two weeks later at the Wild Hare 50K in Warda, Texas. So Alicia and I drove down, meeting Corina and Tracy down there. We were able to see a lot of friends at the race, some came to cheer, some to run, and some I hadn't seen in months and months. My goal was to just survive the 50K, because I knew I wouldn't get to do much distance running or racing the following 6 weeks with preparing for race directing the New Years Double. I ran into trouble around mile 27 but Alicia pulled me through, and the cheers of a dozen friends a half mile from the finish gave me the final push to finish in 8 hours, 45 minutes.

Tracy, Corina, Alicia, and Me

To end
So you see, my running has brought me the health I could never have imagined 10-15 years ago. But it has brought me unforgettable experiences and lifelong friends. For these things, I am thankful on this Thanksgiving Day!

Wild Hare 50K Race Report: Rescued by a Banana, Coke, and a Trail Scaredy Cat

noreply@blogger.com (Libby Jones) — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 00:05:00 +0000

After finishing our first 50K two weeks ago at Rocky Raccoon in Huntsville, on the drive home the next day, Alicia (@trailscaredycat) and I excitedly decided to run Wild Hare 50K with travel companion and friend Corina (@UltraMamaC). Okay, it's my fault - I'm the crazy who suggested it. For me, I already knew end of November and all of December were going to be somewhat of a running hiatus for me. I can't be a fulltime stay-at-home mom to two small children and direct a 2,000-person race weekend like the New Years Double without sacrificing running time for race preparation time. So Wild Hare was one more chance to just do a fun race with friends.

I'm not sure a lot of people realize how much time and effort I put towards my race recoveries. An ice bath directly after Rocky Raccoon 50K and another that night, epsom salt soaks 4 times a week routinely, easy recovery runs and very low miles the last two weeks. I strength train with my personal trainer 3 hours a week. Heavy hydration as part of my routine. And I never skip my weekly tuneup with my sports chiropractor.

So I went into Wild Hare Saturday feeling good. Alicia and I drove down Friday afternoon, Corina and Tracy (25K) drove down later that evening. In bed by 9:45 pm, then giggling and chatting in the dark until about 10:30. I tossed and turned all night, before we got up to alarms at 4:30 am. Yawn.

The race didn't start until 7 am, so the sky was just lighting up enough so that we didn't need any headlamps. Such an energy saver and mental help. We picked up packets about 6:15 am and caught up with friends. I had about 30 friends at this race running or spectating, many of whom I hadn't seen in forever or had never actually met (welcome to the running world thanks to Facebook and Twitter!).

Tracy, Corina, Alicia, and me

We lined up in the horse barn, yes, horse barn, and the 50M folks came running through the stable at the end of their initial 5 mile loop before our gun went off. So it was a great moment to cheer first time 50Milers like Rick and Tony and hug dear sweet Fawn. Then it was our turn, a quick out-and-back one mile then back through the start to begin the 4 loops of the course to bring our final total to 31 miles. Each loop was 7.4 miles.

Weather
It was a horrible race day in terms of weather. It was hot and humid, and so muggy with thick low-hanging clouds. 65 degrees at the start with 80% humidity. Humidity never broke but we got up to 80 degrees for the high. I've always said humidity was my kryptonite. I felt like I was breathing heavy air the whole day, making for a feel like there was a weight on my lungs. And had to use my wristband to wipe sweat off my arms and forehead periodically.

Field at the start of each loop. Look at that sky - this was about 9 am.

The Course
We thought we'd heard this was one of the easiest Tejas Trails courses. After having done Hells Hills (a Tejas Trails race) and Rocky Raccoon, I can say that in the first loop, I was kinda all "This is fun", but I hadn't thought about having to redo each terrain feature for FOUR LOOPS. Brutal. Severe hills, elevated bridge, creek drop-ins and -outs, awful switchbacks.

If you had asked me the course in my 3rd or 4th loop, I would have stared at you blankly. But now that I'm coherent again... After 1/2 mile of field around a pond, we would go through the longest 3 miles EVER of winding winding twisty turny wooded trails filled with rocks and roots. One section in there was called "Spaghetti Bends" even.

At mile 3.5, you come out of that to an aid station that's within sight of the finish line, makes it way too easy to DNF at that spot as I later learn. Then it's a small field before entering a major steep switchback on a big benchcut cut into the side of the hill. First, a concrete pour down the steep embankment with a sign "Enter Slowly". Then it's major rolling hills with a cliff a foot to your right, so step carefully.

Then alternating small fields and small woody sections. At mile 4.5, a massive uphill. So hard on the Achilles! Even the fast people were walking that one!

That's one big hill. And remember, all features are done FOUR TIMES!

Some more fields and woody sections before a giant swaying bridge of wood and wire.

You want to go across this? This uphill bridge elicited major groans in Loop 4!

Briefly spot the finish line at about 6.5 before being sent into a section of twisty turns in the woods labeled "Roller Coasters".

Come around a small fishing pond so that about 0.6 miles from the finish line you would hit the glorious cheering crew of friends. First and second loop, it was Stacy, who had come to cheer and wasn't running because of her gizzard leg (ongoing joke about her off-and-on injury she's been working through). Third and fourth loops, it was filled with friends!

And then through the horse stable to cross the chip mat and see the clock. Then you'd go 20 feet to your drop bag, make any adjustments and get anything you needed, and then do the loop again! and again... and again. ;-) 4 times total.

Loop 1
So 1.5 miles in, I ask Alicia if Corina's behind us, and she stops and turns to look, and is immediately in pain. She's managed to tweak her knee. We don't know what to do - I have her try a couple stretches, and trailrunners are awesome because everyone passing us is asking if she's okay. She's clearly in pain. She said it was like the knee needed to pop back into the socket. She gets running again, and we take some scheduled walk breaks and I can tell how much she's having to work through it. Poor thing.

This isn't posed AT ALL. ;-) Goofing off 2 miles into the race, when all three of us were still running together!

Corina falls quite a bit behind within the first 6 miles or so. But Alicia and I are still together. Finish the loop - I run to the bathroom, take a GU, refill water, take a little Gatorade, find my sunglasses, grab some potato chips, and hit the trail with a handful of chips. So far, so good. Just 3-4 minutes there and taking extra food, meeting my goals to 1) spend less time in camp, 2) eat more at each aid station. We're at 2 hours roughly, which is perfect pacing for us, with 8.5 miles done.

So happy to see Stacy at the end of the first loop at their camp site. I asked her to take our picture because "I don't know how much longer we'll be smiling"! Photo by Stacy

Loop 2
I can tell Alicia's knee is really starting to bother her. And about mile 10, I lose her behind me. I'm powering along and continuing to feel good for the weather we were having. I kept the pace consistent through this loop. At the end of the loop, I change into fresh running shoes, change from my 10 oz bottle to my 20 oz handheld since it's so humid and we're all sweating hard, refill the water bottle, have some Gatorade, and grab more potato chips as I hit the trail again. 8 1/2 minutes in camp. Not great, but I used the time efficiently. And I'm still keeping perfect pacing because it's 4 hours when I start the third loop, now at mile 15.8.

Finishing Loop 2. Photo by Claudia

Loop 3
I get passed in the initial field section by my friend Steve and his friend Billy. This is his last 50k loop - Mr. Speedy. I tell him I hate him. I regret that half a mile later. I'm a little moody, ya think? When we started the race, I thought the twisty wooded section was fun. But now I feel like it's the longest 3 mile section of my life. I keep an okay pace and make it to the aid station, which is mile 19.3.

A mile after this, doing the hard benchcut down the hill and then the hard climb back up the hill, and now I'm feeling super tired. Low back and feet hurt. My Achilles tendons feel the size of grapefruits. I call my husband, I tell him I hurt and I'm tired and I feel kinda woozy, and I might not do the last loop. He motivates some but also says it's okay whatever I decide. I'm walking now at this point. Feels like each mile takes forever.

I go over the massive bridge and then a fellow comes up from behind as I'm now walking and just starts following. We chat, his name is "Jimmy Choo" (name changed to protect the innocent, he doesn't want his friends to find out he walked his first 50 miler), and he's cramping bad. He has 2 loops to go and is happy at that moment to just follow someone and walk and have the company. Well, now I have a purpose. So I do better about lightly running the downhill and fast walking the rest. We hang together for 1.5 miles until I see my friends at the campsite 0.6mi from the finish. I tell them I'm not sure I can stomach another loop. I'm feeling awful. They try to motivate me but it's just not working.

The pics, and my hips, don't lie. Photo by Corina

But I can still muster half a smile. :-) Photo by Corina

I finish the loop and there's Alicia. Both Alicia and Corina have DNFed the race at this point. I'm the last of our small group of 50Kers. Alicia is asking me what I need. I still haven't decided to go back out, I tell her. She asks if I want to sit in the camp chair. And then I say, "If I sit down, I won't get back up." And that statement seals it - okay, I'm gonna do the last loop. I'm 6 hours, 19 minutes into the race. And at mile 23.4. Only 7.4 miles between me and the finish line.

Loop 4
I have zero momentum. "Jimmy Choo" catches up to me right after we start to thank me again for our time together walking and he's decided to try to keep a faster pace so heads off in front of me. NO! More time alone? Yes, I can run alone. But a total of 21 miles alone in the woods, and with no music, can eventually drive you bonkers on an already hard race day. I spend a half mile trying to catch up with him. I shuffle until he's close but he's really moving so I give up the chase.

The 3 flat-ish miles in the twisty-turny woods is worse at this point than the extreme up and downhills of the later miles. I'm down to a slow walk.

A runner goes by me and we exchange the usual "Good job", and then I realize it's Henry. He's doing the 50-miler and is a REALLY strong runner. I ask, "How are you doing, Henry?" And then he bursts out "I feel like crap!" LOL, such an honest assessment, and a nice relief that everyone is suffering today.

A bit later, a runner shuffles up behind me. He follows my walk, I have nothing more in me, but after a half-mile, I'm kinda surprised this person hasn't said anything. I make it a practice to NOT look behind me on the trails. I'm tired and don't want to fall. I'm feeling a little annoyed with my silent follower and I get to a major creek drop-in and -out and I move to the side and say, "Here, you go ahead." The guy turns to me and gestures and mouthes, "I'm deaf." Oh. Well, that would explain the silent following. But I'm so out of it at this point, I feel like I must be in an alternate universe, what are the chances?

Still 2 miles to the aid station. I'm really feeling ill. My Garmin has now died, probably about 7hrs,15min into the race. I'm still moving forward but I actually am starting to feel very strange. Almost out-of-body experience, like I'm dissociating completely from what I'm going through. I'm woozy and feel kinda like I could lay down on the trail and sleep forever. My head's really fuzzy, and I can't form good clear thoughts anymore. It's very hard to describe. My body feels stressed and I can't keep my heart rate down, I'm also really hot. And of course, everything hurts. I call my husband and tell him as I tear up, "I think I might DNF at the aid station." He wants me to take care of myself and says to do whatever I need to do. I actually don't remember the phone call at all except the reason why I called him. I pull out my phone (I'm now at 7 hrs, 25 minutes) and tweet that I think I'm going to DNF in a 1/2 mile at the aid station. Alicia tweets back, "You got this. I'm coming."

My hero!

Alicia talks about what happened at the aid station from her perspective in her blog, but here's my version. I come around to the corner at the aid station, and I looked like death warmed over according to Alicia, and I can believe it because I felt like that. She asked, "Are you okay?" And all I could do was drop my head and shake it slowly side to side while tears welled up. I say, "It's a deathmarch."

Alicia: "You have 3 miles."
Me: "No, I have 4. It'll take me two more hours at this pace."
Alicia: "Then it'll take 2 more hours. That's okay." That's a relief when I'm her ride.

Alicia: "We should have him pour water over your head" as the aid station volunteer, a runner himself, jumps in to help me. I nod and he says to lean over and I do. I would have done anything he told me to do, I was completely out of it. He pours a whole pitcher across my neck of cold water. I gasp and gasp, but I immediately start to feel alive again.

He's asking me how many loops I have left, how many miles I have left. I'm so fuzzy I'm having a hard time answering so Alicia's filling in details. "Oh, you can do four more miles!" he says enthusiastically. He shoves two salt caps in my hand (which I never have used before) and has me take them.

Then he shoves a banana in my hand and says to eat it. While he attends to someone else, I say to Alicia, "I hate bananas." And I proceed to peel and eat the quarter banana.

The volunteer pops back over to me. "Did you eat the banana?" Turns to Alicia, "Did she eat the banana?" We both say yes. He says, "Okay, we're going to do a cup of coke, it will give you some energy." "Okay", I say. I turn to Alicia, "I hate Coke." And I gulp down the whole cup.

He says, "Want another?" I say, "No, it'll make me sick."
And I don't know how they did it, because neither of them laid a hand on me I think, but they somehow then pushed me out of the aid station! And I was running - slowly - but still running.

I ran most of the next 4 miles. I was passed by an older foreign gentleman, who passed me, turned around, and sang and danced a jig. That was odd. About a mile out, I saw him powerwalking the ridge above me, and he yells in a strong accent, "I am waiting for you!"

I pass the deaf guy about two miles out, and we exchange a smile and a wave.

I'm a half mile from the campsite my friends are hanging out at on the trail. I hear them all hanging out, they're loud, I'm guessing some having been drinking beer for QUITE A WHILE. It gives me a boost, and I yell "MARCO" (something Corina, Alicia, and I had jokingly done at Rocky Raccoon and at the early miles of this race when we were separated). And I hear a ruckus, but not sure it was a "POLO". I'm told they did hear me though.

I come around a bend and they can spot me but I'm not there yet. I'm told I looked like I was running strong.

Then I weave around and there they are. I'm so beyond exhausted and can't even focus on people's faces, but I'm loving the cheers and I crack a smile. They make an arch 4 pairs of people long with their hands, and I run through it. Love my friends! Corina's snapping pictures.

I tell them all this has been the 2nd most miserable experience of my life. The first of which was the labor to have my first child - which was 27 hours, epidurals that failed, and a broken tailbone in delivery. LOL.

I run the next 0.6mi, and then there's Alicia yelling for me as I run through the horse stable and across the finish mat. And I burst out crying, sobbing that it's over. 8:45:56 - almost 9 hours of straight running and walking. I placed 72nd out of 79 finishers out of 93 who started the race. Only 85% even finished the race.

So glad that's done! Photo by Alicia

Alicia and Michelle are asking me what I need, and I'm saying, "I want my medal. I want my freaking medal!" HA! They walk me over and my friend Jorge drapes the medal around my neck.

Earned every square inch of this medal!

So happy to be done. I just wanted to get home. I still needed to drive 4 1/2 hours to get Alicia and me back home! So we hit the road, and I'm happy I could be in my own bed that night.

I'm happy with my achievement, with doing what I could do with what was an awful race day. With doing my 2nd 50K only 14 days after my first, my only goal had been survival. And later when I looked at my results again, I was only 25 minutes slower than Rocky Raccoon 50K, which is only 48 seconds per mile slower for being 15 degrees hotter and more humid, and to me a much harder course.

And I'm so happy I had this experience surrounded by so many friends.

The Problem I Didn't Know Was a Big Problem Because I'm a Runner

noreply@blogger.com (Libby Jones) — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 00:04:00 +0000

This is a venting post... Watch for falling rocks and rambling and run-on sentences...
When I got pregnant with each of my children, my allergies went haywire. I went from never really having seasonal allergies before, to bad congestion and probably off-and-on undiagnosed sinus infections. So this happened with the pregnancy of Sophie last year but never really got better after she was born. I thought it was just another round of bad seasonal allergies. Or like 2 months after Sophie was born, I got a really bad cold that became a sinus infection. Or before the San Francisco Marathon when congestion became bad again and I ended up with a steroid shot. Or a few weeks after that when I came down with a bad cold again.

Well, 20 months after this routine of sinus "annoyance", because that's all that I would term I was experiencing, Steve and I thought back through the last few months and figured out that I had lost my sense of smell. I think I'd lost it a long while before but I was always so congested we couldn't notice. But when we thought back, even the times I wasn't congested, I couldn't smell anything, even the horribly strong smells.

So at a checkup for Marissa's tubes in her ears, I asked her ENT if he sees adults. He did and asked generally what the problem was. When I told him I'd lost my sense of smell, he wanted me to schedule an appointment right away. In the appointment, he couldn't see much with his scope but ordered a CT scan.

This evening he called with the results. I had extreme inflammation in ALL my sinus cavities, he told me. It was actually remarkable how bad it was for how I described the mere "annoyance" of symptoms and the fact that in the end, it was only the lack of sense of smell that ever even brought me in. He actually thinks the great health I'm in because of all my running made me have such a complete lack of symptoms besides losing the ability to smell things. It made it harder to come to light sooner. It means I have not suffered through this the way others do. But he's amazed at all the running I'd accomplished with the disaster behind my face that the CT scan had revealed. He said he almost always sees this type of major inflammation with people who report severe facial pressure and pain, terrible congestion and drainage, and people who are overall miserable with all the symptoms of it. And often sinus inflammation this bad causes some lung / breathing issues, which would explain the wheezing I've had a bit of for the last month he said, which again I chalked up to allergies.

So I've been given a month of a strong cocktail mix of antibiotics and steroids to see what we can accomplish in fixing it. But he told me it's highly likely that I'll need sinus surgery where they would go in and clean all the gunk out and widen the openings of all my natural sinus cavities. That sounds awful. He said to not throw out my spring race plans; surgery would only put off training for about two weeks.

In the meantime, I can do my 50K race in 9 days. I'm NOT on an antibiotic that causes tendon rupture (runners, always check about this since there is one that can cause major problems for athletes) and none of the drugs should have side effects that would cause a problem running for 9 hours straight, LOL.

I think I'm most upset because I just feel blindsided. I just thought I'd need to be on a nasal steroid spray for a while to clear up some minor inflammation, and then I could breathe again. I feel like doctors often warn about the possibility of a worst case scenario but don't want to delve into it much if there's a good chance it can be avoided. The fact he thought surgery was very likely and was willing to talk about it in more detail scares me.

I know there are people out there going through much worse things, but as a generally pretty healthy human, I think the fear that comes with the word "surgery" is completely understandable.

So that's where I stand tonight. Contemplating the news, recovering from the shell shock, and just preparing for whatever comes next.

The 50K: So Nice I'm Running It Twice - Heading to Wild Hare

noreply@blogger.com (Libby Jones) — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 16:57:00 +0000

On the drive home from finishing our first 50K the day before at Rocky Raccoon, Alicia and I chatted with Corina about future race plans. I had been very clear that I was not making any 2012 race plans until I finished this 50K. I didn't know where I would want to go next in my goals until I did this race. Did I want to someday do a 50 mile race? Did I want to do many more trail 50K races? Did I want to do frequent marathons like I'd been doing the last few months?

Corina is signed up for the 50K at Wild Hare, put on by Tejas Trails, in Warda, Texas in 2 weeks. Alicia and I looked at spring races and considered what to do next. Alicia had decided she wasn't so interested in road marathons and wanted to stick with trail 50Ks. I had said I needed to lower my weekly mileage between now and New Year's because my usual time spent running was going to need to be more dedicated to the work and details of race directing for the New Years Double race. Especially since people have been signing up way faster for this race than I had expected, and I'm feeling good that the race will max out at the participant limit. In addition to being a fulltime stay-at-home mom, that's a lot of work still to be done to get us to race day!

Alicia and I brainstormed some fun things to do in the spring. We're feeling a lot more recovered the day after than we had ever expected. So somehow it just came up... why not run ANOTHER 50K in 2 weeks at Wild Hare?

Well, that's a lot of time away from family. Okay, so we drive down late afternoon the day before, and we drive back that evening after the race (4 1/2 hour drive). Ugh, but doable. And with a 50-miler that same day, we have a much longer time limit so we can take it slower if we need to.

So Alicia and I went home, checked with our families, and signed up yesterday to run the Wild Hare 50K 14 days after our first 50K.

Are we certifiable? Probably! Do we need a running intervention? Perhaps!
But I'm having too much fun to really care!!

Rootin' for My First 50K Finish

noreply@blogger.com (Libby Jones) — Sun, 06 Nov 2011 23:56:00 +0000

Yes, there's a pun in that title. I had decided towards the beginning of 2011 that I wanted to run my first 50K (31 miles) while I was 31 years old. So I had from June 6, 2011 to June 5, 2012 to make it happen. I knew Corina would be doing Rocky Raccoon 50K November 5, and it fell at a good time after Chicago Marathon so I chose that one for my first back around April. It's 2 loops of 15.5 miles through Huntsville State Park, so only about a 4 hour drive from home.

Back in May or June, I'd met Alicia when we got together one evening for a run. She was definitely interested in Rocky Raccoon 50K when I mentioned I was pretty settled on the idea of going for it. Then in the final weeks before our girls' trip, Fiona joined in the fun too. So we had veteran Corina with 2 previous 50Ks and then Alicia, Fiona, and me going for our first 50K.

We drove down to Huntsville midday Saturday. After mandatory stops at Colin Street Bakery in Corsicana for lunch and dessert and Buc-ees in Madisonville for snacks, we arrived, checked into the hotel, set out our gear, and went to the State Park to pick up our race packets.

Alicia, Fiona, Corina, and me

Imagine how gleeful I was when they gave me my bib. #31! For the girl who wanted to do her first 31 mile race while she was 31 years old. It certainly felt lucky!

Excited! "Please let this be a sign for good things to come tomorrow!"

We had dinner at Farmhouse Cafe, behaving ourselves by avoiding many of the fried home-cookin' and pies/cakes in favor of normal pre-race fare like grilled chicken with baked potato and lots of yeasty rolls.

In bed at 8 pm, asleep by 8:45ish. We woke up at 4 am. Out the door at 5 am, all leading up to a 6 am start. Weather had been hard to predict for this race. Two weeks ago we thought it would be hot. Then even the night before, we thought it would be decently cold, like low 40s. Instead, it was 53 degrees with barely a breeze. Okay, that's still better than my race conditions at Kauai AND Chicago, AND better than it was predicting of mid-60s ten days out. I'll take it.

A 6 am start means we spend about the first 5 miles in the dark. And the first few miles? Rolling hills with LOTS of roots. I lead our group of 4, keeping the charging horses named Fiona and Alicia at bay. ;-) Both are faster runners but neither had done as many miles as Corina or myself in the last couple months (26.2 for me, 27 for Corina), so our jobs were to keep them reined in for the first loop so they didn't go out all "happy puppy" as I like to call it, aka too fast. But in the dark, even with my bright headlamp (love this new Black Diamond Sprinter), I discovered I have NO perception of when we were going uphill versus downhill. So Fiona would tell me anytime we were going uphill so that we'd go back to a fast hike instead of wasting energy running the uphills.

The first mile is mixed broken old asphalt trail along the main road. Right before the ranger station at the entrance we cross the main road into the very rooty area I mentioned. About 2 miles in we turn onto an old jeep road. This is a major out-and-back section. We learned our mileage by landmarks. Mile 2 begins the old jeep road with the woman with the cowbell and the sockmonkey (later learned that it was Paula Boone, she and her husband direct the New Year's marathon in Kingwood). Mile 3.5 is a turn and a lone port-a-potty. First aid station is at mile 4. We're all in good spirits at the first aid station. See?

All smiles. But how long would that last?

About mile 6, Fiona and I broke away from Alicia and Corina. Then we took a wrong turn and got off the course for a second. We come out on a jeep road and we're complaining we can't find any markers, and then we see Alicia and Corina come out of the trees 50 feet in front of us. Oops. Looks like we were off course maybe an extra tenth of a mile. Glad it was so short! Fiona and I get out ahead again, and we rock along pretty well through the second aid station at mile 8, and the third aid station at mile 12.7. Fiona leaves me just a little ways after that, luckily after I catch her as she runs straight past a bright yellow "Right Turn" sign in the ground!

I'm finishing up the first loop and am zoning out and I hear "Smile, Libby!" Greg (Fiona's husband and a fellow frunner) has come down to surprise Fiona!

3 hours, 48 minutes. I finish the first 25K (15.5 mile) loop, potty stop, get some water, take a GU, I feel like I'm rushing. I find my change of shirt, socks, and shoes. I rip off my short sleeve NTX Runners shirt and change into my San Francisco Marathon Ambassador's singlet since it's starting to warm up some. I sit down in someone's camp chair and hope they don't come back to notice. I rip off my shoes and socks. Feet feel good, no blisters. But I can't get on my new socks with sweaty feet. So I bodyglide up my feet, slip on the socks, and switch out one pair of Brooks Launch for a different pair of the same shoe style. Aww, like little air mattresses of cushy happiness!

Corina's sitting on my cooler, I can't find my sunglasses. Where's Fiona? Is she in the potty? What about Alicia? Me saying "I feel like I'm forgetting something." It's just chaos. I feel like I'm wasting time and/or waiting for others because I prefer to run with a friend than spend another 15.5 miles only a minute ahead or behind a friend and not know it the whole time.

And in the middle of base camp chaos, Corina's taking pictures. SMH.

Corina, Alicia, and I are 80 steps from our drop bags with Greg, and he takes our picture. Then I realize I forgot to refill my pockets with GU energy gels. I look back at the race site. Corina says, "Want to go back?" Me: "No, we've gone too far." We head out. I'd spent 18 minutes at base camp. :-(

Ready to Start Loop 2

About a mile and a half in, Alicia falls on one of the hundreds of roots. She's hit her knee, but we don't see blood and she actually feels like the sand has cushioned her fall.

An example of the many many roots on this course!

At the second aid station at mile 23.5, Alicia says, "There's just 2 behind us, one's a walker." And one of the volunteers visibly sighs. We feel bad for her and thank them all for being out there all day, and we know it was a gut reaction. I think she actually felt bad for that because she was rather sheepish after that. We chat for a couple minutes while we snack on potato chips. They have two Hammer Gels on the table, and since the next aid station is 5.5 miles away, I take it, even though Montana Huckleberry flavor sounds awful.

Aid Station 2, Mile 23.5, I think I have potato chips in my mouth!

After the aid station, Alicia and I pull ahead of Corina. Around mile 25, I tweet and Facebook our current status. I tell Alicia, "I tweeted our time and that we're at about mile 24ish". She says, exasperated, "24ish? We were at 24 like a mile ago!" And I say, "Yeah, so 24ISH." Can you tell we're getting tired?

Then I try to open the hammer gel. I wrestle it with my teeth. Then Alicia uses her teeth and gets it open. All's fair out on the trail. I take one sip off it. "EWWW! Disgusting!" It's awful. I don't take anymore. I have to carry it another couple miles with the top of it flipped closed because if I put it on my pocket, everything will leak out and get me super sticky.

About mile 26.5, I'm losing steam, and Alicia goes ahead. A couple minutes later, I don't want to be left behind, and it gives me motivating to keep my running going. A random runner out on his jog coming the other way passes me and says, "You can catch her. She's just 50 feet ahead!" Whoa, thanks for the motivation! A short bit later, I can spot her from time to time between the trees. But I just can't close the gap.

Instead of 5.5 miles between aid stations 2 and 3, it feels like 20 miles. All I can think of is there's supposed to be a "water only" stop 4 miles after the aid station 2, so where is the water jug?!? And once I finally got there, I knew I still had to pass the marshy area and some more wooded area to get to the 3rd aid station.

All through mile 27, I'm obsessed with the idea that the race director will pack up the timing mat and finish line. I've done the math and realize I won't make his 8 hour time limit. Now this had been a worry of mine a couple months ago. I had emailed Paul, who directs the race. He was so super nice. His response had been, don't worry, we stick around for a while. He understood your pace can just fall apart in those last 10 miles. But I was becoming increasingly terrified that my finish, when it finally came, wouldn't "count" in an official way.

I'm almost ready to burst into tears out of stressing over this when I get to aid station 3. I ask them to make sure Paul doesn't pack up the finish line. They tell me not to worry, Paul's nice about that. One girl hanging out there says she has finished the 50K there in over 8 hours before and Paul waited for her. And I point to them all and say, "Well you call and tell Paul he HAS to wait. I'm on my way."

I run / walk my way to the last course monitor at the turn onto the trail by the road near the ranger station. The course monitor says, "You have just one more mile." I decide to run the entire last mile. I plod along across that section of rolling hills with broken asphalt trail. I feel like it's 5 miles. Until the woods open up and I can see that last 500 feet to the finish! I hear all my friends calling my names, and I actually feel like my form looked pretty strong coming in, and I was able to give a decent kick into the finish line.

8 hours, 20 minutes, 57 seconds! I placed 85th out of 87th, and I don't care about that at all. But I am amazed that there were only 17 women in the whole 50K.

So I actually expected to cry as I finished but I didn't. I had spent the last couple miles of the race thinking about crazy this past year has been. I have an 11 month old baby and in less than 100 days, I had completed an amazing 200-mile relay, my first 3 marathons, and my first 50K trail race. And I'd trained and raced with some of the greatest frunners (friend runners) anyone would be lucky to know. I LOVE this photo of all of us after we finished.

Frunner Greg took this picture. From left to right: Fawn, me, Kerrie, Fiona, Tony, Corina, and Alicia.

We went back to the hotel, got cleaned up, and I did my ice bath. Yowza. But so worth it! For dinner, we went BACK to the Farmhouse Cafe and had all the fried awful foods we couldn't have on race eve. Yeah, I totally had fried avocado with ranch dressing as a starter, followed by fried shrimp with two sides of onion rings. Oh, and peanut butter pie to go. YUM! I had earned a major cheat meal!

Another ice bath before bed, then Sunday morning we drove home. I actually felt pretty good, just a little sore and stiff. And happy and proud. :-)

Big thanks to Corina, the source for basically ALL these photos. She is the Picture Queen!

Happy Running!

Other Experiences from the Chicago Marathon

noreply@blogger.com (Libby Jones) — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 02:08:00 +0000

After posting my own 2011 Chicago Marathon race report, I asked out on Twitter for people to send me links to their own race reports, so I could read other runners' experiences. Here are the ones who sent me their reports - it was so fun to see so many shared details and a chance to be reminded of some specifics I'd forgotten and/or blocked out!

Phat Girl in a Little Coat: @brownsarahk ran her first marathon. She learned that the data on each Garmin screen should be set to the race conditions (I had changed my usual screen set-ups race eve). Sarah also saw someone trip one of the bridges. @abe_cortes had a great blog post about course race tips, and his warnings about the bridges and their metal grates helped me immensely! And I can totally understand her sentiment here: "I seriously wanted some hills about halfway through."

Cubicle Dad Runs: @cubicledad writes a moving recap. He could have quit at mile 10, he was not having a good race day, but he didn't give up and finished the race! Plus he was one of those people like who Sarah above saw, who fell on the bridge early in the race. Eek!

Turtles Against Cancer: @dpturtle tells a story of pacing gone horribly wrong. But reading the blog, you can really feel the despair and frustration in the moment. I can't even imagine trying to stay with someone for 26.2 miles in those crowds, and especially through the chaos of about 20 aid stations!

Running: My Anti-Drug: @kaylaruns ran her first marathon! I completely sympathize with the annoyance and disappointment when it feels like the race day conspires against you.

The Misadventures of Heldawg: @TheHeldawg has a great recap mile-by-mile with tons of detail. His struggle with the heat sounded a lot like my own recap.

Chicago Marathon 2011 Race Report - She's a Maniac!

noreply@blogger.com (Libby Jones) — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 17:19:00 +0000

"She's a Maniac, Maniac!" No, there's no dance scene, water, or any other remnants from Flashdance. But the completion of the Chicago Marathon on October 9, 2011 made me eligible to join the Marathon Maniacs running club, by completing 3 marathons in under 90 days. I had run my first 3 marathons in 70 days - San Francisco 7/31, Kauai 9/4, and now Chicago. But I didn't do Chicago to get the Maniac status. It was just a happy side effect.

I signed up for Chicago Marathon back on February 8. At about 1 am, and I think there might have been a glass of wine in my hand. I had just agreed to run the San Francisco Marathon as my first and had told Jojo, who was the overseer for all the San Francisco Marathon Ambassadors (of which I was the DFW one), of my decision. So I stumbled online and registered for Chicago. Because I refused to follow the path of friends before me who had a bad first marathon and never gave the marathon another look. Even if San Francisco was an awful first marathon (it wasn't), I was NOT going to be a one-and-done marathoner.

It was a solo trip. I flew in Saturday at 12:30 pm. I hurried to the hotel, checked in, waited in a long line for the shuttle to the expo, and then picked up my packet while shopping the expo with friends Amanda and Dana.

Entering the Chicago Marathon Expo

A cool touch! Every runner's name on a wall in the expo

Back to the hotel after a 45 minute wait for the shuttle, rest a minute and off to dinner at Quartino. Dinner was with two new friends, also Dallasites, Christy and Diane, both of whom I was meeting for the first time, and my friend Wendy, who wasn't running the race but had just moved from Dallas to Chicago a few weeks earlier!

I had the typical pre-race meal for me of pasta and meat - pappardelle pasta with a braised beef tomato sauce. Delicious. Everything laid out in the hotel room for the next day, and off to bed at 9 pm.

Up at 5:15 am. I'm at the host hotel Hilton Chicago right by the start line. So I join Amanda A., Amanda H., and Dana at the open corral entrance about 6:45 am. We find a spot with the thousands of others and we sit down to wait.

Waiting for the start - from left to right: Dana, me, Amanda A., Amanda H.

We're at the signs for 10 minutes per mile. I spent too much time in the later miles at San Francisco dodging people by lining up at my average anticipated pace, so I'm going with a faster group and they can go out too fast in the beginning and go around me because I might be passing them anyway in the late miles when they run out of steam.

Smiling at the start line

It's 56 degrees and 82% humid. Since my pregnancies, the hormones that influence my body core temperature have never seemed to calm down because I was like a furnace while the other 3 girls had goosebumps and were cold to the touch. This is not a good start to the day.

Took this pic of the Event Alert System status at the expo - this means: "It's going to be HOT"

But I still had the goal to break 5:30. 5:34 was my PR at San Francisco. I had prepared my race strategy band, and I knew what pace I wanted to run and how much my walk breaks would affect my overall pace. (Run 12:10-12:15 pace, and then I would take about a 0.06-0.10 mi walk break every mile or so that would bring me to a 12:30 average pace)

My race strategy band

The race starts, and we wait. Then we slowly inch forward. I must say the super wide start area is excellent for handling 45,000 people because they had us crossing the start line at 13 minutes into the race! I've seen races half that size take 30-45 minutes for people my pace to start!

A sea of people waiting to cross the start line

Dana sticks with me because she's forgotten her watch at the hotel and we're about the same pace. Garmin is wonky the first few miles, and I have had zero data reception (i.e. no tweeting) downtown. I keep reining Dana in as she wants to take off with the crowd. "Let them go." "Watch them run away." But she's struggling not to go with the flow. About 1.75 miles in, she goes with the crowd. It takes a lot of work to just go your pace and ignore all the stomping racehorses around you. I'm feeling blessed I've learned that lesson right then.

I use the clock time to try to determine pace since the Garmin is zero help early on. About mile 3, I'm able to get a tweet out to the world finally. The tweets will be in bold and will help narrate the race report.

@libbyruns: At mile 3: 12:18 avg - service spotty
See, I'm going 10 seconds per mile too fast, so I'm not immune to the galloping people around me. With 45,000 runners, we move collectively. There's risk of being trampled everywhere you turn. Elbows are thrown, someone's sweaty arm grazes yours. In mile 4, a girl basically bodychecks me at the shoulder, I say, "Dude, watch it" but there's so much chaos I don't think she even hears me.

@libbyruns: Mile 5: 12:22. Mile 6 will be slower - a tweet, a GU, and 2 aid stations!
We go through Lincoln Park, a nice little park area. Weird thing is, in this race, with the chaos of the crowd, the entire 26.2 miles, you stay focused on

FIRST: where you step, especially at aid stations,
SECOND: the teeming masses around you,
THIRD: the spectators which are amazing and deafening at times in the sheer volume of their yells and cheers and music
FOURTH: the scenery

So I know I'm running kinda along the lake on the east. But I never saw it. How did I miss that?

@libbyruns: Mile 6: 12:35. Crowd is clearing slightly. That sun feels warm! :-) #CM11
Yeah, crowd didn't really clear, I was already delirious, HA! Really it's probably that the density of people improved the teeniest bit but in relative terms it felt better.

@libbyruns: Mile 7: 12:28. Heading back towards downtown! #CM11 oh, and feeling good!
Pace is on target. Ride the wave (of people).

@libbyruns: Mile 8: 12:27. Mile 9: 12:30. Found my pace in the crowd #CM11

Shortly after this we went through the LGBT neighborhood in Chicago. And there was a group of men with white wooden rifles and they had some sort of name with "Twirling Corps" at the end. They were up on that stage twirling away, it was so fun. And a couple minutes later, the Lady Gaga twins with outrageous costumes of course, on a stage dancing their hearts out. I was sad because you couldn't really stop to take pictures or you would be instantly trampled. So my few pictures are taken on the run, for fear of losing my life if I stopped at these specific moments engraved in my memory!

Mile 10-13, the satellite reception was off again and I couldn't tweet. Cool to reenter downtown just to be sent west this time.

Also in mile 10, I literally run into my friend Ken from Dallas! So happy to see him, but I realize after a bit I've also sped up. I tell him I'll walk so I'm letting him go, but he's cool with walking. He's just having fun. But when we start running again, he's struggling I can tell to slow to my pace, so eventually, I'm left behind. Which is okay, really, I felt worse watching him try to slow down when it didn't seem natural for him. I ended up leapfrogging with that friend for several more miles. :-) Such an encouraging guy, he coaches for one of the training programs back here at home, so I was secretly happy whenever we would happen upon each other again!

@libbyruns: 13.1 2:44:13. On pace for sub 5:30 but the shade is disappearing. Garmin went wonky downtown. Awesome cheer zone at 12.6. #CM11

Cheer zone lined with spectators

At this time I got a text from my husband that said "Great first half!" So sweet of him. He knew I'd read it with the live tweets.

@libbyruns: Mile 15: 12:32. Right after that, my friend Wendy was waiting waving the Australian flag. :-)need a hose off - it's hot! #CM11

During mile 15, the heat really started to bother me. I just felt like I was overheating. I was losing my pattern of gatorade versus water and how many cups of each, and just drinking out of desperation. And I truly was hydrated going into this race, getting 140 oz a day race week and I typically get about 100 oz. And a good amount of electrolytes race week as well!

@libbyruns: Mile 16: 12:52. Soooo hoooot!! #CM11
Mind is beginning to blur. I'm taking 1-2 cups of water at each aid station to simply dump over all or part of my body. I'm also deviating off course for any water hose I see to get doused. And I personally hate hitting up the hoses or dumping water on my body, especially the chance my feet will get wet as the water trickles down to risk blisters, or any possible uncomfortable chafing it could cause with my shorts or thighs. So you know I'm desperate.

@libbyruns: Mile 17: 12:36. Having to weave around a lot of runners. No thoughts past how hot it is. I picked the wrong pace. #CM11

I'm still mostly trucking but have definitely noticed how many runners are just walking. Like death march walk. Mentally, I think this is where I started to break. My tweet laments that I think maybe I also feel close to death because I went 20 seconds per mile faster than I should have been.

@libbyruns: Mile 18: 13:16. Dumping water over my head. Is this what the wall feels like? I want to cry or call my husband or both. #CM11

Thankful for Corina who tweets back,

@ultramamc: @libbyruns you can cry when you're done!!! Call S[Steve, my husband] but no crying on the race course!!! #mamacracerules

This made me laugh at the moment. Proud to say I didn't cry, but I got awfully close a few times from there until the finish, and just after the finish, and may have sported "crumply cry face" under my sunglasses in some near tears moments.

@libbyruns: Mile 19: 13:05. #CM11 keeping it together... So far
I'm still running a pretty decent portion of each mile.

@libbyruns: Mile 20: 14:04. 10k left. #cm11 I have no cute things to say, lol
I wanted to tweet my split, I know my husband's happy to see the continuous progress of my "not dead"-ness. But my brain had SHUT.DOWN.

@libbyruns: Mile 21; 14:26. Running a good amount but pace dragged down at aid stations. #CM11
I'm really proud of how much of this course I ran. :-) But at the aid stations I slow to a crawl dealing with dumping cups of water, or getting under a hose, or balancing cups I'm drinking, or taking a GU.

@libbyruns: Mile 22: 14:46. I hate bananas and I've nvr seen So many peels, ick. Between that and clif shot zone, stickiest race EVAH! #CM11

It truly was a danger zone at every aid station when 30,000 runners have already come through. For goodness sakes, people, can no one learn to try to toss their stuff to the side. How do you expect me to run through 30,000 sponges strewn in the middle of the roadway?!? And the banana peels, that's just unsafe. And lower your arm, spill out the remainder of your cup, crush the cup, and then it actually throws really well! Don't you dare drop your half full cup right in front or behind me, splashing my leg with your cootie-infested fluids!!!

@libbyruns: 5:30 pacer passed me just b4 mile 23. Trying to hang on
That was the worst image, to watch that pacer pass and realize what it meant. I had lined up to cross the start line a few minutes before that pacer, and my goal was to never see that pace sign the whole race. :-(

The pacer had a big group and I think picked up people like me as he went. I pulled everything in me together and just tried to keep that sign close and in sight. I even caught up enough to see the Sharpie'd "Steve" on his pace bib.

He was doing some sort of run/walk, but I didn't know the intervals. I will say his hand signs were great, he raised his hand high up, and would count down from 5 for the next run time. And they walked through the aid stations too.

@libbyruns: Mile 24 12:23. Hung w 5:30 pacer for over a mile but they are moving!!! Sign is slipping out of sight. #CM11 sloshy belly, drank 2 much

The result of the pacer run/walk-ing is that the run pace was FAST. At the start of mile 24, while I was holding on to dear life in a pack of 5:30 wannabes, was like 10:30. Which makes sense to get it to average to about 12:30 with the walks. But I have a hard time pulling 10:30 in a 5K, so how did I manage to hold on to them for a mile?

I had drunk too much and was starting to feel sick to my stomach. I left the group when I heard medical folks at the aid station yell, "ICE!" I avoided trampling and cut a path over to get a cup filled with the most glorious ice ever. EVERY aid station, I would hope the drinks would be iced down. And none of them were. And logistically, I can't imagine even trying to ice that much fluids, but man, I wish there was a way. But that ice was wonderful. I alternated chewing a piece and then shoving the next piece into some spot in my sports bra, until I was a bumpy lumpy melty mess. I didn't care. But I watched the 5:30 pacer run away, and that sucked.
@libbyruns: Mile 25: 14:46. Somewhere around mile 18 I gave up. No excuses, I just gave up. :-(

It wasn't the heat. It wasn't too fast a pace. Mentally, I just lost the fight in me. And succumbed to the pain and soreness. I was much more sore than my last two marathons, which were actually hilly races. But hilly races let you alternate muscle groups on uphills versus downhills. And the flat terrain here meant a continuous use of the same muscles over and over and that was excruciating. But I found the strength in mile 25 to just recognize there were no excuses, I just couldn't execute my plan that day - ME, I'm the only one to blame for not hitting my goal time.

I walked most of mile 26 and started to run when we turned onto the Roosevelt bridge. And ran all the way into the finish that last 0.4 miles.

Running into the finish the last tenth of a mile. Had to take a picture!

@libbyruns: Finished Chicago Marathon in 5:47 unofficial #CM11 it's 78 degrees, gah

So happy to be done, but kinda depressed about the race day conditions and my personal physical and mental state. I went straight off to ice bath and then clean up. My mood improved drastically over the afternoon, and now I can appreciate the day. There will be better race days ahead.

By the way, runner tracking was excellent at this race - kudos to Chicago Marathon! Here are my official splits at the multitude of checkpoints:

What's Next? MY FIRST TRAIL 50K!!!! I have the Rocky Raccoon 50K in Huntsville on November 5, with my darlings Corina, Alicia, and Fiona!

The splits - with wonky Garmin reception, I tried to hit the Lap button when I would see a mile marker so could figure out split from my actual time between miles.
Mile 1: 11:57
Mile 2: 12:15
Mile 3: 12:32
Mile 4: 12:14
Mile 5: 12:21
Mile 6: 12:56
Mile 7: 12:28
Mile 8: 12:27
Mile 9: 12:34
Mile 10: 12:08
Mile 11: 12:39
Mile 12: 12:52
Mile 13: 12:36
Mile 14: 14:43
Mile 15: 12:03 (may have gotten Mile 14 & 15 commingled a bit, hit Lap button at wrong time)
Mile 16: 12:43
Mile 17: 12:36
Mile 18: 13:16
Mile 19: 13:05
Mile 20: 14:04
Mile 21: 14:29
Mile 22: 14:49
Mile 23: 15:25
Mile 24: 12:23 (tried to hang with 5:30 pacer)
Mile 25: 14:46
Mile 26: 16:53 (walked majority of mile)
Mile 26.2 (last 0.2mi pace): 11:09 (good run pace at end!)

Confidence, or the Lack Thereof - the overwhelming theme of race week

noreply@blogger.com (Libby Jones) — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 18:54:00 +0000

This has just not been a good week for me. I won't go into particulars, but it's been rough. And then you add the taper madness of race week, and I feel like I'm going completely mad. Chicago Marathon is now just a few days away.

I have no confidence in my ability as a marathoner, some days in my ability as a runner, and some days in my abilities as a person. A twitter friend talked me off the cliff late late Monday night about my lack of miles in the last month. He reminded me my last marathon 5 weeks ago WAS my long run training for this marathon.

And then I slowly sunk back into the abyss of lost confidence and the anxieties of my life caught back up to me. Yesterday it had gotten so bad that I was feeling like Chicago was just another item to check off the massive task list for the week. And I know that's not really how I feel, or why I signed up. I just have a lot going on, some major decisions have been happening, and I feel engulfed and overwhelmed.

So I watched the drive-through video of the course for the Chicago Marathon 2011. And I then worried that the whole "flat and fast" was going to mean "flat and boring". Even with the crowds. My first 2 marathons had very varied scenery, so the drive-thru scenery looked kinda boring. But then I reached out to some friends going to Chicago also, and asked them if they were ready and were they excited. And I allowed their excitement to overtake me and help me banish the franticness and anxiety and nervousness.

Then last night, I did my 0.7mi slow treadmill warmup and then my strength training workout with my trainer, Jeff. Jeff's been pushing me really hard the last few weeks, but with so close to race day, he went down 10% or so in the weight on everything, like a plate or two on the machines, and took out compound movement exercises, especially since one glute muscle is kinda annoyed at me. And it made it feel SO SO much easier.

After the workout, I decided to get back on the treadmill, which I normally hate to do because my whole body is gumby-like and tired. But I needed a couple 2-3 mile workouts this week, and it was already Wednesday. Well, a half-mile in, I'm bored and crank up the speed. I hate the treadmill and never do more than about 1.5 miles on it and usually it's speedwork. Longer than that makes me want to bludgeon myself to death with my water bottle.

But at a mile, I'm feeling surprisingly strong, so I just decide to hang on. At mile 1.5, I do the math and figure out I'll come in right around my 5K PR if I can keep it up. My 5K PR was set in training in February 2010, pre-baby, and is 32 minutes even.

At mile 2.2, this seems like a bad decision. I'm barely hanging on, I'm sweating bricks, will someone please turn on the air conditioner in this gym? I'm feeling very overheated.

Mile 2.9, and I'm at 30 minutes, and I almost hit the Stop button. And by almost, the fingers hover over the button and I have to use my whole lifeforce to move my hand away. But at 3.1 miles, I hit 31:57. And I know that included the treadmill belt ramping up at the beginning, so 3 seconds better than PR is a ton.

Now halfway through I wondered if this was stupid physically. I kept thinking, "I have a marathon in 4 days." But part of me needed the mental workout. And it worked in a lot of ways. I needed to see how strong I am since I have a hard time believing it without the proof.

I admitted today to friends that I don't feel strong. Live-tweeting each mile in a race gives me a distraction and lets me turn the race into 26 laps. All I have to do is get to the next tweet moment. Steve enjoys the updates, he worries about me terribly, and I get motivation from seeing everyone's tweets back, but man, not feeling strong enough to do it without it is a big feeling. And I expressed once I feel brave live-tweeting because if you crash and burn, you've committed and the whole world sees it. I'm not one of those who would hide it if I walk the last 6 miles in to a finish, I know lots of fast runners though who would. They wouldn't want people to pay attention to their horribly positive splits. So the live-tweeting is a weird mix of feeling strong in one way and feeling oh so weak in another.

So I'm a work in progress, just like everyone else. And man, I just have to keep working at this confidence thing. :-) Thanks for letting me vent.

2011 Kauai Marathon Race Report: Beautiful But Brutal

noreply@blogger.com (Libby Jones) — Sun, 18 Sep 2011 02:34:00 +0000

So after the San Francisco Marathon, I decided within a couple days, "Golly, that wasn't as bad as I thought. I want to run Kauai Marathon." It actually kinda fell into my lap. Since the Kauai Marathon was started 3 years ago, I had expressed interest in running it if I ever ran marathons. The real beauty of the course was in the marathon, although the half is gorgeous too. I'd seen reviews from Runner's World, video from the race producers, and seen someone post a picture of the very pretty finisher medal. So all of a sudden, when my first marathon wasn't the disaster I knew your first marathon has the potential of being, I knew Kauai was back on the table. Now I was a marathoner, now that race was an option.

I actually thought it was the same weekend as Heels and Hills and Him Half, so I would have been unavailable. But when I looked it up, it was 5 weeks after San Francisco - September 4. My husband and I went, "WHAT?!?" Well, I would normally have done a 20 miler then as part of my Chicago Marathon prep. So sure it's crazy, but WHY NOT? And I'd be traveling alone, Steve would stay home with the kids and it would just be a quick fly-in, run, fly-out trip.

So I did it, 6 days after my first marathon, I signed up for my 2nd marathon, only 4 weeks later. In the week of the race, I rewatched the videos about the race, and words they used stuck with me, "Beautiful But Brutal" and "The 3H's: Hot, Humid, and Hilly". Oh my gosh, what had I gotten myself into? I chose it because I'd heard it was beautiful, it was amazing scenery, and from miles away, at mile 16, you can see the ocean from way up high.

I knew it would be hard, but I had no time goals. My plan was to just enjoy the view and the experience. That's why I was running that marathon: FOR THE EXPERIENCE. I know, running purists, who race all-out just once or twice a year for a speedy time, I've just violated the convenants of your religion. Deal with it.

Flight was delayed in Los Angeles on the way there, so after a whole day of traveling - a 3 hour flight, 7 hour layover, and 6 hour flight, I arrived in Lihue, Hawaii, on the island of Kauai, at 2 am Saturday morning. 28 hours before the start of the race.

I spent Saturday going to a store to stock up on tons of water and a bagel, poking around sightseeing just a tiny bit, going to the expo (where I was able to meet Joanna and Jessica, friends of my sister who were running the half marathon), and then attending the expert panel discussion.

I'm rarely starstruck, but the panel discussion was fun, with Bart Yasso, Rich Hanna, Dean Karnazes, JT Service (1st year's winner), and Mike Wardian (2nd year's winner).

Then some rest and a dinner at a nearby Italian restaurant before an 8:30 pm bedtime.

Race day up at 4:30, 2 hours to race start. I'm too slow to get ready (the start line is really truly a 45 second walk from my condo front door!), and I miss seeing Joanna, Jessica, and getting to meet Twitter friend Eva (@EvaTEsq), although she gives me a detailed outfit description and her location to find her. My fault, I'm running late. At the start 10 minutes til. They have Hawaiian fellows with torches and blowing the conch shells as we start.

New friends from the plane ride to Hawaii, Addy and Lisa, take my pic before we get started just before sunrise, 6:30 am local time.

We're off! Now remember, this race was all about an amazing experience. So I live-tweeted the whole race just like I did at San Francisco. Yes, I tweet at walk breaks and any time inbetween that I feel like it, while taking and tweeting a ton of pictures while I'm at it. I have to say that live-tweeting a marathon makes me feel brave. I'm committing to sharing my thoughts through a harrowing mileage to most people, and I'm sure there are people out there waiting to watch if you'll combust. It's raw through the late miles, you get all the emotion (can't hide it at that point), and everyone will see exactly how those last miles treated you, especially when you tweet mile split times also like I do. I always find it funny people who act all strong, say they ran the whole way and had a smart race, and if you look up their splits, you see the complete implosion that was their performance between the difference in pace up to mile 20 versus their finishing pace. So enjoy the tweets and some of the 60 pictures I took through the race.

@libbyruns: 1 mile in! 13:00 #kauaimarathon

@libbyruns: Mile 2 #kauaimarathon 13:03

Um, yes, by the way, it's really humid. The WHOLE marathon. Ick.

@libbyruns: Mile 3 #kauaimarathon 12:30

@libbyruns: Found @evatesq ! #kauaimarathon at mile 3.5

Yes, Eva runs by me, and I actually recognize her from her stellar detailed description of her outfit that she tweeted. I call her name, ready to look like an idiot, and she turns around. What were the chances? She looked strong and left me another 4-5 miles later to finish several minutes ahead of me at the end of the race.

@libbyruns: Mile 4.6 - mile 4 split was 13:06. #kauaimarathon

@libbyruns: Mile 5: 12:47. At mile 5.8 after 160ft climb over .6mi. Ugh.
@libbyruns: Mile 6: 14:26. Lotsa pics and previously mentioned ugly hill. Tunnel of trees

@libbyruns: Mile 7: 12:38, mile 8: 12:00. Ab muscle's doing ok. #kauaimarathon
I had an ab muscle tear 4 days before this race. Luckily didn't present any problems during the race.

@libbyruns: Mile 9: 11:53 #kauaimarathon

@libbyruns: Mile 10: offered to take 3 girls' pic in front of mile 9 marker and GU walk break, offset by pretty downhill 12:57 #kauaimarathon

@libbyruns: Mile 10.8 #kauaimarathon decision time! ;-)

@libbyruns: Mile 11: 12:26 #kauaimarathon on this mile: Drummers!

@libbyruns: Mile 12 split 12:56. At 12.7. Now it's hot AND humid w/ no shade. #kauaimarathon but still beautiful. Going up 140ft in this mile.

Still smiling!

Caroline, the TNT girl from Montreal who I have been leapfrogging with
the last handful of miles, and I stop to take each other's pictures. :-)

@libbyruns: 1st half #kauaimarathon split: 2:49, only 3 min slower than #SFMarathon but much hillier, hotter, and more humid!
At mile 14, a guy asks if I want to be sprayed by the hose, I say yes, and he sprays it full blast in my face. Um, thanks, dude. The girl with him even gets on to him. I spend the next half mile trying to see out my wet sunglasses.
@libbyruns: Mile 15 split: 13:57. All uphill. @deankarnazes passed me on back portion at my mile 13.9.
@libbyruns: Mile 16 #kauaimarathon sucks! 300ft uphill, blazing sun. Grrrrrr
Well, that's a raw emotion.

@libbyruns: Mile 16 #kauaimarathon 16:50 and I don't freaking care. Worst hill of my life and still going
Reading back, my tweets make me sound angrier than I thought I was. To me it was more a surprise around every turn. For a planner like me, I was thinking, "How did I miss this on the elevation map?!?"

@libbyruns: The payoff - ocean view at mile 16.6 #kauaimarathon:

@libbyruns: Mile 17 #kauaimarathon : 15:31. Uphill, orange slice, water, retie shoes (wld like to avoid lost toenails!), pep talk. 700ft drop to finish

@libbyruns: Mile 18 #kauaimarathon : 15:39.

@libbyruns: Me at mile 18.4:

A kind volunteer offered to take this picture for me with the backdrop of the ocean.

@libbyruns: Omg the uphills nvr end. How r we supposed to finish on the beach? Roll down this mountain?!? Mile 19: 16:50. #kauaimarathon
This tweet makes me laugh so hard. We really did have about 500 feet left to drop, and it SO never felt like we did. Every downhill had an uphill.

@libbyruns: Mile 20 split: 11:53. yeah, baby! 10k left! Bring it! #kauaimarathon
@libbyruns: Mile 21: 12:04 #kauaimarathon
This was the "I'm still alive" surge, plus a little more downhill, but still some uphills. Also, and this is important, some SHADE for Miles 20 and 21 before it went out from miles 22 on!

Interestingly enough, Mile 20 was my fastest mile, and Mile 21 was my third fastest mile, of the whole race.

@libbyruns: Where did this uphill come from?!? My legs r trashed! #kauaimarathon mile 21.4

Hard to see here but when this short downhill ends, there's another uphill, sigh.

@libbyruns: Mile 22: 15:26. Darn uphills. & this sun feels hotter than TX sun. :-)

@libbyruns: Mile 23: 14:43. At the airport 10 miles away, it's 84* feels like 87. No shade, few clouds. Think I might slow down, relax. #kauaimarathon

@libbyruns: Ambulance just passed, trolling for heat victims. I have Chicago Marathon in 5 wks, this is stupid. I'm gonna enjoy view, walk it in.

This was a tough decision. As you can see in miles 20 and 21, I still had some in me. And the fact I could function decently post-race confirms that. But I was a woman traveling alone, with a 7 hour flight home the next day that would land at 5 am Tuesday to then take care of my kids all day. And another marathon 5 weeks off. It's easy to feel pressured and feel obligated as a runner to go all-out, it's our Type A nature, but I think I made the smarter decision. And screw you to the one runner who made me feel terribly weak and a quitter for choosing this.

@libbyruns: Now I hear ambulance sirens. If this was Chicago, they'd call the race off. Can't believe I CHOSE this, LOL. Mile 24: 16:24. #kauaimarathon

@libbyruns: Luv! RT @ReneighRuns: @libbyruns YOU'RE IN HAWAII! Enjoy. Breathe. Smile. Run a fast marathon some other day :)

@libbyruns: Just passed a sign "If u were running #SFMarathon u'd be done by now!" #hallucinating LOL. Screeching ambulance just passed me!

@libbyruns: The best ice water in the world at mile 24.4!

And then the last half mile, you are literally up against the beach with houses on your left and ocean on your right.

I have a decently strong last mile or so. See?

Last 0.62 of Mile 26: 11:45 pace

Last 0.2 miles: 12:27 pace

I come in and cross the finish arch as the announcer says my name. Here's a pic of the arch I took the day before, before they moved it into the roadway.

I was happy with my time, because that wasn't that important anyway. 6:03:59. I finished 314 out of 344. Which when I saw that surprised me - I knew it felt quiet and empty out there once we split from the half marathon but I had no idea how small the marathon was. I went from a race of 6000 marathoners at San Francisco to a few hundred. What a difference!

Final splits all together, especially since my tweets left out some miles:
Mile 1: 13:00
Mile 2: 13:04
Mile 3: 12:30
Mile 4: 13:07
Mile 5: 12:47
Mile 6: 14:26
Mile 7: 12:39
Mile 8: 12:09
Mile 9: 11:54
Mile 10: 12:57
Mile 11: 12:26
Mile 12: 12:57
Mile 13: 14:45 Mile 14: 12:36
Mile 15: 14:01
Mile 16: 16:50
Mile 17: 15:32
Mile 18: 15:39
Mile 19: 16:50
Mile 20: 11:54 - Awesomesauce!
Mile 21: 12:05 - Awesomesauce!
Mile 22: 15:26
Mile 23: 14:44
Mile 24: 16:25
Mile 25: 18:01 - Are we done yet?
First 0.38 of Mile 26: 15:46
Last 0.62 of Mile 26: 11:45 -- YAY!
Last 0.2 miles: 12:27

What's Next?
Chicago Marathon in 5 weeks, on October 9. Not sure if I have a time goal so don't ask. I mean, for gosh sakes people, it's my 3rd marathon out of 3 ever marathons in less than 90 days. Please don't ask things that make me feel like I need to put pressure on myself to perform, LOL. :-)

Hood To Coast Relay Race Report with Team Runners World - Part 4

noreply@blogger.com (Libby Jones) — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 15:16:00 +0000

If you missed them,

Part 1 - Arriving in Portland and Grocery Shopping with my new teammates
Part 2 - Race Start and Running my first leg (Leg 1)
Part 3 - My Teammates, and Running my second and third relay legs

And now the last part - the team finish and the question I was peppered with the most: "what's Bart like?"

Strong Finish
28 hours after we had started Monday morning at 9, our team finished. Taylor was our anchor leg, and after crossing under the big Finish banner, I had her pose by the "Last Runner" sign before she collected our finisher medals.

Taylor brings it home for Team Runner's World

I was so happy when we had finished, such an amazing experience...

Beaming at the finish!

Afterward, Bart hustled the whole team to the beach to walk in the cold Pacific water. Yeah, we know I'm a priss - I didn't want to get my feet all wet and sandy without a towel handy, so I'm the only one in shoes.

Hey, hey, the gang's all here!

A great lunch afterward then the long drive back to the hotel in Portland, and I CRASHED. 2 hours napping in a van over a 38 hour period is rough on the body.

The Big Question, Everyone Wants To Know About Bart
I had the unusual experience to spend roughly 30 hours in a van with Mr. Bart Yasso, Runner's World's Chief Running Officer. So with all the fans of Bart and the work he's done, while off running this race and afterward, one of the biggest questions I get is "What's Bart Like?" Please note these are all still regarded by me as first impressions from my limited time getting to know the guy.

Always a smile!

He's real. He's a nice guy. He's a joker and a bit of a goofball. He's goodhearted. He also comes across as impulsive and at times a little hyper or easily distracted by all the things going on around him. I described him to someone as a "happy hyper puppy with the power of Bart Yasso". If Bart wants to do something, Bart just does it. No one really questions him. Luckily, he's a nice guy so no worries. He gets excited for our last runner coming into the finish, and we turn around and Bart's up in the Announcer's tower looking with them on the computer for where our runner is at. Looking down, he's thumbs up-ing, he's so terribly excited for Taylor, our anchor, and says he can see her on their data there. He's Bart, he can do that.

He has a good memory, evident in his knowledge of the race on his 14th trip and in remembering people he's met before. However, I wouldn't say he is terribly detail-oriented, this coming from me, an overly analytical detail-oriented type. He's more laid back, the "it'll all work out in the end" type.

That said, having lunch after the race, I gave him a hard time about something. And then I said, "I'm just joking with you, giving you a hard time." And his response as I recall it: "That's okay, I love it, no one ever gives me a hard time." And that's probably true, and I can't imagine that's always that much fun.

In our community, he's a celebrity. He was SO nice to always stop and chat with fans and pose for pictures whenever asked. Even if his relay leg was up next.

He does all his own tweeting and in his downtime, would be on the computer before and after the race a lot. I'm sure some people think it's like one massive vacation where he just travels from race to race, but he's working all through that. Also, and I was able to talk to him about this in Hawaii at the Kauai Marathon, people want to be him and trade lives to travel to the places he gets to go. But they are never there when he has long layovers in an airport, or arrives at 2 am somewhere, or his flight gets cancelled. He travels a lot and that has to wear you down.

I feel like I did a good job of treating Bart as "another teammate", and I hope he respects that. With the amount of people who deservedly put him on a pedestal, it's gotta be nice to just have people be real and just go for a run.

So who reading this has met Bart? What do you think? Fair observations or have you seen another side?

Very happy to have spent time with him and all the great New Balance and Runner's World friends I made!

Hood To Coast Relay Race Report with Team Runners World - Part 3

noreply@blogger.com (Libby Jones) — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 03:07:00 +0000

If you missed them,
Part 1 - Arriving in Portland and Grocery Shopping with my new teammates
Part 2 - Race Start and Running my first leg (Leg 1)

Now onto Part 3: between the relay legs with my teammates, and my 2nd and 3rd relay legs to run.

Fun Teammates
In my van was Claire and Kristen from New Balance and Bart, Jeff, and Molly from Runner's World. They are all much faster than me. Jeff is so fast that he passed about 150 people in his 3 relay legs... and the only person who passed him during his legs was the person on the team that won the entire relay last year! But all were great runners, and even better, genuinely nice people to be thrown together for 30 hours in a Nissan Quest.

The introductions, in alphabetical order...

Bart Yasso, a goodhearted guy goofing off pre-race

Claire, rolling on her IT Band in her downtime. Silly and fun but serious about her running!

Jeff, so fast his feet don't touch the ground. ;-) Says he doesn't like people, but got along well wth everyone!

Kristen, very smart girl - she brought an eye mask and ear plugs for the
night naptime. And she loves her some crunchy peanut butter.

Molly with her great spirit, shown here in her first relay leg. Even at our most tired, driving
at midnight down a dark quiet Oregon country highway, she had me giggling.

My Second Leg - Explaining the Adrenaline of an Endurance Relay
I'm the first runner in our van, so the adrenaline would hit me the worse before I started the 2nd and 3rd legs. For the second leg, about 7 pm Friday, we get to the relay exchange site, and I'm out of the van and ready for Taylor to come in and hand me the baton. Ring Warren in the other van? Oh, they missed the last exchange so were delayed 20 minutes. Adrenaline spike over - back in the van. Call my husband, hang out, okay, it has to be nearing time, back out of the van. Head over to the handoff area, hang with Bart, wait wait wait. The other van doesn't really know what time Taylor started, or what her pace would be. Wait wait wait.

This is a hard part of these relays. The adrenaline surges, then wait, then anticipation, then RUN - GO GO GO! So you have planned your naps, your food, your potty break around a potential time your runner may or may not come in. And then it can all get skewed from there. So about 45 minutes of craning my neck, listening to them yell team numbers for incoming runners, and - oh, it's my turn!!!

Taylor finishes strong!

Take the baton from Taylor, and I'm off. Too fast. Rein it in, girl. You still have 4.2 miles, and for Portland, it's HOT. No shade, no clouds, and high 80s with humidity.

Start of my second leg (Leg 13)

A beautiful leg early on, I cross a big bridge over the river and run right along it through a nice promenade. Then into a more industrial area, although still along the river.

My split paces: 11:08, 12:29, 12:30, 12:23, 10:57 (last 0.2). Too fast up front but then consistent (something I constantly strive for), and a nice kick at the end. I feel good.

Third Leg - "CARLO"
At midnight, our van goes "on break" for a few hours. Molly drives the van, I sit up front to navigate and keep her company, and everyone else sleeps while we make the 45 minute drive to the spot for Leg 25 where we will pick back up our running. We get there, no cell service, and it's a very busy exchange. We park, lots of bustle, van headlights, and we all try to get some sleep in our van chairs.

2 hours of not very peaceful sleep. Because we all keep hearing "CARLO" being yelled. OVer. and OVER. AND OVER again. Turns out Jeff and Molly both were very close to jumping out of the car and screaming, "Obviously, Carlo isn't here", but they didn't want all the lights in the van to go ahead and disturb everyone else's sleep, not realizing it was disturbing all of our sleeps. Except Kristin, who hearing about our freakout right after waking up asks "Who's Carlo?" Guess who brought ear plugs.

It's cold and a little foggy/misty. We don't know when to expect the other van to come in with no cell service from them for 4 hours. So I put on a jacket and wrap a blanket around my legs and Bart waits out at the side of the road in the chaos of teams coming and going with me. Teammates snooze a little and come and go as we wait. Molly got this great nighttime pic.

Waiting for Taylor to come in for my turn to run my last leg (Leg 25)

It's 3 am, and as runners come in, they stand on one side of the highway. And occasionally shout out their team number. The next leg of folks are crowded on the other side, trying to hear or see signs of their runner. With no cell service, no one knows when to expect their runner. A couple people who have come in are waiting a good 30+ minutes. Imagine running a hard nighttime leg, and you finish and can't potty, you don't have any water, any food, shivering in the cold, waiting for your team to come collect you. As a race director, I definitely had a moment of "this could be improved upon". This race does much right, but as a MAJOR van change spot with no cell reception, I imagine this scene has looked the same for years here, and there's much better ways to do this.

Taylor comes in, we spot her right away, I throw off my jacket and blanket, take the baton, start my Garmin, turn on my headlamp, and I'm off. Yeah, that's a lot to accomplish in 20 seconds, and your adrenaline spikes through the roof at that moment too.

I go out too fast, again, and slow it down. Beautiful quiet, rolling hills, twisty turny highway, enough mist to make my headlamp reflect the light back at me at times to where I can only see the white line of the shoulder of the highway on the ground. It's hard at times in this dark dark dark to see where the tall pine trees end and the sky begins, but the stars help answer that question.

At my pace, I get passed left and right until about 2 miles in. You are tired, your legs are tired. It's not that you have run a lot of miles, it's the conditions you have existed in all day. I watch my Garmin constantly to verify pace as I can't trust the signals my legs send. Still groggy from the 2 hour nap, but coupled with being hopped up waiting 45 minutes in anticipation for the baton handoff. A guy passes me who I realize isn't going that much faster, so I tuck in 3-4 feet behind him, illuminating his path with my headlamp, and just hang on. He keeps turning his head slightly to the side, and I'm thinking "Dude, just enjoy the extra light in this very very dark location. I am not going to pass you. It's gonna have to be your job if you want to speed up, or just say something." After a few minutes, he quits the glancing and just runs. We both seem stronger for it. I just have to stay a handful of feet behind him and it makes running easier without having to push myself.

In the last 0.2 miles of this shorter 3.75 mile middle-of-the-night relay leg, I decide to repay the favor because I'm at the end of my total running in this race and feeling strong. On a big curve in the highway, and an uphill during the rolling hills, I make my move and pass him, and hope he will follow me to take us strong into the finish. But no, I lose him quickly after that. I pass a person or two coming into the finish with a hard final kick, well, hard for my pace and for all my body and mind have been through for an endurance relay. And for me that's a 9:30-10:00 minute per mile pace during that final kick compared to my usual 12-ish minute per mile pace.

Split paces: 11:59, 12:46, 12:04, 11:15 (last 0.75 miles, normal pace first 0.55, and kick last 0.2 miles, averaged out)

Tomorrow I hope to finish the blog entry with the race finish, and yes, the question everyone asked me, "What's Bart like?" LOL.