Ultra Running has changed my life

I’m sure many would ask “why do you love ultra running you crazy, weirdo person?!?!” unless of course you are an ultra runner, then you don’t need an explanation. However, I’m going to go ahead and tell you why because I REALLY want an Ultimate Direction Scott Jurek Ultra Vest! As I have mentioned, I am a water HOG. Lately I have been trying to balance my need for LOTs of water and need for Tailwind. If I only use my hydration pack filled with Tailwind, my energy levels are good but I get so thirsty. If I only fill it with plain water, I’m not thirsty but I don’t have my fuel. So I have ended up filling my pack with plain water and carrying my handheld with a concentrated Tailwind. The Scott Jurek Ultra Vest would totally solve this problem for me! I can fill the bladder with plain water and the bottles in the front with Tailwind, seriously I NEED THIS VEST! Anyway I can win this amazing vest from the best ultra website http://trailandultrarunning.com if this blog entry gets chosen to be in the top 3 entries and ALL of you vote for me :-)

  

So why do I love ultra running? It’s complex yet it’s so simple. The simple answer is it makes me a better, happier person. The complex answer is explaining how. It gives me that break I need from life. I explore all different trails and paths near and far that I would have never seen. I have met many awesome, people online and in-person. I feel like I am part of special, nonjudgmental club. It gives me that sense of belonging somewhere. All of this translates into me being a better, more patient mother, wife, sister, daughter, physical therapist, co-worker and overall person. I could go on forever if there wasn’t a word limit so I’ll finish with this: Ultra running has changed my life. It has helped me lose weight, eat healthier, get stronger and be fitter. It’s also something that has deepened my relationship with my husband. It has brought a new respect and admiration by helping each other through ups/downs, seeing how far we can push ourselves. This is something we never envisioned almost 15 years ago when we met, now we couldn’t picture life without ultra running in it.

 

life happens but so does running

Since my last post, there have been multiple obstacles that tried to get in the way of our training runs.  A couple times it would have really been easy, actually easier just to say we will skip a run.  But if we let that trend start, there's no telling where that would lead to, not to mention the guilt, restlessness and crankiness that would ensue from missing an important training run.

First of all for the Labor Day weekend Emir and I both took off Friday and Tuesday in addition to our 3 day weekend since the kids school was closed.  We decided to spend 5 days at our condo in Wildwood.  An end of the unofficial summer vacation.  Of course being on vacation is never a reason for us to not run.  Heck, we plan our vacations around running.  Lucky for us, my sister decided to come down for a few days as well.  She agreed to watch the kids for us Saturday morning so we could run together AGAIN, second week in a row!!!  Then comes Saturday morning.  We set the alarm for 5:30 so we could be out by 6:30.  Right around 6:30 as we were about to head out, all hell breaks loose.  Una starts screaming which of course wakes up Niko.  He's crying because he doesn't want us to go run and also he's upset because he's so afraid that we will make him go back to sleep.  Have I told you how much this kid hates to sleep!?!! AHHH!!  I felt terrible!  I didn't want Cindy to have to deal with this.  But being the awesome sister and aunt that she is, she laid on the sofa with Una with a bottle and got Niko to lay on the sofa with his tablet resting watching a cartoon.  Una finished her bottle and I took her to put her back to bed that's when she threw up all over the place.  Emir and I were freaking out, "you just go!"  "No you just go!"  Thank goodness for Cindy, she intervened and said "let's clean this up and then you are both going!"  And that's what happened.  The run itself was a 16 miler.  We ran down the boardwalk to the sea wall to Ocean Drive.  We ran to about the middle of Stone Harbor and then back.  It was a fairly tough run.  It was hotter than expected also due to the fact we left about 45 minutes later than planned and it was humid.  It didn't feel great but I've definitely felt worse.  Emir says he doesn't like running at the shore because he finds it boring.  I on the other hand love it.  Just having the view of the ocean, the beach and the bay is very relaxing and makes me happy.  As I have said I'm a total beach bum.




Us on our beach in Wildwood, NJ

Sunday we should have done a 4 miler however we opted to switch that run to Monday in lieu of extra sleep.  Una woke us up at 3 AM with a fever.  Of course we were out of baby Tylenol so off I went to the CVS open 24 hours.  It was rather interesting being a sober person observing the people out and about at 3 AM ;-)

Niko at Morey's Piers

 

Monday and Tuesday were morning 4 milers at the shore.  It was pretty humid both days and Emir and I had to take turns going out.  They felt pretty hard.  Sunday we were at the amusement park with the kids for almost 6 hours until about 11 PM and Monday we climbed the Cape May lighthouse which was 217 steps in a sweatbox.  I think our legs were feeling it.

The lighthouse in Cape May

 

Wednesday was a 6 miler on the trail by our house.  I had work so Emir and I had worked out that he would drop off the kids in the morning and I would pick up so that way he could just come home and go right out for his run then I would go when he came back.  Things however did not go as planned.  I had a new student start at work so whenever I have a student chances are that I leave a bit later than usual.  But I was thinking as I left that it was no big deal because Emir was going to run first anyway.  However on my way to get the kids he called me to say that he left about 30 minutes late as well.  So he told me to get ready so I could just go run as soon as he got home.  When I went to Niko's school, it was his first day of 4 year old preschool.  He's at the same school but he changed classes and was soooooo excited.  He was showing me around for a good 10-15 minutes.  I couldn't bear to tell him no, he was grinning from ear to ear and so proud of his new classroom.  So by the time I got home with the kids and got settled to start getting ready, Emir came home.  I didn't leave for my run until after 6 which meant Emir didn't get to leave until after 7. 

Smaller trail near our house

Thursday and Friday Emir did his runs in the morning before work while I took the kids to school then I did mine after work.  Thursday was 8 miles and Friday was 4 miles.  The 4 miler we switched to Friday instead of one of the days over the weekend because I had to work both days of the weekend and we both needed to get in a 14 miler as well.  By Friday's run, I was definitely feeling pretty tired!! 

Niko and Una at Forbidden Drive Trail

 

Emir did his 14 miles on Saturday afternoon after I got home from work.  He said he felt really tired and the run felt really hard.  I went into my Sunday afternoon 14 miler thinking that it would probably feel a bit hard but should be better than Emir's since I had a rest day Saturday.  Boy was I wrong!!!  I felt terrible!  So tired, legs heavy and sore.  I was also having some GI issues most likely due to gorging on spicy Indian food at our friend's housewarming Saturday night (I never said I was smart!).  I had worn my hydration belt that has four bottles.  Two with plain water and two with Tailwind.  I had planned that I was going to run to the small trail near our house then head from there to the big trail known as Forbidden Drive and then come back.  Emir was out with the kids at Fort Washington State Park which you can take the little trail to in the opposite direction from Forbidden Drive.  I decided to run that direction instead so I could see them since I had been at work all day.  That route is much hilly than the one I was going to do but I wanted to see the family.  I met up with them for about 5 minutes as Una needed a nap and I needed to get moving.  Emir told me to exit the park left and then I could still go to the Forbidden Drive Trail as planned.  There was still a descent hill to exit the park but then once out, it would be some rolling hills the rest of the way.  Well for some reason I kept picturing the right hand turn in my head even though I was saying left.  So what did I do?! I turned right.  And when you turn right, it's a pretty steep hill followed by intense downhill.  Of course my mistake didn't occur to me until I hit the next cross road.  I really didn't feel like turning around immediately and having to face the intense uphill to go back in the right direction so I continued on until I hit the next major intersection and made my U-turn.  I eventually made it up the huge hill and headed in the correct direction.  By the time I hit forbidden Drive, I was exhausted and so thirsty!!!  I was practically out of water and Tailwind.  I did the calculating in my head and I knew I only needed to do 1.5 on the trail and then head home.  However I was so thirsty and only had a little water left.  I knew that there is a spot to get water at about 2.25 miles.  I knew then it would be too many miles but I didn't care, I needed water.  So that's what I did.  On the way back, I stopped running at about 14.5 miles and walked probably about a mile home.  I was so beat when I got home and my left foot has been bothering me a bit the last few weeks.  I grabbed my ice pack and fell asleep in my hammock until of course about 20-30 minutes later Niko jumped on me, the joys of children! ;-) 

Forbidden Drive

It's felt like a tough week and a half or so of training.  Maybe all the switching around didn't work out so well as far as then we ran a lot of days in a row and this week was supposed to be a down week!   But I feel like doing that is way better than skipping a bunch of runs.  Also 5 days of "vacation" at the beach, I wouldn't call relaxing or restful. Don't get me wrong, we had a great time! But not much rest is going on with a 4 year old and 16 month old.  We definitely did way more activities and were busier than an average weekend which while tons of fun took it's toll.  Of course Emir is already worrying away about the rest of training.  Starting this week, it's all up weeks through our 50K race October 6th.  Our next several weekends are as follows: 18 miler, 20 miler, 20 & 10 miler and then the 50K.  I'm sure it's going to be hard and I'm going to feel like I want to die at times but in the end I know it will be worth it and honestly even when I feel like I want to die, I'm still so happy to be running. 

I could have used more of this!!

End Of summer = mixed feelings :-/

So here it is the last full week of summer (well unofficially).  I'm having some serious mixed emotions.  I love summer especially the last couple years.  Summer is when I spend at least a month in Bosnia/Croatia with Emir's family and the remainder of the time we spend at our shore condo in Wildwood with just a little work mixed in.  This summer has been no exception.  It's been more than wonderful.  The kids are at great ages.  They are interacting and playing with us with each other and it's just so much fun to watch them having a great time especially on the beach.  They are definitely beach bums like their mama!!!  So it's a bit if a downer to see all that end.  Of course we still have a few trips to the shore left before the weather turns colder and there will be tons of other fun activities to enjoy but it just always seems to bring me down how summer goes by way too fast.

Una

Niko

The kids and I

Now the good news!  Since Emir and I have become marathoners, summer ending signifies that the fall races will soon be upon us.  As I had mentioned in a previous post, I was a bit tired after the spring races and maybe wasn't missing being in training too much.  A few weeks ago we started our 12 week training program for the NYC marathon.  It feels so good to be in training again.  Turns out I did miss it!!  Being back in the groove has gotten us excited again.  So of course that always leads to more races ;-). So lets see in addition to running the hat trick at the runners world festival oct 19-20th, the NYC marathon Nov 3rd and the Philly marathon Nov 17th we are now also running the Blues Cruise 50k Oct 6th in Reading because why not?!? We also have signed up for the 4:00 pace group for the Philly marathon.  we have never done the pace group thing.  I'm not sure how I feel about pace groups.  I almost feel like it's cheating because learning/knowing how to pace yourself is really the challenge in running a marathon so if someone does that for you well what are you doing? But we figure why not try it once to see what it's like plus we are doing the NYC marathon only two weeks before Philly so we will need some high energy of a group to get us through.  That is another reason despite wanting to go under 4 hours we signed up for this group.  Hopefully we can break 4 hours in NYC then we will see how we feel for Philly.  As long as we do well in one of them I will be happy ;-)

Our Fall Training Plan

But of course that's not all.  I've already told you that we are running Blue Ridge April 26th and Born To Run 100k May 18th however now we decided to be those crazy people I wrote about in my Blue Ridge race report who run Blue Ridge twice.  Yup we will start around 2-230 AM so we can finish our first marathon in time to run it again with everyone else at 7.  Sounds awesome, doesn't it?!?! ;-)

So in suppose all in all I don't really have anything to complain about.  Summer WAS and IS still great and training so far is going well.  My training pace even on my tired, feeling slow runs is definitely faster than spring.  I feel like I'm really starting to build up my strength and endurance.  I also started using my  Tailwind again.  I didn't really use it over the summer since I didn't do many long runs requiring it but now that I'm "back on it" I can really tell the difference when I use it.  So between my Tailwind and my new virattas my sister-in-law hooked me up with, that's all I need :-)

Emir during our rare long training run TOGETHER :-)  Got stuck on a bridge during an opening :-(

Me on the bridge during our 14 miler

PS don't forget that since I am an official Blue Ridge Marathon blogger there will be a chance in the near future for you to win an entry into the marathon!  Stay Tuned!!!

Official Blue Ridge Blogger!!!

Just a quick post.  I just got word via email that I did indeed got picked to be an official blogger for the Blue Ridge Marathon in Roanoke in April!!!  I'm very excited and couldn't wait to share the news :-)  Stay tuned for a chance in the future to win a free entry and to follow my journey (I may even run the marathon twice this year!)

I'm Back!!! NYC, Philly, Blue Ridge and Born to Run 100K Here I come!

Yes, it's been a while since I blogged.  I was taking a vacation.  A vacation from work, vacation from cooking, cleaning, running so intensely, from blogging and life in general.  As you may recall we went to Bosnia and Croatia to visit Emir's family.  We were there for 4.5 glorious weeks!  We ran the Plitvice Marathon which I wrote about in my last entry.  After that I was tired.  I mean I'm pretty sure that it was a normal reaction of my body to running 3 marathons and a 50K between the last week in March and 1st week of June, only one of them NOT taking place on a mountain.  Unlike some people, I wasn't sick of running and I didn't hate it.  My body just felt physically tired.  I took about 4 days off completely after the marathon and then I ran 4 miles here, 5 miles there whenever I felt like it.  Once we went to Croatia I only ran maybe 2-3 times in the 2.5 weeks we were there.  Most days I went for 45-60 minute swims in the Adriatic.  There's nothing like it.  Water is crystal clear, you can see fish and other sea life while swimming.  I miss my swimming days so much.  Every time I'm  in Croatia I just always think why can't the Atlantic be this nice?!?!  There's no way you could go for daily open water swims like that in Jersey.  It's just not safe.  Anyway Emir's mom has an apartment on an island called Ugljan.  My life when I am on the island is perfect.  Whenever the kids wake us up, we eat breakfast and we are at our beach café by 9.  I'm pretty well known there now after several summers of lengthy visits so either a table is saved for me or space made at one of my friend's tables.  You are literally sitting right on the beach so the kids play and swim while the mommies drink coffee and chat.  Eventually it's lunch and nap time.  That's mommy's free time to go swimming, read and relax.  My mother in law cooks all our meals and stays with the kids while they are napping since she is usually cooking all day anyway.  At night we go for walks around the small town, usually indulge in ice cream and beer.  It was truly the perfect way to end our spring racing season and give our bodies some rest. 

Once we were back in the states which was the very end of June, I still wasn't really ready to go back to a steady running schedule.  Also we have a condo in Wildwood at the Jersey shore so I spend a lot of my off days there with the kids.  Until this past weekend, Emir wasn't able to come down as much because of many reasons (car problems, soccer games, work) so anyway that made it pretty much impossible for me to do much running anyway.  I did however do a bunch of I suppose we will say "jogs" with the kids.  Niko rode his bike while I ran pushing Una in the stroller.  Usually somewhere between mile 1 and 2 Niko gets tired and he hops on the stroller as well and I throw his bike on top.  Yup that's how I run anywhere from 1-2 miles to finish it off.  It's actually fun.  The kids love it and we are on the boardwalk next to the ocean so what's not to love?!

So that brings me to last week.  The weather finally broke from being oppressively hot and humid to 80s and fresh air.  All of the sudden my desire to run and run a lot came back.  Maybe it wasn't all completely my body being tired maybe some of it was the impossible thick air that made me feel like that.  Regardless I know it was for my own benefit that I rested a bit.  And now not only am I feeling better running but Emir and I have finally put together our running schedule.  It was hard to be excited and motivated without races in my future to be excited about.  That's just how I am, I need some kind of goal or else I feel like "what I am doing this for?"  So what races are we doing, you might ask.  Well back in May my sister-in-law (editor for Fitness magazine) basically begged Emir and I to sign up for the NYC Marathon lottery.  She ran it in 2011 and absolutely loved it.  She wants to run it this year with her husband (Emir's brother Dino) and us.  Honestly, Emir and I were pretty against running NYC.  The thought of paying $260 for a race plus having to take a ferry to Staten island at the crack of dawn only to sit there and wait 5 hours to race. It just didn't sound like that much fun to us.  But we obliged and entered the lottery.  I think all of us figured it was pretty much guaranteed that there was no way all 4 of us would get in.  Well long story later and really thanks to a friend who works at ING, all 4 of us are in the NYC marathon.  Despite my hesitations, I am really excited.  Not going to lie, I'm pretty sure that I am excited because we are part of the ING team so we will have some special privileges that include a heated tent on race day ;-)  But really it will be an experience to do a huge race like this.  It is completely different than the types of marathons we generally like to run. 

Of course if you have been reading my blog at all you know that NYC can't be the only thing on our schedule and you would be right.  Two weeks after NYC is the Philly Marathon.  Despite not being the biggest fans of the course due to the second half being of the out and back variety, this year is the 20th anniversary so there will be a lot of fun things going on plus an awesome medal I'm sure.  Did I mention we also got a good discount for filling out the race survey??  ;-) 

Then we move on to spring.  Nothing is set in stone yet but OD Marathon at the shore is always in play since it's so convenient for us and a fast course.  Then there is Blue Ridge Marathon in April.  We absolutely loved this marathon and are really hoping to do it again.  I'm waiting to hear if maybe I will get to be an official blogger.  Fingers crossed!!!  I would love to have that experience.  But either way most likely we will run it since I have cousins who live down there and it's such a great race.

And then there is a race that we are most excited about.  April 2014 happens to be Emir and I's 10th wedding anniversary.  We have been thinking of ways to celebrate for at least a year now.  We were married in Key West on the beach so one thought was to return there.  There's a ragnar there or a half marathon.  Another idea was to run the Madrid marathon since it occurs right around our anniversary and we LOVE Madrid.  There were other ideas.  It was always the same, we liked the ideas but there was never anything that gave us that "yes, this is it!" feeling until this week.  Emir stumbled across the Born To Run Ultra event in California.  It occurs in May which is perfect timing for us to go on an anniversary trip.  The race included camping on a ranch for two days, lots of drinking, tattoos and of course the running.  After the race we are going to stay in California and visit a bunch of sites and eventually end up in Vegas and the Grand Canyon.  I couldn't be more excited, except that it's 9 months away.  Anyway they offer a variety of distances from 10 miles to 100 miles.  The last few days while we have been talking this out and planning out which sites to visit while we are there, it was assumed that we were doing the 50K.  I started reading about the race, reading some runners' blogs about it and getting myself really excited.  In my head I was thinking I really want to do something more for our anniversary, do something we haven't done.  But I was also thinking about conservative Emir.  You know how he can be afraid to go fast in a race for fear of "hitting the wall" or afraid to set a goal for a PR because we are running several races close together.  I didn't want to say anything because I thought for sure he would say it's too much to do more than a 50K, how will we train enough?  we will be too tired to enjoy the trip, blah blah.  I just want to enjoy our anniversary.  Then today after I got back from my run before Emir was going on his, we were discussing the trip a bit.  All of the sudden, Emir blurted out "I want to run the 100K!"  I was shocked!  I said "you do?!  so do I!!!"  That's all it took, now we are set on 100K for our 10th anniversary and I CAN'T WAIT!!!!  Let the training begin!!!!