It's Still Rock N Roll To Me

San Diego Roll Marathon weekend...so much good. My #1 memory of this weekend will be seeing my mentees enter the Pasta Party (if you've done TNT you know what I'm talking about). A very close second will be seeing them cross the finish line and wearing their finishers' medals. This season has been tough since I've been hobbled by injuries, but was all so worth it to see my teammates reach their goal. I'm a little hoarse from cheering for people all day.

My personal race got ugly at mile 8ish. My calves were miserable, but Dr. Chad had warned me that it might be a particularly uncomfortable race for me. I'm lucky I got as far as I did before the pain forced me to walk to the finish. Ah well.

Cheers to Steve who was a rock star supporter all weekend. Steve, thanks for hauling us to the starting line at 5 a.m and for putting up with the driving/parking nightmare of reaching three locations on the course when every road in town seemed to be closed for the marathon. You're a rock star - for reals!

I Ran The World's Fastest 5K

More accurately, I ran in the Carlsbad 5000, the race they call the World's Fastest 5K. They call it that for good reason, the world record has been broken there 16 times.

We ran this as prep-race for Team In Training. There's so much to learn about Running In A Race, e.g., where you want to wear your race number so it doesn't annoy you, how to line up at the start, how to protect your pace in the mob of runners. You don't want to learn those lessons during your first marathon. Running the prep event is essential for people who've never raced.

As of Tuesday, I wasn't going to do it. I called Steve from a business trip and said no way. I'm not a sprinter; my pace is more like waiting for the earth to rotate beneath me. Really, I'm that slow these days. The fastest 250 finishers get a medal, but the rest of us get to walk around medal-deficient announcing to all our lack of speed. I didn't want to run dead last in a sprint and feel bad about myself. I had decided to go to the race to cheer on my teammates and mentees, but skip the race myself.

A big driver of this pouty response is my overall stress level - I've been traveling a bit for work, Steve's been sick, our jobs are extra-intense lately, and the house is a mess. I regularly find myself at the very end of my tether. And that is no place to be.

On Saturday, I smartened up about the Carlsbad 5000. Who cares if I'm slow? I've always been slow and it never stopped me. I was being a big, whiny baby. Run - not because you're fast, but because you love to run. The race was actually pretty fun. I ran with a nice group and I wasn't nearly last.

Bonus surprise - all TNT finishers did get a medal. It absolutely rocked to see my teammates get their medals.
Not a surprise, but a bonus - my friend Raul and a bunch of TNT teammates picked up a top 250 medal.

Run on my speed demon buddies; I'll be right behind you.

Team In Training - Sharing the Fun

This week our TNT coordinator asked if I'd mentor on the run team. I was already running as a participant and the team could use one more mentor. Without even thinking about it, I said sure. If TNT needs a mentor, I'm in it to win it. Mentoring is fun and it a great way to give back to Team in Training and the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. Certainly there's also fundraising which I'm happy to do, but helping people reach their endurance race goal is a thrill.

Whenever I think about mentoring, I think about how much there is to learn about endurance events. Going into my first marathon, I had a ridiculously full fuel belt. I wanted to be prepared for any and all possibilities. It's as if I was packing for a camping trip, not a race. If you click on that first photo, it'll take you to the flickr page which lists everything I managed to pack for the race. That's not all. There's another photo of my race outfit and a third of my post race gear bag. The second photo is my gear/clothes for my second TNT event with a much smaller fuel belt and a lot less stuff. I was absolutely prepared for that race, but coaches and mentors and experience had taught me what was important to carry and what's okay to forget. Now, I carry even less.

Of course, this means that Steve is mentoring the cycle team and I'm mentoring on the run team. One of these days, Steve and I are going to need to align our event calendars.

And This Is Where You Start Paying....In Sweat

This has been some week.

Monday night was our hardest core workout to date. Tonight at Rehab United was brutal. Our trainer Justin was in a no mercy mood. He's an absolute sweetie, but he can put together a killer workout - sumo squats with chest press, X-chops, shoulder & squat series, tall box climbs, ab dollies, 3 direction lunge series, medicine ball toss/catch, and water buckets. Then do the whole thing again.

Wow. Our sweat coefficient was very high tonight. Our entire team was as drenched in sweat.

At this rate, I wonder what Todd has in store for our Saturday workout at Velocity.

Man-Torture

Last night as I was at one of the TNT information sessions, I realized that the Peak Performance team starts with a fitness assessment. In less than 2 weeks, someone is going to assess my core strength, flexiblity, etc.

Noooooooooo!

Two years of marathon training has left me with little time to do other gym work, such as core work or weight training. (Excuses, excuses. I could have made time.) My pride decided that a few preparation workouts before my fitness assessment are essential. This morning I grabbed a Pilates DVD from my extensive collection and got down on the mat.

Pilates is tougher than you think. I used to share an office a former Army Ranger. He was a very fit guy and tough as leather. How tough? The man was in a grappling league. When I told him I did Pilates he said, "Pilates! I did that once. They should call that Man-Torture. That Pilates is how they get prisioners to talk."

I used to be good at Pilates - not great, but respectable. Today, I couldn't do one teaser and struggled with jackknifes. Not good news.

The Peak Performance team should be exactly what I need. Twelve weeks of focus on my overall fitness should make me a much stronger marathoner in the long run. (In the long run - I'm punny!)

New Challenge

You all know that I love Team In Training, right? Then it should come as no surprise that I want to contribute some time and effort to make the TNT experience awesome for other participants. I volunteered to become a mentor for our Peak Performance team.

Peak Performance is a special team for dedicated people who want to have their best marathon, triathlon or century ride (or for people who just want to increase their overall strength, explosiveness, flexibility and balance). It's several nights a week of training at different training facilities in San Diego and it's run by excellent coaches, trainers and a nutritionist.

As always, TNT isn't about endurance sports. It's really about raising funds to find a cure for blood cancer and for helping patients and their families. My donation page is on-line, if you're inclined to donate.