MCM 10K- There's a First Time For Everything

Have you ever been running a 10K, and during that 5th mile really wanted the race to be over? Really just wanted to stop? We've all been there. 10Ks are tough, and they feel especially hard during mile 5 when you have been running for awhile, but aren't quite in the home stretch.

Well, today, that came true for me and about a thousand other runners during the MCM 10K. About 4.6 miles into the race and I came upon a crowd of people. Runners. Stopped. Blocked from running any farther. Was the race over? Would we be able to continue? A helicopter flew overhead and I thought something bad must have happened. The big decision-- to stop the Garmin, or to keep it going?

Background
As most of my readers know, I had mono over the summer and had to take most of the summer off. I started running again in September with a "jog-walk" approach. I wanted to be on the safe side and avoid risking a relapse. It wasn't until October hit that I truly felt 100% all of the time and was ready to tackle true "training". No more walk breaks, and the addition of speed work.

Even though mono really, really sucks, there are some benefits. One of them is that when you come back, progress is quick. Although it will take me awhile to get back to my pre-mono fitness level, I get to see noticeable gains each week. It's like I am setting a PR each week with my average training pace and the pace that feels "easy" to me and for my heart rate. It's a bit upsetting to be slower, but it's also encouraging to see steady progress.

I've also been working a lot on focusing on "the process" of running. Instead of judging each run and race by my time, thinking about each run/race as a process and the steps I need to take. The half marathon I ran two weeks ago was a good example of this.

Today, my process was more about trying my best and staying strong. 10Ks hurt, and it's tough to hang in there at the end and keep pushing. I wanted to practice that today. I also had a strategy of starting at around a 8:10 pace, but then having all of my other miles be sub-8:00. I did go out a little faster than planned, but without knowing what I was capable of  and my starting pace feeling good, I just went with it.

I ran this MCM 10K in its inaugural year-- 2007. It wasn't a good race for me and there were many organizational challenges. The race didn't start on time by about 30 minutes. The wheelchair marathoners barreled right through all of us. The mile markers were off. But I figured that with 5 years of experience, maybe they had gotten their act together. To some extent they had, but their mile markers were still way off and they didn't have enough porta potties. The 2007 course was very different from today's course. It had mainly been a run on route 110 and through Crystal City. But today it started downtown, crossed over the 14th street bridge, went very briefly through Crystal City and then onto 110 and the finish.

Pre-Race
Greg and I left the house at around 6:00 and drove to a metro station. We had already looked up what the fare would be online, so we knew that we needed $2.00/each. However, when we got there, the machine wouldn't let us purchase a card for less than $2.70. Thankfully, we had brought an extra $1 bill in addition to our $5, otherwise we would have been screwed. So, we each had to pay $0.70 extra for no apparent reason. Upon exiting the metro, the machine wouldn't let us exit because we didn't have enough money on our fare cards. It's then that we learned that metro fare cards now cost $1.00. Really??? What a rip-off? Since when did they start charging $1.00 for a tiny slip of paper?  We thankfully had just enough change to add the money and leave the metro.

Once out of the metro, we found the porta-potties. There were a lot of them, but this 10K also allows for 10,000 runners. A runner per meter! We waited in the line for about 30 minutes before we were able to use the porta potty. This meant no warmup. Extremely frustrating. When will large races learn that they need more than just 30 porta potties for 10,000 runners? We ran to baggage check, dropped off our bag, and then got into the starting corral just after they had finished the national anthem. We had cut it very close, but had about 3 minutes to spare in the corral.

Miles 1-3
I ran my first mile a touch on the faster side than had planned. But that was okay because I really didn't know what I was capable of. After the first mile, I noticed that I was hot. My face was sweaty and burning up. It was 58 degrees and while that's not "hot", I am affected by anything over 50 degrees. Especially since it had been in the 40's in the mornings for the past two weeks and most of my training had been in cooler temperatures. I wished I had drank more water before the race, but it was too late for that now. Miles 2-3 were over the 14th street bridge and it was hillier than I remember. It seems like the shorter the distance, the more noticeable hills are. I didn't even notice these hills when I ran the marathon in 2006.

Mile 1: 7:56
Mile 2: 7:57
Mile 3: 7:50

Miles 4-Finish
Once we got into Crystal city, the wind become very strong. With hurricane Sandy approaching, we had actually been pretty lucky that there was no rain the wind wasn't much of a factor for the first three miles. But then it started to pick up and I tried drafting off of some guys.

With two miles left to go I was feeling the affects of the race, but still had energy left. At mile 4.6, that's when the race just stopped. Everyone was standing around talking to each other. I found Greg and he told me that he heard something about a suspicious package up ahead that they had to clear out. I thought we'd be there for a long time. I had mixed emotions about this. I was immediately happy not to be running, but I had also worked really hard to get to that point at the pace I did and was disappointed that I wasn't going to get an official, valid time. I did stop my Garmin because I had run a strong race up until that point and I wanted to make sure that was recorded accurately. Plus, if we did get to finish the race, I would have a Garmin time that would reflect 6.2 miles.

Suddenly, after I had been stopped for about two minutes, we were allowed to finish the race. I got a nice 2-minute break, but faster runners were stopped for longer. Slower runners probably didn't even feel the effects of this.

Mile 4: 8:03
Mile 5: 7:42
Mile 6: 7:50

The last 0.2 of this race features an infamous uphill. When you run the marathon, there are tons of people cheering for you the whole way. When you run the 10K, not so much. I had nothing to give here. I didn't want to kill my legs on a hill when I knew I wouldn't even be getting a valid time. This race isn't worth missing a day of training next week because I killed my legs, so I just slowed down. Even after you reach the top of the steep hill, there is an incline to the finish. My team does hill repeats on this second incline during the summer, so the hill was very noticeable to me. My last 0.23 was a 9:20 pace. Yeah, I just gave in to the hill.

My Garmin time (which is more accurate than the official time) was 49:30. It was within my target range, although I was hoping for slightly faster-- based on my recent training runs in the cooler temperatures. I did get a 2-minute break, so who knows what my time would have been if I hadn't gotten to stop. Regardless, it shows huge progress from 4 weeks ago, and I was proud of the strong effort level I was putting out.

My official/unofficial time was 51:18. The female winner clocked in at 47:xx. It's really a shame that the race was messed up, but at least we didn't run into a bomb. I'd rather be alive with an inaccurate time than dead!

Post-Race
Greg and I ran back to our car (we had no more money for the metro!) He had been going for a PR and his Garmin time tied his PR. He says he doesn't know what he would have done without the stop. We then had a celebratory breakfast at one of our favorite restaurants near where we used to live before we moved. When we got home, we finished off with another 3 miles. That gave me 10.5 for the day.

Final Thoughts
I ran a race I was proud of, but not overly excited about. Lots of my friends set PRs today in the marathon- which is amazing given the windy conditions that worsened as the day went on. There is definitely a part of me that sees all of these PRs and feels sorry for myself. Not just for getting mono but for missing out on all the opportunities I had over the past 4 years to get a marathon PR.

I know that I need to separate myself from what other people are doing with their marathons. I will get my marathon PR. And not only that-- I will get a PR that actually reflects the fitness I have built up over the past 4 years of consistently running 40+mile weeks and logging tempo and interval workouts. More importantly, it will reflect all of the mental work I have done with regards to overcoming disappointment and learning how to put less pressure on myself.

Fall 2012 is not my season to set PRs. It's time to regain the fitness I lost while sick and use the races to "practice" the mental strategies I'm learning. I'm putting the pieces together now so that when the time comes, I will be ready for the marathon.

Heritage Half Marathon: All About the Execution

As most of you know, I had mono for pretty much the whole summer and was unable run or do any kind of physical activity. It sucked, but it's over, and now my focus is on re-gaining the fitness I lost over three months.

I had registered for the Heritage Half Marathon back in the Spring. I ran this race and 2010 and I loved it. I actually placed third in my age group back then and it was really thrilling.  Anyway, this race is awesome. It's only a 20-minute drive from my house, it's well-organized, it's got an early 7:00am start, there is great course support, there are plenty of indoor bathrooms to use and it's not too big or too small. The only downside is that this race is all hills. Most of them aren't very steep, but extremely long. Although there are a few hills that are on the steeper side.

My PR for a half marathon is from this race in 2010. I've run some half marathons since, but most of them had hot weather, so I never went for another PR. I'll be on the hunt for another half marathon PR in 2013!

Strategy and Goals
I've only been "training" for about four weeks now. Actually, I think I was still run-walking four weeks ago at this time. My longest run since the mono had been 10 miles last week. Obviously, I was in no shape to race a half marathon, but I figured the race would provide a good opportunity to set some other goals:

• Get a good workout
• Plan a strategy and stick to it
• Finish strong

My sports psychologist has really emphasized the importance of focusing on these things instead of my time. It was easy to not focus on my time during this race because I know that I am not in the best of shape. The real test will be if I can continue to focus on these process-type goals once I am back to my old self and looking to set PRs. Today was a perfect day to practice being focused on strategy and execution.

Since my longest run thus far had been only 10 miles, I knew that simply covering the 13.1-mile distance would be a good accomplishment. I went back and forth in the weeks leading up to this race on how I wanted to approach it, but Greg helped me realize that the best workout I could get would be to combine an easy run and a tempo run. I had thought I might race it at "half effort" but that wasn't going to really get me anywhere in terms of physical or mental training. I decided to run the first 9 miles at an easy pace, keeping my heart rate in zone 2, and then running a tempo for the last 4 miles. 

Before the Race

It was about 45 degrees, and I didn't remember 45 degrees being so cold. I was freezing at the start line. This race also has a 5K, so they let those runners go at 7:00am, and then the half marathoners went about 5 minutes later. I was wearing a skirt, a short-sleeved shirt and gloves, and I shed my hoodie to Greg about 2 minutes before the start. 

My coach will not like to hear this but I did not eat anything before the race. I had a good dinner last night, and I was planning on taking two gels during the race. My main reason here is that I am trying to teach my body to burn more calories from fat, so it will have better fat utilization in longer runs. Per my VO2 max test I took last spring, I know that my body is exceptionally poor at using fat for fuel, so I am experimenting with not eating before runs, and just relying on the gels during the run. However, once a long run turns into 16+ miles, I will eat breakfast because I know I need to train my digestive system.

Miles 1-7

The course started on a huge downhill. I probably took this too fast, but my heart rate was really low and it felt very easy. My splits for these miles don't look to great, but I did keep my heart rate in Zone 2, and some of it is a product of there just being a lot of hills. It's hard to keep a low heart rate up a hill.

Around mile 2, people started passing me. This was tough mentally, but I told myself I needed to focus on sticking to my strategy. I hoped I would pass these people later. A girl with a sweatshirt hoodie and spandex passed me. Oh man, I was just passed by someone wearing a hoodie, I thought to myself. But I stuck to my strategy, I didn't want to focus on other people-- just me and what I set out to do. 

The course website said that there would be water at mile 3.5, which is where I planned to take my first gel. However, just after mile 3, there was water and I realized I missed my chance. I love this race, but that waterstop definitely was not at 3.5. This meant I had to wait until 5.5 for my first gel, but I didn't worry too much. During mile 4, someone shouted out to me, "I read your blog!" OMG- wow!  So cool! I didn't think anyone read this blog aside from my friends. "You have the stripes blog!" he yelled out. Then, the guy next to me said "you have a blog?" and then I struck up a conversation with him. It was nice to have someone to chat with and I ran with this guy until mile 5.5, when I stopped to take in plenty of water and my gel.

Greg was at mile 5, cheering for me and taking video. It was great to have such awesome support!

Mile 1: 9:01

Mile 2: 9:30

Mile 3: 9:42

Mile 4: 9:50

Mile 5: 9:52

Mile 6: 9:46

Mile 7: 9:45

Mile 8: 9:39

Miles 8-Finish
There is a steep, long hill during the 9th mile known as "caterpillar hill". I took this thing very slowly, knowing that I was going to start my tempo at mile marker 9. I stopped at the 8.5 aid station for water and I took my second gel. After that, I was ready to go. I caught up with the guy who I had been running with earlier in the race but passed him pretty quickly. Shortly after, I passed the guy who reads my blog. Then I just started passing everyone. It felt great!

Mile 10 felt like an "easy" tempo. My goal was to keep my heart rate between 172-180, and I didn't have to run that fast up the hills to make that happen. The last three miles felt like a true tempo. It was hard. My legs were tired and the hills were just constant. At times, I wanted to back off the pace thinking that I didn't care about my time, but I told myself that this race was about execution and getting a good tempo in. I wanted to make sure I got that good tempo workout in-- I knew it would pay off in future races and really help me progress in regaining my fitness. I also just wanted to stay strong mentally. I have a 10K coming up and I wanted to practice staying focused and hanging on to a challenging effort level.

I maintained the effort level and even though the pace wasn't all that fast, I knew I was doing the "work" necessary to get my tempo pace back to where it used to be.

Greg was cheering for me at mile 12.5 as I approached the school where the finish line was. I didn't realize we had to do a lap around the track and I thought I was much closer to being done, so I had to dig deep to stay strong. Once on the track and off of those horrible hills, I just killed it. I passed like 10 people on track. Nobody passed me. About 50 meters before the finish, I whizzed by a pack of three so quickly they probably didn't know what hit them! (You can see it in the below video). And guess what-- one of them was the girl in the hoodie!!!! Yes!!  

I didn't realize how strong of a kick I had in me. I guess finishing on a track is great because I'm used to pushing myself there and kicking hard at the end of intervals, so I was well prepared.

Mile 9: 10:01

Mile 10: 8:52

Mile 11: 8:40

Mile 12: 8:44

Mile 13: 8:10

Post-Race

I was very pleased with my strong finish and passing of everyone on the track. My official time was 2:00:58, which was better than expected. I thought I would be somewhere around 2:05, but hadn't really done the math.

I felt nauseous immediately afterwards and my legs were really tired. But after awhile I started to feel better. As I started to reflect on my performance, I was very pleased. In fact the more I thought about it, the more proud I felt. If I can do this in all of my races, I will be golden. I had a very clear strategy and I executed it exactly as planned. When things got hard at the end, I stayed positive and continued to push. I had a strong finish really enjoyed the race atmosphere. I learned that random people read my blog, and I got to run with somebody interesting for 2 miles. This is what racing is all about!

Greg took this video:

Fox, Milwaukee and Build Up

It's not Thursday, but I have three "things" to talk about, nonetheless!

Fox
It was about 6:45 last Wednesday morning and I was out for an easy six miler on my normal residential running route. I noticed an animal run across the street so I stopped running. I'm paranoid about being chased and bitten by a dog, so whenever I see an animal running near me, I stop dead in my tracks, so as not to provoke them. I quickly realized that this wasn't a dog or a cat, but a fox. I tried to slowly walk away from it, but it followed me. I walked in another direction, and it continued to follow me. I started getting scared. I almost screamed for help.

The fox looked a lot like this one.

There was a long driveway that had a car with its lights on, so I walked toward that, and waved at the car. The fox still followed. I motioned to the driver that I wanted to talk to him, so he rolled down his window. It was a 16-year-old kid on his way to school. "Is that a fox?" I asked? He said it was. "I'm scared. It's following me. Is it going to bite me?" The kid said it shouldn't bite me and that I had nothing to worry about. I almost asked him to drive me up the street, but I didn't. The car left and the fox was still there. I slowly put some distance between myself and the fox and then sprinted away as soon as I felt like I had a decent head start. The fox didn't follow, thank God.

My husband and co-workers later told me that foxes don't bite unless they have Rabies. And they should be afraid of humans unless they have a lot of human interaction and become domesticated. It seems like this neighborhood fox might have had a little too much human interaction because it certainly took an interest in me.

Milwaukee
The Milwaukee Lakefront marathon is this weekend. I ran that race last year and it was disastrous. I was in the best shape of my life, fully prepared to run between a 3:30 and 3:35. All of my training runs had been solid, particularly the long runs. I had just run a 35:53 8K, so I knew my speed was there as well. The weather was great for racing and everything was in place for a huge success. And yet, at mile 9, I knew my race was over, despite a conservative start. I actually had to start walking shortly after the halfway point.

Milwaukee Lakefront 2011, before the crash

This race was a turning point for me because it made me realize that my streak of marathon bonks were due to anxiety and stress. Physiologically, everything was great. But I put so much pressure on myself to perform well at a marathon, and I felt like so much was riding on it, that I would lose a ton of energy by stressing out the week before the race. I tried to addresses this issue at my next marathon, Shamrock this past March, but telling myself to " just relax" wasn't doing the trick. If you're anxious about something and feel that you have a lot riding on it, and you've had a lot of disappointment in the past, then you need to work through it rather than just saying "I'm not going to stress." That's the tough thing about self-fulfilling prophecies.

Shamrock was also a bust. I didn't even finish the thing. I dropped out at mile 13 and spent the rest of the week feeling as if I had expended the effort of a full marathon. I've run many half marathons faster than that pace and have only required 1-2 days of recovery. Again, a strong indication that something was seriously off.

Why am I dredging all of this up now? In addition to being the 1-year anniversary of Milwaukee, my sports psychologist is having me work on attaching emotions to the process, as opposed to the outcome. Ironically, I was in peak condition last year at this time, but didn't have it together mentally. Today, I feel like I've made huge gains in the area of mental strength, although physically I am very far off from where I used to be. Anyway, to help tie emotions to the process rather than the race result, he asked me to take a close look at my last four marathons and re-review them. He wants me to find sources of accomplishment, pride, excitement, happiness, satisfaction and enjoyment.

I won't go through this entire exercise on my blog, but I will point out a few things about Milwaukee that could have brought me these emotions.

• Accomplishment: I finished the race. I wanted so badly to give up. Everything hurt and I was crushed emotionally. At one point I even lied down on the ground. But I pushed on, through run-walking, and endured it until I crossed the finish line. Finishing, in and of itself, was an accomplishment.
• Pride: My training cycle was awesome. I was in fantastic shape, and all of my training runs indicated that. I was really proud of the hard work I put in on the track and on the weekend long runs. I had also incorporated pool running and swimming into my training, as well as core work. This was new for me, and I felt proud that I worked so hard.
• Excitement: I don't really see anything to be excited about. Maybe the fact that I traveled to a new city.
• Happiness: I wasn't happy. I was crushed. Where could have happiness come from? I just don't see it.
• Satisfaction: I was anything but satisfied with this race and I don't see anything that could have made me feel satisfied.
• Enjoyment: Even though I felt "off" early in the race, I enjoyed the first 8 miles. It was fun to be running somewhere new. I love the race atmosphere. I did enjoy the scenery during the last 4 miles. The weekend as a whole was enjoyable. 

If I were to run the same race again today, I don't know if I'd be able to focus on positive, process-oriented things. But I've committed to working on being more positive, so I would try to.

Build Up
I've now been running for about a month post-mono. I'm pleased to report that I feel 100% recovered. I think that the illness is behind me now and I no longer fear relapse like I did when I last posted two weeks ago.

I started by jog-walking and I've finally removed walk breaks. All runs (except one) have been "easy", endurance-building, zone 2 runs. I'm focusing on building endurance now, so that I can build speed on top of that later. In summary, here is a look at the last few weeks:

I didn't try to make it such a "perfect" progression, but I do love seeing this! As I said above, all of these were heart-rate based, zone 2 runs, with one exception.

On Tuesday, I decided it was time for an "easy tempo".  I know, an oxymoron! I did 2 x 1.5 miles at Lactate Threshold with 1/2 mile recovery. Unfortunately, it was pouring rain really hard, so I used a treadmill. I set the treadmill to 7.0 (8:34 pace) and did the workout. This felt tough, but not "tempo tough". It truly was an easy tempo. Had I been outside, I am sure I would have run faster, but I overheat very easily on a treadmill so I was conservative.

Yesterday, I ran 10 miles at an average 9:57 pace. I didn't take walk breaks, but I figured I'd have to stop for traffic lights anyway. Of course, on the one run where I want to stop at a light, they are all green. I don't think I ever have a run when all the lights are green. But they were yesterday, so I ran straight through and felt good the whole way. Huge progress from last weekend when I ran 9 miles and mile 9 felt like mile 20 of a 20-miler.

I'm not making any judgments about where I am at fitness-wise. As shown above, I'm progressing every week and I know that no one single run can determine what kind of shape I'm in. I'm going to run all my planned races this fall. I probably won't race them all at full effort (some I will), but I don't want to shy away from races that I am fully capable of participating in just because my time will be slow. It will be a true lesson in trying my best and having that be good enough.

Running After Mono Part II

My apologies for the rather generic, un-creative blog title. However, my previous "running after mono" blog brought a mono-inflicted runner here, and I made a new friend! She just started blogging and has had the misfortune of getting mono. When I was Googling "running with mono" all I found were horror stories. I figured I would post some encouraging stuff for people searching for the same answers I was. Of course everyone is different and the illness affects people in different ways. But here's a snippet from me.

It's been two weeks since my last update and three weeks since I took my first "jog". September 1 marked my official return to running. It did not go well, but things have improved since. One thing to keep in mind when returning to running post-mono is that it's not as if you simply took a break from running. The immune system is compromised, fatigue lingers, the entire body has been beat up and there is always the worry of getting Chronic Fatigue Syndrome or never being quite the same. These last two are the horror stories I've read when searching Google for post-mono running. You have to be extremely careful, taking it day by day and  seeing what you can handle. The tough part is, even if you are responding well to increased physical activity, the illness can suddenly rear its ugly head without warning.

My approach here has been to rely heavily on my heart rate to indicate whether I am pushing too much.  Based on my recent VO2 max test, I know where my heart rate should be for the run to be "easy". 150-162 beats per minute. I've been extremely disciplined in this area, even though it feels like I am barely getting a workout. However, if I were to just run by feel I know my legs would take me faster than I should be going, and I would risk tiring too early and bonking at the end. Zone 2 training is also the best for building endurance, and that's where marathon training starts anyway. I don't plan to add any speed until early October and even then, it will be "lite" speedwork-- short tempo runs based on keeping my heart rate in zone 4.

September has been all about regaining my health so that I can return to proper training. I don't consider the running I am doing now to be actual training like it was before. Rather, this is what I need to do in order to recover properly, so that I will ultimately be able to train at full capacity sooner rather than later. My sports psychologist reminded me that I should be making comparisons only to my recent past, and not to my pre-mono self. Otherwise, every run would feel like a failure.

When I first started running again, I used the jog-walk approach. I found that I wasn't able to keep my heart rate in zone 2 for more than two miles, so I needed to take periodic breaks. Now, I am still jog-walking, but the jog portions are longer. I think I could keep my heart rate in zone 2 without the breaks now, but it's nice to let it come down a little every so often, so I'm not constantly having to back off the pace to maintain the desired heart rate. My paces have been gradually getting faster, but the lack of speed work means that I probably won't be anywhere close to my prior pace for a long time, and I am okay with that.

Here is a recap of my week. I'm including the paces so that I'll be able to come back a month from now and see some progress. A month ago, I was struggling just to walk at a normal pace, so I've made outstanding progress in the past month.

Monday: Rest. I had planned on running, but I decided not to because I expended a fair amount of energy cheering for Greg and my teammates at the Philly half marathon the day before.

Tuesday: 5.1 miles on the treadmill due to stormy weather. 10 minutes jogging, 2 minutes walking. Treadmill was set to 5.7 (10:30 pace)

Wednesday: Rest

Thursday: 6 miles. 10 minute jog, 1 minute walk. Jogging portions averaged a pace of 10:30.

Friday: 5.9 miles. 12 minute jog, 1 minute walk. Jogging portions averaged a pace of 10:43.

Saturday: Rest

Sunday: 7 miles. 12 minute jog, 1 minute walk. Jogging portions averaged a pace of 10:11.

Today's run showed some nice progress because the average pace of the full 7 miles was 10:30, and that includes the walking!  Also, it was a post-mono distance PR.

4 days of running, 24 miles covered (includes the walking).

In addition to this, I've been consistently doing strength training. I'm heavily focused on my hips and glutes because I know that's an area of weakness for me. But I'm also doing squats, lunges, planks, various forms of crunches, push-ups, and light weight lifting for the arms and shoulders.

I hope that I continue to feel good during my runs and throughout the day. My greatest fear is a relapse or setback. I think I'm being really cautious here, but it's hard to tell for sure. My body is responding well, so I take that as a positive sign. I'm also very focused on eating healthy, getting plenty of sleep and loading up on vitamins. Health, you will be mine!

Choosing Where to Focus

I was registered to run the Rock 'N Roll Philadelphia half marathon this past Sunday. However, due to having mono all summer, I was not in any shape to race this one. More importantly, I am being strategic about my build up and even jog-walking the 13.1-mile distance would not at all be prudent for my health.

Thus, I went to Philadelphia to cheer for Greg and my Capital Area Runners teammates.

Pre-Race

Before I even left the house on Saturday, I told myself that I was going to remain positive all weekend. I did not want to spend the weekend depressed about my circumstances. I wanted to truly enjoy the weekend, truly support my husband, and not compare myself to anyone running. Once again, mono has provided me with the opportunity to work on things that are challenging for me. Even though I'm not at a point where I can improve my physical ability, I certainly can work on some of the key areas that I often struggle with.

It really comes down to focus. Where do I choose to focus my attention and my mental space? I could choose to focus on things that would only make me miserable. Examples of this (things to steer clear of) are speculating on the time I would have run if I had been able to train all summer, my current inability to cover a half-marathon distance, and what times I will run once I start racing again. I told myself that I would not think about these things during the weekend. But in order to NOT think about something, you need to have a focus point to replace those negative thoughts. I chose to focus heavily on:

• Supporting Greg throughout the entire weekend and doing whatever I could to help him.
• Cheering for Greg, my teammates, and other random runners during the race (I love cheering for randoms. The look on their faces is great when I call them out as looking strong!)
• Taking photos of Greg and my teammates that I could later send to them
• Getting to know my teammates better during the pre-race dinner on Saturday night. 

Greg at mile 4.2.

It worked like a charm! I thoroughly enjoyed the weekend, Greg ran a fantastic race and I got to participate in the event by cheering and taking photos! And actually, it wasn't hard to do. Once I told myself that I would focus on the four things mentioned above, it was pretty easy to get wrapped up in Greg's race, the enjoyment of spectating and the task of taking photos.

Unfortunately, the fully-charged battery on my good camera died early on, so most of the "action" photos were taken with my cell phone camera. But they still came out okay and my coach used them in the weekly team newsletter. That made me happy. 

Some of my teammates offered me condolences and sympathy for not being able to race. They assured me that they knew how hard it was to not be able to be out there racing. I really appreciated how supportive these particular teammates were being. And the way I felt when they said these things really solidified something for me. I'm okay with it. Yes, it's hard not being able to run, but actually not that hard. I have felt a greater sense of despair with other injuries and illnesses far less severe than mono simply because I didn't have the tools to cope effectively with them. I actually enjoyed the entire weekend quite easily because my focus was exactly where it needed to be.

I learned that you don't have to be running in a race to be a participant in the event. And you don't have to be physically training to improve yourself as an athlete.

Running After Mono

I think I am finally coming out of this illness. I've had many ups and downs throughout this experience with mono, but I devoted the entire month of August to resting in the hopes of preventing relapses and returning to my normal, pre-mono self. With the exception of two weeks in July when I thought I was recovered, I was suffering from this thing for the entire summer. I've never had an illness last this long and I've never had a summer when I was indoors for the majority of it.

Getting Healthy

This illness basically came to me in 4 phases: initial sickness (severe sore throat), temporary recovery, relapse with original symptoms, and then dizziness + general weakness and fatigue. The 4th phase lasted the longest and I am still not completely out of the woods. I still occasionally get dizzy and feel tired, but these periods don't last for longer than a few hours. 

August was tough. I worked from home for the first three weeks, logging sick hours here and there when I needed to sleep or get away from the computer. August 17 was actually my worst day of the entire illness in terms of fatigue. I woke up, got out of bed, and felt like I couldn't even walk to the bathroom. Even sitting up in the bed was exhausting so I took conference calls lying down and logged the rest of the day as sick. It was the only day of this entire illness that I asked Greg to bring me breakfast in bed. I did make my way downstairs for lunch, but it wasn't easy. Thankfully, I woke up the following day feeling worlds better. The illness is so unpredictable that way. Since then, things have been progressing in the right direction. 

When I returned to work, I did nothing aside from work. No running. No going out to dinner. No errands. Just to work and home so I could make sure I had the energy to continue going to work. I ended the week feeling decent so I gradually started adding in normal activities like going out to eat and doing the laundry. A very experienced runner advised me to not start running again until I had a sustained period of feeling good and healthy. I resumed my strength training during the last week of August and I seemed to handle it well. Nothing too intense-- just some planks, push-ups, and working with dumbells.

The First Run Back

On Saturday, September 1, I thought I would celebrate the new month by trying to run. I had felt great all week, and the week before had been pretty good, although not perfect. I set out to run three miles. Goal: three miles, keeping heart rate in zone 2. 

I was sooo happy to be out there again. I was enjoying the run so much for the first mile. Greg was with me and it was good to be running with him. It was a snail's pace but that didn't matter to me. I was just happy to be able to run. The second mile didn't feel all that great. I had to slow down even further to keep my heart rate in zone 2. By the end of the mile, I knew I was done. I walked the rest of the way home. 

Initially I was extremely frustrated. I couldn't even run three miles at an 11:xx pace. I could accept that I had lost fitness, but what I couldn't accept was that I wasn't at a spot with my recovery where 3 miles was realistic. That run left me feeling extremely tired and crappy, so I spent the rest of the day on the couch. On the plus side, I did get out there and complete 2 miles without stopping. And instead of spending the day depressed, I just accepted that I wasn't ready to start running again. 

The Second Run

I explained to my sports psychologist that I had a crappy first run back. At this point, he suggested the run/walk approach, which I had considered initially, but I didn't want to accept as reality. He gave me a reality check and told me that I'm not on the same path I was before the illness. I would get back there, but I'm not there, and I have to first work through the illness before I can get back there. I have to deal with my current circumstances, and spending my time wishing I was my old self again doesn't do me any good. He urged me to make comparisons only to the recent past. I'm doing much better now than I was three weeks ago. Comparing to how I was three months ago doesn't help me.

I did the run/walk thing after my stress fractures and tolerated it well, so I accepted that it would be the best approach to being "out there" and feeling good for more than just 15 minutes. I arbitrarily decided on 8:00 running, followed by 2:00 walking. I figured that the walk breaks would allow my heart rate to come down so that it wouldn't be such a struggle to stay in zone 2. 

On Thursday (5 days after the first run) I felt well enough to test the run/walk approach. It worked! I felt good the whole time, and good for the rest of the day. I ran a total of about 2.2 miles and covered a distance of about 2.6 miles. This is slightly more running than the previous attempt, and I felt a lot better.

Runs 3 & 4

I woke up feeling good on Friday morning, which hopefully means that the Thursday run wasn't too much for me. However, I decided to save up my energy for my Sunday run, in which I would attempt to cover a distance of 4.8 miles. I joined Greg for the first 8 minutes of his long run on Saturday, and then turned around and came home. Today (Sunday) was a big day for me. My team was meeting at Burke Lake to run the 4.8-mile loop. They were all running multiple loops as part of their long runs, but my goal was to simply complete the loop, even if it meant a substantial amount of walking. 

4.8 miles completed!

I had my trusty Garmin programmed at 8:00/2:00 intervals, so I heard a beep whenever it was time to transition from running to walking. Greg was with me, even though he just ran 18 miles the day before. I was so grateful to have him there, because part of me was worried that my body wouldn't react well, and I'd need help. Thursday's run left me feeling pretty confident that I would be okay, but mono is highly unpredictable. 

It was a beautiful morning. 62 degrees with low humidity. And most of the trail was shaded. This was such an enjoyable run for me! Running somewhere that I don't normally go, with my husband, and feeling healthy. Such a nice feeling. 

We ended up doing 5 x (8:00/2:00) for a total of 4.1 miles. I had to really slow down on the last one to keep my heart rate down, so I decided I probably shouldn't try for a 6th one. We walked the rest of the loop for a total of 4.8 miles covered. Afterwards, we waited for the other groups to finish their second lap so we could say hi and talk to the coach.

Greg and I had a celebratory breakfast and then returned home. I felt good for awhile, but then I started to get a slight headache and some dizziness. I'm still a bit dizzy as I type this, and I hope it passes. Mono recovery is just so unpredictable. It's hard to know what's okay to do and what's not. And there is no established timeline for a full recovery. I've heard it can take up to a year. I've heard some people say six months. All I can do is try to get plenty of rest, stay hydrated, eat healthy foods and minimize stress.

No race plans for me-- I'm completely focused on getting back to 100% health. Once I get back into the groove of normal training, I will start to think about spring racing. 

On Hard Work . . .

Despite not being able to run, I've been doing a great deal of thinking about my approach and mindset.

I've always defined myself, in part, by my work ethic. I work very, very hard at things in which I care to succeed. "Working hard" is part of who I am at my core. But now I am realizing that there's more to hard work than what I thought.

I enjoy playing the piano by ear and composing.

People work hard at things they are good at. When I was 12 years old and taking piano lessons, I never wanted to practice the pieces my teacher gave me. I didn't have the patience to read the music and figure it out. Instead, I was really good at playing music by ear and even composing my own songs. It was easier for me to work with this natural gift than it was to learn the assigned pieces. I would practice the piano for about an hour a day-- but only a small percentage of that time was spent on what the teacher wanted me to do. Most of it was playing songs I was already good at, or playing songs by ear. Thus, piano lessons only lasted a few years and I didn't progress very far in my ability to play complex pieces. (This doesn't really bother me, because I would still prefer to play by ear!)

To be truly successful, you need to work hard at things you are not good at.

I consider myself "good" at marathon training because I'm very motivated to get out there and do the prescribed workouts. I'm good at making plans and following through. I enjoy structure and following the rules. These are all things that are very easy for me to do because I enjoy them and I've been doing them for a long time. And therefore, it's easy for me to work hard at simply doing the training.

Things that I'm good at, which I work hard at:

I'm good at pushing through tough runs!

• Carefully planning runs in advance
• Being disciplined about following the training plan and doing workouts as prescribed
• Taking good care of my body- being aware of potential injuries, planning rest and recovery
• Mental toughness, both in terms of pushing through hard workouts and not giving up on my goals
• Solving problems, learning from mistakes
• Being strategic about running races

But there are also a whole host of other things related to marathon training that I could really improve upon. Things that are not easy for me-- that may seem like they aren't even possible. So when I start training again, I plan to continue to work hard at the things I mentioned above, but I also have a list of other things I need to work hard at that aren't easy.

Things that I'm not good at, and need to work hard at:

• Making comparisons only to myself, and not to other runners.
• Learning effectively from setbacks/poor performances and quickly moving on.
• Patience. 
• Tempering emotions, and attaching them to "the process" rather than the outcome.
• Expecting that I will make mistakes, and being okay with them.

Making comparisons-- I have a tendency to look at other people's race results and immediately compare them to my own. Or look at my results and immediately compare them to other people's results. This is not good for me! Although I am happy for others when they succeed, it's coupled with an "I should be able to do that." When hearing about other people's runs, I need to be happy for their successes and keep that completely, 100%, totally separate from my own running. When I run a race, I should be 100% focused on my performance, what I did well, and not letting other people's times come into the evaluation of myself.

Learning from setbacks and moving on-- I've gotten better at this over the years, but I am nowhere near where I want to be. It used to be that I just wouldn't learn anything from a poor performance. I'd be upset and it would last for awhile. Then I started learning from setbacks, so although I was upset, at least I had something to takeaway for next time. The problem has always been the moving on part. If I have a bad race, I tend to dwell on it all day, or sometimes even for multiple days. This is not good for me and it will only serve to diminish my confidence. Confidence is critical for good performance, so I can't get caught up in the negative emotions.

Patience-- I am not a patient person. I will work hard for a long time to get good results, but when I know it's time for those results, I can't bear to wait any longer. I have the patience to work through a 16-week training plan, but come race day, I'd better get those results! The thought of doing another 16-week cycle to get the results that I should have gotten this time just pains me beyond belief. After each of my "bad" marathons, my first order of business has been to pull out a calendar, find a marathon in 4-6 weeks and get my result! And during those 4-6 weeks my entire focus is on how I will redeem myself in that next race.

I absolutely hate not knowing when I will get results. In college, I couldn't stand having to wait to receive grades on my essays. The worst part was not knowing when the teacher would get the grades back. I would go to class, hoping that this would be the day we'd get our essays returned, but it wouldn't be. I was always the one asking "when will we get our papers back?"

And right now, I am trying to recover from mono and I have no idea when I will be able to start doing regular training again. Next week? Two weeks? Next month? I would be much better at coping if I had a date that I could count on. I have to work hard at being patient.

Tempering Emotions-- I consider myself to be a very passionate person. It's a part of my personality that I like, but it's not good when negative emotions just consume me. I have always attached emotions to results and outcomes, no matter how hard I worked. I realize that not getting a good result doesn't diminish the hard work, but the disappointment that comes from not getting the desired result always overshadows the pride from doing the work. I need to work hard at attaching pride and positive emotions to the process and the work. A sub-par marathon time doesn't change the fact that I spent the past 16 weeks waking up at 5:00am and running my butt of every day!

Expecting that I will make mistakes-- Whenever I make a mistake, I feel the need to fix it immediately. I am not okay with making mistakes. I apologize profusely at work or to other people if the mistake somehow affected them. And I try hard to make up for it. Where I used to work, mistakes weren't tolerated and I was there for so long that it felt normal to me. But at my new job, people don't make a big deal out of mistakes. It's expected. We're just human, we're working on a hundred things at once under tight deadlines, so mistakes happen. I'd love for my "internal culture" to shift along with the way my work environment culture has shifted. Work hard, expect great things out of yourself, but also expect to make mistakes and not make a huge deal out of them.

I am going to focus on these five things (maybe not all at once) and I think that once I do, I will be a happier person overall and I will find more success in anything I strive for-- not just running marathons.

Speaking of marathons, every single marathon I've run since March 2008 has been a huge struggle for me and has not ended well. And I've run a lot of them since then. I've constantly asked myself why this keeps happening and now I am honing in on the answer.

Even though I've been doing very well at the first list of bullets, which includes executing the physical training, I've not worked at all on the second list of bullets. I really need to start thinking more about that second list, using my discipline to work hard at each one, and accepting that I will be out of my comfort zone. I will have to correct a lot of bad habits and mentally train myself to have a different outlook. The byproduct of NOT working hard at this second list is a great deal of anxiety, which is ultimately which comes back to bite me come race day. Telling myself to simply relax won't cut it. I need to work hard at the things I'm uncomfortable with.

Music Organization Issues

Having mono and not being able to run or do much of anything else has given me the opportunity to address my iTunes Music Library issues. I've been meaning to tackle this project for a long time now, but I've never had the time. Just this weekend, I've spent over five hours doing this. Not to mention time spent in previous weekends.

The problem: I had a computer virus back in 2009, which caused me to lose a large chunk of my songs. Many were backed up to "the cloud" but many were not. The problem was identifying which ones were lost, if I had them backed up on data CD's anywhere (I used to play MP3 CD's in my car), or if I would need to re-download them. I have an iPod with most of the songs on it, but I have never been able to figure out how to transfer songs from an iPod back to a computer. So the process is going through the iPod, song by song, to see which ones are not on the computer.

To complicate matters, I got a new computer back in May and not all songs made the transfer. It took me several tries to get what I thought was all of them, but now I am noticing I am missing some songs that were on that old computer. It sounds straightforward-- just copy everything over. But for some reason, it just was not that easy. Part of the problem was that my music was stored all over the place, not just in "my music". I've been using my computer to store music since 1999, before iTunes and before computers were really setup that way. So stuff is scattered.

Another problem: I would really like my iTunes library to have the correct album and year for each song. The year is very important because songs represent eras in my life. I organize my physical CD collection by date, so it's like a timeline of my life. Related to this, I would like accurate play count data. The 2009 virus wiped out everything, so I had to start from scratch. But then for awhile I couldn't properly sync my iPods because they had pre-virus music on them, so no play counts were being recorded. Accurate play count data is important because it tells me how obsessed I was with each song. Unfortunately, the data has just started to become accurate this year as I begin to address these issues.

My time on this music project has been spent:

• Going to Wikipedia to verify album title and release date
• Entering that data into iTunes
• Uploading songs from regular CD's and MP3 CD's 
• Managing duplicates
• Going through the iPod to see which songs are missing from the computer
• Going to Amazon.com to purchase songs that are missing (and I have made the mistake twice of buying songs and then finding them just minutes later! Very frustrating.)
• My music library is too large for my 16G Nano, and they don't make them larger, so figuring out what songs I want on the Nano.

Throughout this process I have run into so many iTunes problems like "you aren't authorized on this computer" for stuff I bought through iTunes years ago. I followed the directions on how to fix, and it didn't work. So I still have about 20 songs I can't play, even though I bought them. This is why I have been buying from Amazon.com for the past few years. Plus, it's less expensive.

My Favorite Songs

I'm going to guess that a lot of people have similar problems as their libraries have expanded, they have upgraded computers, they have moved from CD's to strictly digital, etc. I inspired Greg to get his library organized, and he's just in the early stages now. It's very addictive, especially if you are a perfectionist. Greg has been avoiding this for awhile, just listening to Pandora primarily and not downloading new music. But now he is realizing all the music he doesn't have that he wants to have.

As frustrating as this may sound, it's a fun project! I am really enjoying listening to everything, analyzing my music taste and trying to get as many stats on my music preference as possible. I'm not done yet, and I still have a list of about 20+ songs to download. But for now, here are the stats: 2,832 songs for 15.32 Gigs, or 8 Days worth of music. This does not include any of my Broadway collection, because I find I need to be in a particular mood for that, and I don't want those songs appearing in shuffle. Those are all on CDs still.

As a side project, I wanted to identify my all time favorite songs. Ever. This is tricky because songs I was obsessed with a long time ago aren't ones I am as in love with now. But I loved them so much then, I feel like they should be on the list. So, I made a playlist of all the songs that I really, really liked. I went through all 2,832 songs and pulled out each one. This list is 168 songs or 1 Gig. So about 6% of my songs are ones that  made the "all time favorites" list.

Within this list, I pulled out a few that are the timeless best songs ever. Songs that every time I hear them, I just want to play them over and over and marvel at how good they are. There are 35 songs that fall into this category. The top 1%. I used the rating feature to rate them 5 stars. Everything else on the list got 4 stars. Eventually I will go through the rest of the library and assign 3, 2, and 1 star songs. I do like most everything I have, so a rating of 2 or 3 isn't bad. It's just that the song isn't as amazing as the 4's or the 5's.

And then. . . I tried to infer my favorite all-time albums. That's a hard one because some albums have songs with lots of 4's, but no 5's. And some albums have two 5's, but no 4's. Hmmmm. Same problem with favorite artists. Take the Counting Crows, for example. They have 3 songs that I rated in that top 1%. But they don't have many others that I really like. Same with Coldplay. Neither of these bands have come out with anything good lately, so I certainly wouldn't call them my favorite bands.

I really wish iTunes would let you download to Excel for a thorough music analysis.

Most of the 35 songs are slow. Although I enjoy a mix of upbeat/fast and slow/ballad songs but I think that it's difficult for a fast/upbeat song to really tug at the heartstrings. And when I love a song, it's because it tugs at the heart strings. This list is NOT a good "sample" of my library. Most of the library is modern/alternative rock. I might go into serious depression if this was my whole library.

Without Further Ado, here are my top 35 songs:

Date	Artist	Title	Album
1993	Counting Crows	Perfect Blue Buildings	August & Everything After
1993	Counting Crows	Omaha	August & Everything After
1993	Duran Duran	Ordinary World	Duran Duran
1993	Duran Duran	Come Undone	Duran Duran
1994	Lauren Christy	Vanessa's Father	Lauren Christy
1994	Stone Temple Pilots	Interstate Love Song	Purple
1994	Toad the Wet Sprocket	Something's Always Wrong	Dulcinea
1995	Collective Soul	The World I Know	Collective Soul
1996	Counting Crows	A Long December	Recovering The Satellites
1997	Live	Gas Head Goes West	Secret Samhadi
1997	Live	Lakini's Juice	Secret Samhadi
1998	Tori Amos	Jackie's Strength	From The Choirgirl Hotel
1999	Red Hot Chili Peppers	Californication	Californication
2000	Coldplay	Spies	Parachutes
2000	Lifehouse	Breathing	No Name Face
2001	Live	Overcome	V
2001	Puddle of Mudd	Blurry	Come Clean
2001	Tantric	Mourning	Tantric
2002	David Gray	The Other Side	A New Day at Midnight
2002	Dishwalla	Somewhere In the Middle	Opaline
2002	Jason Mraz	The Boy's Gone	Waiting for My Rocket to Come
2002	Red Hot Chili Peppers	By The Way	By The Way
2002	Red Hot Chili Peppers	Midnight	By The Way
2002	Tori Amos	Sorta Fairytale	Scarlet's Walk
2003	Muse	Hysteria	Absolution
2003	Tori Amos	Angels	Tales of a Librarian
2004	Five For Fighting	NYC Weather Report	The Battle for Everything
2004	Five For Fighting	Devil in the Wishing Well	The Battle for Everything
2004	Keane	Bedshaped	Hopes and Fears
2005	David Gray	Nos Da Cariad	Life In Slow Motion
2005	Jason Mraz	Plane	Mr. A-Z
2007	Fall Out Boy	Fame < Infamy	Infinity On a High
2007	Foo Fighters	The Pretender	Echoes, Silence, Patience
2007	Jimmy Eat World	Dizzy	Chase This Light
2011	Red Hot Chili Peppers	Even You, Brutus?	I'm With You

One problem with this list is that some of these songs are actually the same. For example, the two Duran Duran songs off of the same album sound a lot alike. I can't decide which I like better. It's kind of like saying "I like Duran Duran's sound on these songs" versus two totally different songs. The same is true of the Five For Fighting songs. Those two are very similar, but it's impossible to pick which one I prefer. So they both make the list. On the other hand, the Red Hot Chili Peppers songs and the Tori Amos songs are different from each other.

Anyway, I'm almost done with this project, but still very annoyed at the amount of music that disappeared that I have to purchase again. It's been extremely time consuming, but since I haven't been able to do much else with my mono, it's been a good thing.

The mono seems to be slowly getting better. I'm going to work, but minimizing anything else away from the house. I'm basically just slow and weak. I don't walk as fast as the average person and my head feels dizzy sometimes. But it is getting better. I just need to continue to be patient.

6 Things I Learned From The Olympics

One of the few up sides of having mono is the opportunity to watch plenty of the Olympics. I've never been as engaged in the Olympics as I have been this year, and I've made some good observations.

I've been working with a sports psychologist and many of the things I'm learning from him have been demonstrated by these athletes. I doubt I would have picked up on any of these things without his guidance. But the fact that I did pick up on them shows that I am really beginning to evolve my thinking and attitude about my own running.

1. Don't compare yourself to others.

Kristian Ipsen and Troy Dumais

I would assume that all athletes are competitive by nature, so how do you not compare yourself to others? How do you stay focused on your own performance, your own training, and your own goals when the sport is, by nature, competitive? Surely once you get to the Olympic level you are comparing yourself to others constantly, right?  Wrong.

I was watching the men's synchronized diving, and there was an interview with one of the divers shortly after his dive. (I think it was Troy Dumais.) He said that usually once he finishes his dive, he doesn't watch the other people dive or watch for their scores. He just waits to see how things play out. He was just very focused on his own performance and not at all concerned with the other divers in the competition. I thought to myself, "What a healthy approach! If that were me, I would probably have my eyes glued to those diving boards and the divers' scores."

2. Focus on the race itself, not a time goal.
More generally speaking, focus on the process, not the outcome. One of the things I have been trying to overcome for years is focusing too much on my time goals. I've tried hard to not think about about time goals, but my sports psychologist says that that approach is just avoidance, without a real strategy for what else to focus on.

After one of the track semi-finals, a reporter was interviewing one of the runners. She said that his times were close enough to potentially beat the world record and was that something he was aiming for in the finals? His response was that he was not focused on beating on the world record, but just to run the best race that he could. (I forget who this was and if he did actually beat the world record, but regardless, he's very much on target with being focused on the process, not the outcome).

3. Your sport is not who you are. It's something you do.
It's plastered all over running magazines and Facebook walls: I AM A RUNNER! According to my sports psychologist, it's a much healthier attitude if your sport is not who you are, but rather something that you do. Separation. You cannot let your sport consume you and determine your mood 24 hours of the day. You focus on running when it's time to run or to work on a training plan. Otherwise, you should be focused on whatever else you are doing-- working, spending time with the family, relaxing, getting together with friends.

Nope. Running is something that I do, which is important to me.

I could write a whole blog post on this (and I will at some point) but for now I'll stick to the Olympics. If you're at that level, how can it not consume your whole life? I mean, what else is there if you are training 10 hours a day and are at the top of your sport!?

I saw some interviews with Katie Ledecky's friends in Bethesda, MD. For those of you who haven't been following the Olympics, Katie is a 15-year-old who won gold in the 800m freestyle. Her friends all said pretty much the same thing about her: "If you were talking to her, you wouldn't even know she was a swimmer. She's really down to earth and modest about it." It sounds like that when Katie is socializing with friends, she's focused on her friends and not telling them all about her swimming. I would guess she's done a great job at keeping her swimming life in the pool and other elements of her life separate.

4. If you look for failure, you will be sure to find it.
Very similar to "you can't please everyone all of the time." For some reason, people are so quick to judge these Olympic athletes. As a perfectionist, I hate the idea of anyone thinking that I did something wrong or that I failed at something. But the reality is that we can't control other people, and there will always be critics.

Gabby Douglas won the individual all-round gymnastics gold medal. And yet many people were criticizing her hair. I was shocked to learn this because a) who cares about her hair-- she's fantastic! And b) what's wrong with her hair? It's pulled back like everyone else's! Even if you win a gold medal at the Olympics, there will still be critics. External critics are a fact of life, we can't control them. But we can make sure that we aren't our own internal critics.

5. Performance is dynamic. You aren't a machine.
One of my largest frustrations as a runner (and I'm guessing most runners share this frustration) is when you run a race significantly slower than what you know you are capable of. You have an off day. I tend to really beat myself up when this happens, but my sports psychologist is constantly reminding me that performance is dynamic, I'm not a robot, and there are no guarantees that I will be able to perform at my peak on race day. In fact, he said that among the world's top marathoners, most of them say that only 1 out of every 5 marathons is a good race for them. Bottom line--  you cannot expect peak performance at every race, and sometimes it's just not there. No further explanation other than some days are simply better than others.

Gymnast McKayla Maroney performed a near perfect vault in the team competition and was expected to easily win gold in the individual vault competition. But she fell on her butt-- something that she had never done at a competition before. Does this mean McKayla suddenly became any less of a gymnast? Did her abilities disappear overnight? No. She just had an off day, and it's normal for something like that to happen. Of course the poor girl was a target for criticism and joking when she was seemingly unimpressed with her silver medal (okay, I had to laugh at this too), but at age 15, can we really expect her to just pretend like she's thrilled after such a disappointment? She learned the "performance is dynamic" lesson the hard way.


6. It's okay to wear Jewelry.

Kara Goucher and Shalane Flanagan wore earrings.

This is one that my sports psychologist did not point out to me in advance. Growing up as a dancer, you weren't supposed to wear jewelry. This translated into my opinion that jewelry interfered with performance and was really unnecessary. I would actually get a little annoyed with women who showed up to races with earrings, necklaces, bracelet, etc, thinking "it's not a fashion show, it's a race". But there I would be in my zebra print skirt and matching gloves, still insisting that it wasn't a fashion show!

Shalane Flanagan and Kara Goucher both wore earrings during the marathon. And nobody's arguing that they aren't "hard core". So I guess that means it's okay!


Even though I am not doing any physical training at the moment, I am certainly exercising my mental muscles by watching these athletes perform and listening to their interviews. I think it's going to be a long road back for me, so I need to keep all of these things in mind once I am able to train again.

It's STILL Mono!

I have turned into the biggest couch potato in the history of couches. And potatoes.

I have not left my house in over a week. (Actually, I tried to go to work last Thursday and was promptly driven home by co-workers). I have not done a single plank or lifted a single weight. I have not run a single step. The only walking I have been doing is from the couch to the bathroom to the bed to the fridge and back to the couch. And yet my appetite is completely intact, complete with cravings for foods that will do nothing to advance my recovery- particularly chocolate and ice cream.

A lot of people have been asking me if it's contagious. The answer is that Mono is spread through saliva, so you won't catch it unless you kiss someone with it or share food with them. Greg still does not have it and I really hope he doesn't get it. I have no clue how I got it because I don't know anyone with it. All I can think of is that I must have eaten food somewhere that someone coughed directly on. Ew. And then there are some people who come right up to me and hug me without thinking twice about if it's contagious!

I think my experience with Mono has been somewhat unique. It's gone through distinct phases, which I will outline for your reading pleasure.

Phase I: Textbook Mono (but I didn't know it)

This phase lasted for about two weeks: June 18-30. My main symptoms were a severe sore throat and swelling of the lymph notes. This was the worst sore throat I've had in my entire life, and I am really glad it seems to have gone for good. I went to the doctor and all of my tests were negative, including the mono spot test, so I figured it was just some nasty virus. I wrote extensively about this phase in my June 25 post. 

Phase II: The Glory Days

This phase lasted for about two and a half weeks (July 1-18). I thought I was 98% better. In fact, the only reason I knew I wasn't at 100% was that my runs were still extremely slow. But they felt good, so I wasn't really worried. I even ran a 13-miler one weekend, and then a 14-miler the following weekend. The 14 miler was a 9:24 pace, all in zone 2, so I figured that I must be getting back to 100%. But then the trip to Chicago really did me in and all my symptoms returned on July 19. I really think that if I hadn't gone to Chicago, I would have made a complete recovery within the next week!

Phase III: Ups and Downs

I returned to the doctor and got the Mono diagnosis. They said I was in the "convalescent" (recovering) stage, so I figured it shouldn't be too long before I was truly 100%. Greg and I thought "wouldn't it be great if this relapse just lasted a few days and then I went right back to where I was before the relapse!" I kind of told myself that's what would happen, so after taking just three days off of running, I made another attempt. I felt decent for three miles, but then when I turned around to come home, the last three miles felt tough. During the day, I felt off and on. I would feel great in the mornings, but when the afternoon hit, I would feel completely zonked, like I had to go to sleep instantly. I could barely hold my head up at work and had to leave early twice to go to sleep. 

Greg and I took our planned mini-vacation to Buffalo, Niagara Falls, and Toronto, which I knew would be an immune system buster. I felt great for parts of the trip, but not so good for others. I had plenty of energy for walking around Niagara falls, going bowling, and even some easy treadmill running. But I also would get tired very easily and took naps. This "ups and downs" phase lasted for nearly two weeks (July 20-31).

Phase IV: Lack of Energy, Strength and Balance

Zebras keep  me company in bed while I recover.

This is the phase I am currently in, and have been so for just over a week. The couch potato phase. When I am sitting down or laying down, I feel good. No sore throat (just an occasional cough) and relatively normal feeling. However, getting up and trying to walk around the house just feels completely off. I actually fell down while trying to do the laundry (and have since ceased trying to do any house work). I saw black spots in the shower. I am not sleepy or exhausted feeling like I was in Phase III. I am definitely more tired than I am when I'm healthy, but the tiredness is secondary to feeling completely spacey and off balance when I walk around. 

Also, I was able to do planks and other light strength training in the earlier phases. Now, I cannot do anything that is physically taxing. I feel too weak and spacey for that. I've been working from home for the past week and feeling alert while doing so, just as long as I stay seated. I get occasional dizzy spells, where I cannot look at the computer. I have an appointment with my sports medicine doctor on Tuesday. I am going to ask for more blood tests to see if my levels indicate that I am getting better. 

My biggest fear is that this is turning into Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. I've learned from Dr. Google that this can develop if you don't recover fully from mono. This lasts six months to a year. Whenever I have started to feel the slightest bit normal, I have tried going to work and running. And I've taken two trips. Obviously these were not smart choices but a) I didn't know I had mono for a lot of the time and b) I didn't really have a choice about the Chicago trip. There's no real test for Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, you just get that diagnosis once everything else is ruled out.

I would just really like for this whole thing to be over and done with.

Buffalo, Niagara Falls, and Toronto

As I mentioned in my previous post, Greg and I spent a long weekend up north. Having recently learned that I was recovering from mono, we tried our best to get the most out of this trip without overdoing it.

Buffalo
We started in Buffalo. My friend Todd, who I have known for over 10 years, was getting married. I was so happy for him! It doesn't seem like that long ago when we were both complaining to each other about being single and doing the online dating thing. It's just so hard to meet the right person! But when you do, the payoff is huge.

We flew in on Friday evening. The trip was off to a rocky start when we learned that there was no air conditioning on the plane. We sat there in the heat sweating bullets for at least 20 minutes before they told us to get off the plane. An hour later, we re-boarded and finally were on our way. After a quick shower, we were on our way to Bacchus Wine Bar and Restaurant. I enjoyed a beet salad followed by a delicious Mahi Mahi dish. I knew that beets were a super food and I was trying to give my immune system every advantage I could.

Dark Chocolate Sundae at The Chocolate Bar

After Bacchus, we went to The Chocolate Bar, conveniently located inside our hotel. I took one look at the menu and was instantly obsessed. The Martini options were endless and unique: chocolate pretzel, sweedish fish, wedding cake. . . the list went on and on. There were so many fantastic looking desserts that I couldn't bear the thought of just choosing one. Eventually, I chose the brownie sundae with homemade dark chocolate ice cream and hot fudge. Yummy! One of the many things that sucks about mono is that I don't share desserts with Greg. This means I know exactly how much I ate and a little guilt creeps in. But it quickly passes when eating something so delicious.

The next morning, it was time for a long run. For Greg, that meant 14 miles. For me, it was 6 miles. We opted for the treadmill because we were running different distances and we weren't sure what routes there were in Buffalo. Greg was just killing it at 7.3 miles an hour, staying in his "easy" heart rate zone. I was steady at 6.2-6.3 (about 9:30 pace), keeping my heart rate in the easy zone and feeling pretty decent.

After the running, Greg took me on a drive through the University at Buffalo campus. He showed me all the places he used to live, and where he used to go to class. It was really cool thinking about Greg as a college student!

Afterwards, it was lunch at the Chocolate bar, where I had a flat bread with chicken, accompanied by a Salted Caramel Frozen Hot Chocolate. This drink was incredible!!! I know that frozen hot chocolate sounds like an oxymoron, but it was just like hot chocolate, only cold.

Afterwards I took a nap while Greg watched the Olympics. Naps were key during this trip! Then, it was off to the wedding. The ceremony was at 3:00 and the reception was at 6:00, so there was some downtime in between for me to take another nap or pseudo nap. The ceremony was beautiful and very well done. I just love this couple!

The reception was awesome. I refrained from dancing, with the exception of one slow dance with Greg. It of course reminded me of our wedding, which doesn't seem like that long ago.











Niagara Falls

The next morning, we watched the women's Olympic Road Race and then hopped in the car for our trip to Niagara falls. Greg had been here a bunch of times in college, but I had never been.

We crossed the border and were immediately at the falls. We parked and walked around for a little bit. It wasn't what I was expecting. I was expecting it to be more like Great Falls where there are waterfalls scattered throughout an expansive area. But instead it was just one major waterfall. Don't get me wrong-- it was highly impressive, just not what I was expecting.

We walked into the "town" area which was like one big carnival. We had lunch there and then came upon an arcade/bowling alley. We decided to bowl a game. This is something we've never done together, so it was nice to have a "first". Greg bowled a 122 and I managed a 70. Bowling is a good recovering-from-mono sport because it doesn't require that much energy but it still gets you out and doing something!

We then hit up a candy shop where we procured some authentic Canadian Maple Nut fudge. This would be my between meals snack for the next few days. We walked past the falls again, bought some souvenirs, and then got back into the car.

Toronto

The Old Mill Inn and Spa

We didn't really have a game plan for Toronto. We mainly just wanted to check it out. When we arrived, we basically just wanted to relax at the hotel. We stayed at the Old Mill Inn and Spa, which was very nice. It wasn't in the downtown area, but it was on a metro stop in a nice area. We walked around the property, had dinner there and then fell asleep watching the Olympics.

It was interesting to get a Canadian commentator and hear the perspectives of the Canadians. We got to hear the human interest stories of the Canadian synchronized divers, who were essentially that country's heroes while we were there.

We slept horribly that night. Greg was too hot, which meant tossing and turning. That kept waking me up, and then I was up for awhile coughing, which kept Greg up. I also have a skin rash, which is apparently a side affect of mono, which was itching and keeping me awake. The result was that we slept in until 8:00. I don't think I've slept in until 8:00 in over 10 years. Probably not since just after college. Even sleeping in until 7:00 is pretty unheard of me. It threw our whole day off because we wanted to get our run over with early, but we made the best of it. I also managed to hurt my upper back by sleeping with my neck in an awkward position. Gosh, I am just a mess!

We couldn't have been more pleased with the running options. Toronto seems to be a very fit city with cycling paths and cyclists everywhere. Our hotel was situated on a trail that brought us right out to the waterfront. It was beautiful scenery and an interesting comparison to the Chicago Lakefront Trail I ran two weeks earlier.

Greg was kind enough to go slowly with me. Since we started at 9:00a.m., the sun was high in the sky and it was hot. We averaged a 9:51 pace for 7 miles, which was really discouraging for me. My pace on the Lakefront Trail had been around 9:25 for the same heart rate zone and 9 miles. Plus, it was even hotter in Chicago. I know recovery is not a straight line and I'll have my ups and downs, but it's just super frustrating for two weeks to have passed and I'm doing worse. Yes, I relapsed. Yes, it set me back. I have accepted it, but I do not like it.

Afterwards, I was exhausted. I probably overdid that run. I just felt really great for the first half, so I thought 7 miles would be doable. We ate breakfast and relaxed in our room for awhile, of course watching the Olympics. This was the worst I felt during the trip. The rest of the trip was pretty good, except for getting the occasional "I need to rest now" feeling.

Grevy's Zebras at the Toronto Zoo

Finally, we got in gear and headed out for the Toronto Zoo. This is a huge zoo with a wide variety of animals, but there was really just one type of animal I cared about-- the zebra! After paying a shocking $60 admission fee ($25 each plus $10 parking), we headed towards the zebras. It was hot and I knew my energy wouldn't last for long, so we didn't stop for long at any of the other animals.

Seeing the zebras was totally worth it! They are so cute and exotic. There are just no other animals that can even compare to this combination of cute and unique.

They don't let the visitors get too close to the zebras, so Greg really had use the zoom feature on his camera here. At first, they didn't do much of anything, but eventually they started playing around with each other and it was great to watch! If you really want to get close to a zebra, you need to go through a drive-through safari park. Ever since that trip, I've been spoiled with getting up close and personal with the zebras.

Of course we couldn't leave the zoo without taking home a new member of our family from the gift shop!

We drove back to our hotel, quickly changed and headed out to dinner in downtown Toronto. We went to a swanky place called Brassaii, recommended to us by the front desk staff. I enjoyed yet another beet salad which was good, but couldn't top what I had a Bacchus in Buffalo. My main course was a Halibut dish that was just spectacularly done.

Dinner took awhile, so we didn't really have time to explore Toronto afterwards. I was, of course, tired. We took a cab back to hotel and feel asleep pretty quickly.

The next day, we drove back to the states, and flew home to DCA. It was a quick trip, but we packed a lot into it. A precursor to our anniversary celebration in two weeks!