too cold

The weather is always a hot topic amongst runners. Living in the north I get to complain about how hot and humid it is or bitter cold nasty it is outside :) Last week was a little teaser of what a mild winter might be like with January temperatures reaching the 40's one day! How quickly we forget what true winter weather in Chicago feels like. Today we are back to a high of 13 degrees, real feel -1. Brrr... and even more so after the temporary "warmup". Yet on my drive home from the suburbs this afternoon I saw people running the lakefront path. I know it's sunny today and we haven't seen that orange ball in the sky for awhile but a wind chill of -1 is just too cold for me to get outside. The cold and wind hurt, my jaw goes number, and overall it is uncomfortable and not a lot of fun. Yes, treadmill running is mundane and frustrating (for me) but a necessary evil. I'm usually okay with running short to mid distances outside with temps in the 20's and I run in snow and slush. However, once it hits the teen's or is iced over I'm heading to the gym.

How cold is too cold for you? Or will you run outside in nearly anything?

the picture courtesy of flickr of lake michigan on a day much like today.

No Humidity?

The calendar tells me it is August but you couldn't tell by the weather. For the first time I can remember August has started out with 2 days of absolutely no humidity! August 1st was even in the 60's (and nasty rainy)! Now that's a bit too cool for the girl who loves summer but I'm am definitely loving the no humidity during the running.

Saturday I was able to sleep in and go for my 15 mile long slow run around 8:30 am. That would not have been possible the last couple of summers. The run felt incredible despite some minor GI issues towards the last few miles. The only real problem I had was keeping it as slow as I needed because the weather was so incredibly ideal. Today I had a 5 mile recovery run. It was not only a recovery from my long run but from my friend's party as well. We crazy kids kept it tame on Saturday. I nursed the Coors Light but man did I consume every cookie, cupcake, scotcharoo, and cake I could find. You had to roll me out of there last night :) Of course I grabbed a couple more sweets for the long car ride home! Despite my poor fueling the recovery run went well. Again, the only problem I had on the 5 miles this afternoon was keeping it slow. Every time I looked at garmy he showed me at a slightly faster pace than I thought I was keeping. I decided to give up the good fight and let my legs do their thing.

I would have to say this is an excellent end to week 2 of training! I logged 39 miles this week - woo hoo! Week 3 and the 42 miles I need is going to be a big challenge for me. I have a day trip Monday (6 am flight - boo!) to Queens. So Monday will be a rest day unless I am super motivated and awake when I get back home around 7 pm. Based on history it's going to be a rest day from running ;) Wednesday Jacob and I will be driving back to Ohio to help out Dad who will be undergoing his 2nd chemo treatment on Thursday. I am not the best about running when I'm visiting the family and there aren't a plethora of trails/places to run. I am bound and determined to make it happen though! At least to do my best!

4 days and counting

4 days and some odd hours until race day... I'm getting nervous!  I'm always nervous before races but I'm really feeling anxious.  Maybe because I haven't done a race longer than 10 miles since Dec 2007.  Plus, I have no idea how my time will be on Sunday.  My training felt all over the place this time around.  I do not expect to PR and my training times started out (and continued) to be much slower than I expected.  Obviously it would be wonderful to come in under the 4:06 I ran in Dallas but I am no way planning for it nor will allow myself to be disappointed if I don't. I really hope to not go over 4:15.  I never signed up for this race with a specific goal in mind and never really formed a solid one in recent weeks.  Cleveland was to be used as a precursor to the Chicago marathon so I can have a better idea on how to train to break 4 hours.  So we will see what race day brings!

I have started the obsessive checking of all weather related websites.  Today reports a high of 60 and clouds.  So in the 50's at the 7 am start.  That would be my most perfect race day weather.  Of course it is still too soon to get excited about this possibility.  I received my information e-mail that includes my bib number.  Number 2126!  I have nothing good or bad to say about these numbers so I'm going with good!  

This week I have one more day trip on Wednesday to NY.  It is going to be difficult to wake up at 4:30 am - we just found out we are going to the Cubs game tonight with friends!  Sleep will have to wait until Weds night :)  Hopefully I'll be able to catch up before Sunday.

#1972

Oh man oh man the race is almost here. My race bag is packed, clothes are laid out, and bib #1972 is ready to be placed on the shirt. One last post before I lay my head down on the "heavenly bed." Race day weather looks nasty - colder as the race goes on with some Texas style thunderstorms on the side. Wet and cold could it be any different that 2 months ago?!? I plan on taking both pre and post race pictures so be prepared Monday :) Already have some good ones of us goofing off in Dallas. And just found out tonight Jacob's uncle has a hot tub - wahoo! Hot tubing with a big strong drink. That's what I'll be thinking about climbing the hill at mile 19 :)

Not Again

I told myself not to. The race is still days away. I held out until now.

I had to look
at
weather.com.
now I'm worried
more like freaking out

high of 78. Low of 64. Seriously...it's like 50 there right now. Why can't it just stay in the 50's for 6 more days. I know a lot can change in 6 days. But then it couldn't and I have another hot one on my hands. I think I might be weather cursed when it comes to trying to run a marathon.

Delays and such

This morning found me staring at the alarm at 4 am asking why I haven't won the lottery so I could retire early. Yeah, girlfriend had a 6:20 am flight. I hate waking up that early to travel for work but I hate traveling on Sunday - my day of rest ;) - even more. I chose the lesser of two evils in my opinion. Thing is, I probably could have just slept longer. First, we are all lined up and ready to board in 2 minutes instead of boarding we receive the following announcement"Ladies and Gentlemen we have some sort of mechanical issue so we are now departing out of gate B10" I guess the good thing about leaving first thing in the morning is they have some extra planes hanging about. So everyone rushes to the next gate where we proceed to stand in a boarding line for the next 20 minutes. Okay, our depature time has now come and gone. Finally, they board the crew then us and then we...sit...I sleep...wake up 45 minutes later and still I'm sitting (drooling) on the tarmac in Chicago. Nope, haven't moved. This plane had mechanical issues last night and the paperwork went missing. Seriously, you have to be kidding me. Oh, then they found the paperwork except 1 page was missing so that had to be located. And why isn't it filed in a folder on the plane and available at take off. Because that would be way too easy. So yeah, 2 hours later we take off. And people think traveling is glamorous.


Finally I made it in one piece just a little sleep deprived and cranky. Work is proving difficult to focus on (hence the writing on the blog in the middle of the day). I was supposed to do cross training yesterday but I was too dang tired after Saturday night and entertaining people all weekend. I may do the training tonight or run on the treadmill. I need to do something!


Race day weather. I promised myself I wouldn't look until Weds but I checked it out Sunday. My parents used to ask me what the weather was going to be like for the day instead of watching the news - I was obsessed knowing the week's weather when growing up. Lately not so much b/c I am never in one place long enough to really care. But with the unseasonably high temps in Chicago (80's over the weekend) I had to look. Yesterday, weather.com said high of 78 (at start time in the 60's). I was freaking out! So of course I had to look today to see if the cold front is coming to Chicago sooner than expected. It showed a high of 64, 50's at the start of the race. I'll take the 64 please! So I'll be tracking closely over the next few days. A girl needs to know how to plan her first marathon outfit :)