The Marathon

As this will (once again) be the final post of this blog, I thought I'd change up the format a bit and just focus on the big day itself...

Pre-race: I don't remember being keyed-up enough for a sports event to lose sleep the night before since... well, probably my high-school soccer days, but I definitely didn't get much sleep on Friday night. Still, I had gotten plenty of rest the night before, had been eating well, and felt really good Saturday morning before the race. So, armed with a somewhat foolish racing strategy (start out with the pace group -- finishing the marathon in 3:10 -- that would let me qualify for Boston, try to keep up with them for 13 miles to satisfy my pride, and then drop back to a more reasonable pace), some of my favorite racing foods (Chocolate Outrage GU and cran-razz Clif shot blocks), and one of a pair of what must be the finest custom-designed team racing shirts the world has ever seen (you know you're winning at life when you're designing a t-shirt in an image analysis program developed by the NIH) I lined up with the the other ~10,000 people running either the full or half marathon.


Miles 1 and 2: Thanks to the crowd of racers at the beginning we started off running a bit slower than our projected pace (so that people weren't tripping over each other), which both felt good and was great for my confidence. Also, I had not been expecting the crowd of spectators lining the first mile... I'm pretty sure I was grinning like a fool for the first chunk of this race! Anyway, by the second mile we had established our pace and had separated enough for me to see that there were about 40-45 people running in the pace group with me -- more crowed than I was used to, but fun! Surreal musical moment: right around mile 2 was a man singing a cover of "Tangled up in Blue." I mean... a great song, but not exactly a pump-you-up, get-the-blood flowing athletic anthem.

Miles 3 - 6: We definitely settled in the pace in this little stretch (which, being on the outskirts of town, included some pretty windy stretches), and I was feeling pretty good. I had been worried that the pace group I was running with was going at a pace a good 1:45 faster than I had done my long runs at, but I guess the mid-week faster miles and the taper really do combine to get you ready to run both longer and faster than you have before. Also, around this time everybody in the pace group started naturally falling into roughly the same stride pattern, and it was just really neat to feel all simultaneously locked in like that.

Miles 7 - 10: Started out with another great musical moment... a chunk of this section was through a large park, and in a gazebo was a four man band -- one drummer and three electric guitars -- just wailing repeatedly on the opening chords to "Eye of the Tiger." Very appropriate. Also, this stretch included my first sighting of friends cheering me on while dressed in funny hats. While all of the spectators lining the race were great and so kind in cheering everybody on, this was particularly heartening.

Miles 11 - 16: In this chunk I was still (surprisingly!) feeling pretty good, like I was running smoothly and as easily as could be expected. The sun came out around this time (I think the temperature by the end of the race got to be in the upper seventies or so), and I was starting to feel that, but at 13 I decided "Well, why not? I guess I'll try to stick with this pace group for as long as I can." It was also around this time that I finally got the hang of drinking water out of the cups they had at the aid stations while running... but where by "got the hang of" I mean I managed to get the "water in mouth" to "water splashed on face and shirt" ratio from 2:8 to more like 6:4. Also, right around mile 16 was my favorite sign of the race... something like "Kanye says 'Yo runners, I'm really happy for you, Imma let you finish...'"

Miles 17 - 22: So, after focusing on just breathing, trying to maintain form, running smoothly, etc. for the last 10 or so miles, mile 17 began with a sharp curve that made me look around and notice that our pace group had somewhere along the way dwindled from ~40 people to 7. Not to be mean, but this made me feel pretty good about myself... it was a tough, warm day, and just lasting for that long felt like a positive. Still, I could tell that I myself was starting to get tired -- fading a bit -- and so I started playing the "okay, just stick with these guys until mile 18," and then "alright, just hang tough until mile 19" game. By mile marker 22 there was just the pace leader, two other guys, and I still running together.

Mile marker 23: So, you'd think with a name like "hitting the wall" you wouldn't be surprised at finding it a very sudden, precipitous kind of phenomenon, but man! Even over the last few hundred yards of mile 22 I was still feeling fine. I mean, tired of course, but still relatively fine. And then, while passing the "Mile 23" sign on the course it was like something inside of me just broke down... as if some deranged alchemist suddenly discovered how to transmute muscle into lead. Needless to say, after a brief internal conversation with my legs (that went something like Me:"Please keep moving, won't you? I'd be ever so grateful! And it's not so very much farther!" My legs: "Well... No, I don't wanna!") I lost touch with that pace group. I'm still trying to decide how much of that was actually physical and how much was just psychological: the sudden, overpowering manifestation of all of the totally rational reasons to not keep running after slogging through 20+ miles. But still, quite the experience either way.

Miles 24 - 26: Really, some of the most unpleasant, painful miles of my life. Featuring about three episodes of my legs twitching -> cramping -> deciding to make me kneel on the ground for a few seconds, and a much more frequently recurring need to pause and try to stretch. I really have to thank the spectators along this stretch, though... everyone was just so encouraging, cheering me on, and practically willing me to get back up, to start running again (okay, well, maybe that last one was a bit of a stretch, but that's how I chose to feel at the time!)

Miles 26 - 26.2: This was obscenely difficult. At this point there was just no part of me that had any desire to move. At all. My legs were just pleading with me, shamelessly begging me to stop. The curb looked so tempting, the grass was so green...I just wanted to sit. But, well...I don't think of pride as a virtue, but for better or for worse it sure is a powerful motivator, especially in athletics (for me, at least). This final stretch -- the last two turns of the street and the football stadium (the race ending on the 50 yard line) -- was lined with people, and I just couldn't stand the thought of having to stop in front of everybody, so painfully close to the end. So, one stride at a time I somehow managed to keep myself going, stumbling across that finish line with a relief I'm sure you can imagine me feeling!

Post-race thoughts: Well, crossing the line I still couldn't really believe that I had actually finished -- both in the sense of having completed a marathon and in the sense that I was allowed to stop running. Then, after having someone hand me a finishers medal and a bottle of water I caught up to the pace leader I had just spent large chunk of time running with and listening to, said thanks and chatted until I was reasonably certain I could sit down without my legs cramping up on me. And then I proceeded to sit down on the field, then lie down, and then, before I mustered the energy to go look for my family and friends, spent the next 15 minutes trying to figure out how to go from lying down to an even more reclined position.

So, I have to admit that it hurt a little bit to come so very close -- three minutes! -- to my ultimate goal and then fall short just in the last miles. But, you know, "Mais on ne se bat pas dans l'esport du succès," and all that... And, ultimately, I did far better than I realistically expected myself to, and I'm pretty proud myself, both for training so hard and for how well I ran on race day.

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Marathon/training, by the numbers:

517 - Total miles run
(*** censored ***) - Dollars spent on running gear... really, a bit more than I'd like to admit!
??? - Some large but indeterminate number of accumulated generic aches and pains
48 - Current resting heart rate (well, "current" as of a week ago... right now just lying down feels like exercise)
4 - Months of training
3 - Blisters (although, remarkably, all before I bought actual running socks...I hate to admit it, but technical gear really does make a difference)
2 - Pairs of running shoes
1 - Awesome day of running

Official time: 3:13:26

Week 17 - In which I fail to respect the run...

Well, I guess I've been feeling a little too good about myself with respect to running - even with all the niggling little aches and injuries I've gathered to myself. You'll recall that last week's long run got pushed to this Monday... Well, it was a 13 mile run, so on Saturday -- planning out how I was going to distribute the work I had to do over the next few days -- I thought to myself, "Okay, that time we did the 20 mile run on Monday I was more or less useless at work for the rest of the day, but this is only 13 miles," upon thinking which I promptly proceeded to make a schedule that involved being my usual productive self on Monday afternoon.

Let's just say that that was a mistake. And that I spent a lot of time that afternoon staring blankly past whatever paper I was thinking I might read.

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Monday: 13 miles... see above for commentary

Tuesday: 4 miles, nice and easy

Wednesday: 5 miles

Thursday: 4 miles again

As usual, another day off on Friday...
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Less than one week left! A fact which seems less and less real the more I think about it... come to think of it, this whole marathon has been seeming less real the closer it's gotten for several weeks now (more or less since the first time we ran 20 miles). I think when I started this plan, looking for a medium-term goal to work towards, in the back of my mind I was thinking of it just like any other long-term plan... and the last four months have kind of flown by.

Anyway, I guess that also means just one more of these blog posts... I'm not sure whether I'll be mobile enough to make it to the office the day after the Marathon, but check back maybe on May 3rd or 4th and I'll probably have put up the final post.

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Saturday: 3 (!) miles... there comes a point where the time it takes to walk back and forth to the gym (it was rainy today), take a shower, grab lunch, and walk back to the office so far exceeds the time you spend running that it all feels a little silly. And I can now report that 3 miles is basically that point.

Sunday: 8 miles today. It's funny to think that my long run this week would have been just another usual mid-week run a month and a half ago. In related news, I love tapering.
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Week 16 - The taper begins...

So, last week's 21 miler was the last long run of the training program, and from here on out the name of the game is cutting back on the mileage, recovering from all of the little aches and pains I've accumulated, and just generally letting my body rest up. Honestly, I think I would feel better about the upcoming race if it were a few weeks farther off than it is. I mean, at this point barring injury I'm sure I'll be able to make it across the finish line -- it's the conditional I'll be in as I do that that I'm worried about!

I have to admit, though, that it's kind of nice to have the daily running time starting to shorten up a bit. First: with the semester winding down things are starting to get pretty busy for me, so having running taking a smaller bite out of my schedule is much appreciated. But perhaps a more gratifying second: it feels pretty awesome to run these 4 to 6 milers and realize you could easily do the same run again.

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Monday: After yesterday's grueling 21 mile effort, I invoked my executive privilege to take this day off.

Tuesday: 5 miles, outside, in absolutely perfect Spring weather.

Wednesday: 6 miles, same conditions as on Tuesday.

Thursday: 5 fast miles

As usual, another day off on Friday...
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Not much else to say, update wise... research is keeping me busy, and then end-of-semester stuff for that one class I'm taking is keeping me up late at night. Oh well. How about this though...
Ways In Which My Toaster Is Already Making My Life Better:
(1) Bagels for breakfast!!! (Really, I should just stop the list here, this being the only important item on it... Incidentally, does anybody know a good place to get bagels in Champaign-Urbana?)
(2) Re-heated slices of homemade pizza!! (I like them cold, too, but not having to microwave them to heat them back up = awesome)
(3) Um...it occupies space! (Anything that makes my apartment look less spartan gets at least a few points just for that, I think...)

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Saturday: 4 miles...back on the treadmill, though

Sunday: 4 miles at pace... once again this weekend's schedule got a little shifted around, so we're doing the long run tomorrow instead of today.
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Week 15 - Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!

Yeah, so, I have to admit... after today's run (which was, to be honest, difficult and really rather painful) I feel legitimately a bit proud of what I've been able to build myself up to in these last few months. Anyway, for some reason I was thinking about the above-referenced poem earlier this week...let's see how well the analogy holds up:

Pride at fleeting accomplishments: Check (see above)

Two vast and trunkless legs of stone: At first, you'd think this one a bit of a stretch... But after the run I more or less collapsed on the couch with my legs still on the floor, having decided that it would be too much effort to raise them the foot and a half it would have required to be more comfortable lying down. So, to any ant that wandered into my apartment just then, check on the trunkless legs. And I guess they were immobile enough to count as stone.

Shatter'd visage: Hard to say for sure...but seeing as I thought walking across the room to a mirror would have been too herculean an effort, I'm going to guess yes. Check.

Frown and wrinkled lip: Same comment as above...check.

Sneer of cold command: Um...okay, I rather suspect otherwise on this one (or, at least, I sure hope I shouldn't be putting "Check" next to this one...

Yeah, at this point I think I've exhausted any similarities between me and a giant, broken, fictional statue of Ramesses... But of course, do let me know if you come up with anything else!

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Monday: My foot, which I complained about last week, is still bothering me... hopefully that clears up soon. Anyway, I took today off.

Tuesday: Another day off...

Wednesday: Well, my foot wasn't really feeling any better after two days of rest, so I went for a 6 mile run today (How's that for some questionable logic!)

Thursday: So, two days of rest saw no improvement, and running yesterday didn't seem to make things any worse... Kind of confusing, if you ask me. Another day of rest today.

For Friday, more rest!
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On a completely unrelated note, I am to be congratulated for a minor life accomplishment: as of Wednesday I now am finally the proud owner of my very own toaster!

Now, I can already hear you saying, "well, that's not all that impressive, really." And you're right... it isn't. But you have to understand: "toaster" has been item #1 on my "Kitchen appliances I need to buy list" for almost three years now, so the fact that I've finally crossed that off feels like quite the achievement. To be honest, I'm not really sure why it took me so incredibly long to just go out and buy a toaster... I mean, they aren't particularly big and bulky to carry by yourself, they aren't particularly expensive. I think more than anything it was just a combination of inertia, a relative deficit of motivation to go buy stuff for myself, and a love of breakfast cereals that kept me satisfied sans toaster for so long.

But, now that's all over, and I can make myself a bagel in the morning without resorting to broiling a single bagel in the oven. So, the next time you see me, be sure to congratulate me and share in my recent success in this!

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Saturday: Foot still not 100% (a little worried about tomorrow, now)... 3 miles of running and 15 minutes on the stationary bike.

Sunday: 21 eighty-degree, knee-grinding, quad-destroying, foot-throbbing miles. I feel awesome.
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Week 14 - In which I haven't all that much time to write this

This week was another scheduled "rest" week, and I assure you it has been much appreciated. I think between the long run on Monday and the temporarily altered diet this week my body has just been struggling to recover fully. I mean, don't get me wrong...matzah can be delicious (well...rather, you can put enough delicious toppings on it to make it acceptable), but I've decided that there's just no humanly possible way to consume enough of it to get the quantity of carbs running seems to demand. I kind of long for a grapefruit (um...where of course by grapefruit I mean bread. And pasta. And also bread.)

Otherwise, this past week was pretty uneventful...mostly just catching up on research and trying to stay on top of class. And, actually, between a meeting with my advisor tomorrow, homework and minor term paper items due for class this week, and a 20 minute talk I'm supposed to be preparing, today is still pretty busy for me. So, unfortunately, I'm going to have to keep this week's post short.

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Tuesday: 20 minutes on the stationary bike and 15 on the elliptical.

Wednesday: 5 miles, over which my legs were unusually whiny.

Thursday: 5 miles. This was the day that, between the wear and the lack of carbs, I was really feeling it. A much more difficult run than I was expecting.

Friday: The usual day off...

Saturday: My foot was bothering me a lot (which was strange... it felt fine on Thursday, and Friday obviously I didn't do anything to aggravate anything), so I substituted some time on the stationary bike for my usual running.

Sunday: 12 miles in 65 degree sunny weather. Truly, a great day to be out running, and a shame that I have to spend the rest of it inside!

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Just finished: "Brief Interviews with Hideous Men" Not really my favorite of DFW's works, but I really liked at least a few of the short stories. Also, I'm starting to realize that in the last year I've read most of his stuff. Just a few books left, now.

Week 13 - In which I obtain irrefutable proof...

... that running has finally made me lose my mind. Since I've started running these distances I've been mildly surprised at the changes in the kinds of foods I find myself craving. Mostly, the surprise has been kept so modest because my thoughts have tended to be along the lines of, "Mmmm... pasta!" It hardly seems surprising that while running a lot my body would start demanding just straight up carbs. A little bit more surprising has been my relative desire for red meat seems to have gone down, but I think that might just be the direct result of a sort of "crowding out" effect from my increased pasta/bread/pizza consumption.

But last week delivered a total shock. Thursday the students/post-docs in my research group have a mini-tradition of going out together and getting lunch, and last week we went to a mixed Asian restaurant (Cravings). Anyway, the person across the table from me got a tofu dish, and I couldn't help but think to myself, "Hmm...that looks... strangely appetizing." I even went so far as to ask for a little taste, and found that it was, frankly, not that bad.

So, I ask, what is happening to me? Clearly something is going wrong...

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Monday: A beautiful day, so another out-of-the-gym "cross-training" session... a 3 mile jog and 5 sets of the Krannert steps.

Tuesday: An easy 5 mile run.

Wednesday: 7 miles, nothing too interesting.

Thursday: 5 fairly relaxed miles

And Friday, of course, was my day off...
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A few weeks ago I started talking about how I was really starting to feel the wear on my legs from running so much, and as I'm writing this (the day after my 20-miler) I have to say that I still feel much the same way. I think I'm starting to suspect that these very long distances (which I am considering everything since that 17 miler) aren't really about building up cardiovascular fitness for the marathon so much as just training the body to stand up to the grinding wear and tear of running for just hours on end. Well, I guess I'm finally getting my wish in terms of adding some small amounts of pain into the exercise routine, right?

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Saturday: 5 miles at pace

Sunday: A rather horrible day, weather wise: cold, rainy, and with high winds. So, my weekend running buddy and I decided to put off the long run until tomorrow. Instead, just a 5 mile run on the treadmill

Monday: 20 miles! Or, as I like to think of it, the double double-digit run. I was one hurting dude after this (and I've mostly been loafing off since finishing the run, not very successfully mustering the energy to focus on work... I think now I understand why doing a long run on a weekday, even if you wake up early to get most of it in before the work day starts, is not the best idea), but I still feel pretty good about myself for finishing the run. Also, "Chocolate Outrage" GU energy gel is maybe one of the best things on the planet.
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Current estimate of my odds of completing a marathon on May 1st: Well, after successfully getting through the 20 miler today, I think I'm ready to bump this up to 95%, which is as high as it was ever going to get (I mean, you can never predict injuries and other such surprises, right?). So, unless something disastrous happens and I need to make a massive downward revision of these odds before the race, I think this will be the last appearance of the "odds estimator" section of the weekly write-up.

Week 12 - West Coast Edition

This week the running got pushed to the back burner a little bit while I was at that conference in Oregon (which, by the way, was fantastic). Unfortunately, the only time I could really find to run was early in the morning, and since I had to catch a 7:10 bus to get to get to the conference on time, that meant waking up at 5:00 on mornings I decided to run so I could get the exercise in, shower, eat breakfast, and still make it on time. You might not be surprised to hear, then, that I'm very excited about catching up on sleep this week!

Still, running turns out to be a great way to get to see and familiarize yourself with a new city, and Portland sure is a pretty one. I think I had just about perfect weather all week -- 50 to 60 and sunny just about every day -- and Spring was just coming around so the cherry blossom trees were just starting to bloom.

And, as I said above, the conference itself was pretty excellent. It was a bit of a mental drain to sit through these rapid-fire 12 to 36 minute talks all day (8:00 - 5:45, with an hour break for lunch), but most of the talks were really quite interesting and at least a few of them gave me some ideas for references to look up now that I'm back in Illinois.

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Monday: Today's cross-training was (drum roll...) walking back from the convention center (about 2 miles) while carrying an overstuffed laptop bag. Not too impressive, I know.

Tuesday: 5 pre-dawn miles along the East and West banks of the downtown section of the Willamette river.

Wednesday: Another 5 pre-dawn miles, this time with more homeless people along the route.

Thursday: Yet another 5 pre-dawn miles... fewer homeless people, more early-morning bicycle commuters.

And Friday, of course, was my day off...
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So, a short comment here (since I really need to get back to work), but the Pacific Northwest is a beautiful, beautiful area. Or at least the small sliver that I saw, anyway. Also, call me crazy, but as I was flying over it, Montana sure made a convincing case as a place to visit and hike around in. Never thought I would have said that...

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Saturday: A beautiful ~5 mile hike in the Columbia River Gorge, and then a 6 mile run along the river downtown (a definite improvement from running the route before it was light out!)

Sunday: I woke up too sore from hiking to do a morning run before my flight (worth it, though -- I definitely miss having mountains around!), so an extra day off today
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One-word trip summary: Awesome

Current estimate of my odds of completing a marathon on May 1st: 90% At this point I think I'm just mechanically inching that number higher each week, without really thinking about it

Week 11 - In which I feel a little ground down

Well, I'm heading off to that conference in Portland, OR early Sunday, so not only will next week's running (and blog-posting) schedule be a little bit up in the air, but this week had to be shuffled around just a touch as well...Next week was supposed to be a light, rest-and-recovery week anyway, but this week's scheduled 18-miler doesn't seem like something I should skip, and since Sunday morning isn't really an option (I have no desire, particularly, to start running at 3:00 in the morning), I've pushed it back to Saturday and juggled the rest of the week a bit.

I have to say, though, that between the 17-miler last Sunday, the extra-enthusiastic stair-running on Monday (see below), and the rest of the exercises this week, this was really the first time that I feel like my body is just barely recovering in time for the next long run. My muscles are still feeling just a little tired, my knees and ankles are feeling just a tiny bit fussy, and all of that sort of thing. I'm still sure I'll be able to finish the 18 miles tomorrow, but I think I'm going to be grateful for the week of relative rest after that...

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Monday: It was a beautiful day outside on Monday, and I couldn't bear to do my cross-training at the gym. Unfortunately, since my bike was stolen (some time ago -- last Labor Day) the only outdoor cross-training I could think of was to run stairs. So, (10 x the Krannert steps) was what ended up happening. Something of a painful decision, I might add...

Tuesday: 5 x 1200 meters. Rough

Wednesday: 8 fast miles miles.

A shuffled-schedule day of rest on Thursday
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Of course, in addition to the week of relative rest that I'll be looking forward to, I'm also very excited about going to this conference. I think my talk still needs a bit of polishing, but since I'm not actually giving the talk until next Friday I'm sure I'll have plenty of time to make little refinements during the week. So, now the only thing left is for me to finish this infernal problem set I've been working on for the last few days... Unfortunately, it was scheduled to be due while I'll be away, so I have to finish it up tonight or early tomorrow and hand it in before I head out. Well, only one problem left on it, so hopefully it won't take too too much longer.

Alright, I'm not sure what the blog-updating plan is going to be over the next week. Regular posting will resume on the 28th. Until then...

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Friday: 7 miles - 6 on the treadmill and 1 mile of an extra-loopy run from the gym to my apartment.

Saturday: 18 miles tomorrow is the plan. In the rain. Is it strange that, even a bit sore and tired as I am, and with the threat of relatively nasty weather, I'm still kind of looking forward to the run?
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Part of the country soon to be checked off on my "to visit" list: Pacific Northwest.

Current estimate of my odds of completing a marathon on May 1st: 88%... that number is starting to creep pretty high, isn't it?

Week 10 - In which...wait a second, I'm over halfway throught this training program?!

Right, so, towards the end of this week I emailed a list of the remaining Sunday "long run" mileages to my running partner, and in staring at that list I realized that between now and May 1st there really aren't all that many weeks left. On the one hand, I do feel like I've increased my endurance tremendously -- I'm actually a bit proud of how much more in shape I feel compared to a few months ago. But then I consider that the 17-miler today just about wiped me out, and I still have to increase that distance by over 50%?! In just 8 weeks (two of which are just the taper weeks leading up to the race)? Kind of a terrifying thought.

In other news, this week I once again let down the Coach, although not quite as badly as over the last few weeks. Thursday I came down with a cold. On its own that wouldn't have been that bad, but between that and an especially busy time at work for me lately I haven't been getting nearly enough sleep lately. So, on Saturday (the first really beautiful day we've had in a while - sunny and over 50!) I started out planning to run 8 miles, but after just 3-3.5 miles I felt terrible, turned around, and just headed home. Not so proud of that one, but objectively I think it was the right choice.

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Monday: 30 minute on the stationary bike, followed by 20 minute son the elliptical. Kind of boring.

Tuesday: 5 x 1000 meters. Compared to Monday, quite fun.

Wednesday: 8 miles.

Thursday: 4 quick miles, bracketed by a mile to warm up and a mile to cool down

And a restful (albeit work-filled) Friday
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So, you know what I had forgotten how much I dislike doing? Making PowerPoint presentations. I mean, it takes all of ten seconds to sketch out on a piece of paper what you want to put on a given slide, but then between formatting everything, inputting the equations, fussing with converting graphics between one program and another, getting all of the plots and figures in order, etc. suddenly it's an hour and a half later and the slide still isn't finished. Definitely a major contributor to the general lack of fun in my life this week.

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Saturday: Just 4 miles, which I felt a bit bad about...but at least the weather was nice enough to run outside

Sunday: 17 miles, partly in the rain. I felt kind of hard-core.
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Current estimate of my odds of completing a marathon on May 1st: Another off day in the mix, but overall improvement, so.... 87%

Week 9 - In which I repeat myself

So, this week's running rumination is basically just a variation on a theme from a few weeks ago. There's apparently some part of my mind that still has not really come to terms with my ability to sustain a given pace over a length of time, even as my body adapts to running longer and longer distances. Case in point: this week was a scheduled easy "recovery" week, and today I ran 11 miles. I mean, seriously. Two months ago 6 or 7 miles might have been possible, but 11 miles seemed like a more or less impossible distance. Or just one month ago I was pleased as punch to have run 11 miles for the first time. Now, though? Eleven miles is apparently what I do on my week off. And I'm sorry - I really don't mean to keep going on and on about running farther than ever before every week or so - but while my lungs and legs have gotten used to the distance, my mental image of myself still hasn't quite incorporated that fact yet.

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Monday: 20 minutes on the stationary bike, then 10 on the erg.

Tuesday: 5 x 1000 fast, but with a full three minutes of recovery in between each interval.

Wednesday: A light 5 mile run.

Thursday: An even lighter 4 mile run... Coach wasn't kidding about this being a recovery week!

And a restful (albeit work-filled) Friday
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A' shall answer it. Some pigeons, Davy, a couple/of short-legged hens, a joint of mutton, and any/pretty little tiny kickshaws, tell William cook

This is probably not going to be the most appetizing thing I've ever posted on this blog, but today I took an occasional phenomenon far enough that, seeing as I don't have anything else in particular to talk about, I thought I'd mention it here. So, I usually do the long Sunday runs a little bit before noon, which means that by the time I've finished the run, cooled down a bit, gotten back to the apartment, and showered it is well past lunch time. Coupled with the fact that I usually eat breakfast early and, oh, wait, I just ran some silly distance, well... By the time I've transitioned out of running mode I just about always find myself ravenously hungry. Usually this leads to nothing terribly interesting: I make a sandwich, followed by a second sandwich. And, if the bread wasn't terribly large or was too airy, sometimes a third sandwich.

Then there are days like today, which I've affectionately taken to calling "Many Wonders" days ("many wonders" being code for "leftovers" in the Incandenza househould). You see, sometimes I haven't done my weekly grocery shopping before the run, and sometimes I've already just about run out of bread (or real leftovers from one of the week's dinners, for that matter)... but at such times my stomach cares not for such excuses, and merely shouts "SUSTENANCE! CALORIES! FOOD!" over and over and over. Well, clearly there's nothing for me to do but scour the cupboards for anything and everything that is vaguely edible without long cooking times. This week, though, I think I hit a new low in terms of hoovering up anything within reach - at least in terms of variety, if not in total amount - as I went through a granola bar, 5 fairly unpleasant whey protein balls, a pear, the last lonely slice of bread (with peanut butter), a few bits of herring, and a single serving Thai Kitchen "just add water and microwave!" noodle dish from my emergency meals stash.

I might be going out on a limb here, but I think that's probably the most surreal assortment of food I've ever eaten in the span of a single meal. Well, what can I say? Everything is delicious when you're hungry!

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Saturday: 7 quick miles... a workout, but not so tough after a light week and yesterday's day off.
Sunday: 11 miles. Happily, off of the treadmill this time!
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Recently watched: Mulholland Dr. You know what? David Lynch sure makes some strange films...

Current estimate of my odds of completing a marathon on May 1st: Another slight, no-particular-reason uptick... 86%

Week 8 - In which I get back on track

I'm happy to report that I'm now feeling much, much better than I was last week. Illness-wise I think I'm just about 100% better, and my foot has healed up enough that outside of doing sprints it doesn't bother me in the slightest.

However, feeling better has also meant that this last week I've just been playing a vicious game of catch-up on some homework that was due and all of the work I put off last week. So, outside of exercise and work, I really haven't done too awfully much to write home about. Next week will be more eventful, I'm sure...


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Monday: Hurting a little bit after the previous day's long run, so I took the day relatively off with 20 minutes of light, low impact strength training/conditioning exercises.

Tuesday: 4 x 1200, at a pace rapid enough to find out that my foot still hurts if I push too hard.

Wednesday: 7 fairly uninteresting miles .

Thursday: 1 warm-up mile, followed by 4 progressively faster miles, with 1 cool-down mile tacked on at the end.

Friday = rest
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Well, the weather wasn't so great today, and my usual running partner is off at a conference, so I decided to take Sunday's long run inside to the treadmill. In addition to finding out that it's really mind-numbingly boring to log 15 miles on a treadmill (particularly over the last half-hour, when my ears started hurting from my headphones and I had to run without music), this afforded me the opportunity to see a James Bond film I hadn't seen before, albeit on the tiny treadmill TV and without sound.

Still, it's kind of incredible just how little gets lost watching a Bond film without the sound. For example, here's my interpretation of one of the scenes:
JB - "The name is Bond. James Bond. I shall now say something particularly suave, despite having been, moments ago, in a life-threatening fist-, gun- , and knife fight."
Bad guy - "I know who you are, Mr. Bond. But now, ha ha ha, you have fallen into my trap!"
JB - "Au contraire, obviously European bad guy. I have a gadget!"

And that pretty much sums it up, no? Still, fun to watch for a while.

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Saturday: 7 miles, marginally faster than the ones on Wednesday.

Sunday: 15 miles! A crazy distance both in (a) being such a nice, round number and (b) being the same as my estimate of what my total weekly running distance was before I started this whole endeavor. So, on the one hand, that felt awesome! On the other hand, fifteen miles on a treadmill? Booooorrrring!
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Currently reading: enough papers on continuous time random walks to sink a ship... or, perhaps more accurately, kill a tree.

Current estimate of my odds of completing a marathon on May 1st: Now that I've (hopefully) gotten injury and sickness out of the way, the last remaining roadblock is the threat of spending a week off-schedule when I go to a conference in mid-March. So, I'm bumping this estimate up to a lofty 85%

Week 7 - In which I remember that

when sorrows come, they come not single spies but in battalions. Well, that's perhaps going a bit far, but this really wasn't a good week for me. Just as my foot started healing up nicely enough for me to walk around without looking like I was going about on tenterhooks, I got hit with some kind of viciously unpleasant stomach bug. Well, there went that week...

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Monday: 40 minutes on the stationary bike... not so interesting

Tuesday: 20 minutes on the bike, then 2 x 10 minutes, then 2 x 5 minutes, each time with progressively more resistance. Kind of the stationary bike equivalent of the Tuesday from two weeks ago.

Wednesday: Hmmm....does lying on the coach half-sleeping, half-watching movies all day count as exercise?

Thursday: How about if you're half-watching a DVD of TV episodes?

On Friday, the coach said to rest. As if I was going to do anything but.
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Fortunately, I'm starting to feel better now, and rounding that corner always lifts the spirits, doesn't it? But, otherwise, this was not a week to remember, and not one with anything in it worth reporting.

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Saturday: Started to feel better, but decided that my body had more or less no nutrients in it, so one more day of rest.

Sunday: 14 miles -- as in, a half-marathon plus a little bonus added on top! Objectively, probably not the wisest decision to run so far today, but I was excited to get back on track with the training plan. And anyway, right now I feel much more tired than I normally might, but otherwise I think I got away pretty much unscathed.
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Current estimate of my odds of completing a marathon on May 1st: Umm... how about 75%?

Week 6 - In which the chickens come home to roost...

Really something along the lines of "ask and ye shall receive" would have been a more appropriate title for this week's post - I don't think I've cursed/insulted anyone and am now getting my comeuppance, anyway - but I like the phrase too much to not use it. I mean, the ominous connotations are just so at odds with the image used (also, fun fact for the curious: a variation on the phrase goes back at least as far as Chaucer. Check out the Parson's Tale, lines 620-622).

So, you might recall that last week I was wondering - and coming awfully close to complaining, almost - that there hasn't been enough pain in my training schedule. Well, that was obviously just tempting the fates, and this week I got what was coming to me. Early Thursday morning I set a water glass on a cutting board on the counter. Said cutting board is not really the best - it's made of hard plastic, and it's curved so that instead of resting securely on the counter it balances on its center, free to spin if there isn't enough to weigh it down. And clearly a water glass was not enough to weigh it down, because I accidentally bumped into it, sending the board spinning and the glass crashing to the floor. Thus far, all well and good. It's not like I was particularly attached to that glass, after all. However, in the process of sweeping up the pieces I somehow managed to step on a lovely little assortment of shards and splinters.

Well, after hopping up and down in surprise for a few seconds and subsequently making a bloody mess of my kitchen floor, I finished cleaning the remaining bits of glass off of the floor and then sat down to try to get the glass slivers out of my foot, and then went about the rest of my day. Unfortunately, I didn't get every last piece out, so at the end of the day when my foot still hurt really more than I thought it ought to I hobbled over to the health center to have a doctor pull the one remaining chip out. And you know what? "Clear glass is really hard to see when it's underneath the skin, so I'm going to have to just dig around in there and try to find any last pieces by feel" has now officially been added to my list of phrases I don't want to hear when I visit the doctor.

Moral of the story: I'm still not sure, so feel free to submit your opinions. "Never complain about a lack of pain", maybe? "Don't be so clumsy"? Good advice, but not really "moral of the story" material, I think. "Invest in a pair of slippers"? Feels a bit too specific, but it's got potential. Or perhaps just "get a better cutting board"? Prosaic, but possible...

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Monday:22.5 minutes on the erg...One and a half more minutes than last week, but a full extra kilometer of distance covered. A good, solid workout.

Tuesday:6 x 1000 meters, progressively faster.

Wednesday: 1 slow, warm-up mile, 4 faster miles, and 1 slower cool-down mile.

Thursday: The day I finally let The Coach down. My scheduled gym time spent at the health center, getting bits of glass out pulled out of my foot. Fun fun.

On Friday my foot was still bleeding a bit, and the coach said rest anyway, so I took the day off.
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Well, entirely separate from all injury-related talk, I'm very excited to have participated and be about to indulge in what has to be a particularly American form of excess. Tangentially, of course, I'm talking about the Superbowl party that I'll start heading over to in an hour or so. But specifically, I'm talking about the fact that I (along with one of my friends) just made a turducken!

I mean, first of all, I had been pretty sure that all earlier mentions of attempting this for today were jokes, but I was clearly wrong about that. Second, I had never de-boned poultry before, but one Julia Child's cookbook instructional page, several YouTube videos, a turkey, a duck, and a chicken later I've now had more than my fill of it. Between three different birds - which don't necessarily complement each other - and three different stuffings layered between or inside of each bird - which also don't necessarily complement each other - I have no real reason to expect this contrived, semi-mythological beast of a dish to actually taste good. But I feel like by taking part in the creation of it I've done something worthy, if also terribly excessive. As if, had ancient Greeks conceived of this dish, surely there would be a tradition of Homeric epics about their creation that I was now taking my place in.

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Saturday: 63 minutes on the stationary bike. My current plan is to guess how long a given day's run would take me, and then cross-train for one and a half times as long.

Sunday: 1 hour on the stationary bike, followed by 48 minutes on the elliptical. So, so very mind-numbingly boring. Seriously, if I'm still stuck cross-training instead of running a week from today, when under this scheme I'd have to cross train for almost 3 hours, I'll be very, very sad.
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Pair of kind of awesome things that happened to me this week: First, the professor for my Phase Transitions class explicitly referenced Ninja Cat while trying to explain some physics. Definitely not expecting that one. Second, on two separate and unconnected occasions in the last 7 days I had someone turn, look at me, and say "Mo' money mo' problems." One of them even did it with a straight face. I mean, if I've already said I wasn't expecting the Ninja Cat reference, I don't know how to even begin to explain how much this took me by surprise.

Current estimate of my odds of completing a marathon on May 1st: Well, I can't not decrease my odds after this week's happenings. Now, I still got some exercise in the last two days, so I'm not really the schedule yet. But I worry that if I'm stuck unable to run for more than a week or so my enthusiasm might start waning. So:74%

Week 5 - On the relationship between exercise, pain, and increased fitness

This week I've been spending some time thinking about (well, like the title says) the assortment of and connections between of pain, torture, and exercise that go into building endurance and just generally getting more fit. I think I mentioned a few weeks ago how I was finding it strange that my legs would be tired but not actually sore at the end of some of these days of running, and since then that trend has only intensified (if vague muscle tiredness can really be said to be "intense," that is).

I think the reason I find this so strange - this relative lack of pain during exercise - is that it runs so counter to my previous experience of what it means to be whipped into shape. I mean, in high school during the first few weeks of soccer practice I fully expected (expectations that were, more or less without fail fully met) that twice a day my lungs would be burning and my legs crying out for help. Or, a bit further back, skating those infernal suicides during hockey practice. Or, for that matter, those crazy, screaming-calf-muscle plyometrics classes in college with Coach Michelyne. The common theme was always (1) work hard, (2) suffer, (3) improve. And I always thought that that's just the way exercise worked.

So, this running program has continued to strike me as a little odd. I mean, sure, on my fast runs I'm breathing quite hard, and at the end of the long weekend runs my quads let me know that I have indeed been running for a while. But it's just not the sort of level of pain-feedback that I'm used to...

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Monday: 21 minute on the erg. Took me a while to fall into a good rhythm, but once I did a very nice, light cross-training day.

Tuesday: 1 x 2 miles, 2 x 1 miles, and 2 x 800 meters, progressively faster but with a two minute rest in between each.

Wednesday: 6 miles, moderate pace.

Thursday: The fastest 5K I've ever run in my life. Exhausting.

On Friday, some rest
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Well, the reason I've been thinking about this is that this week I've had to face the fact that I think I might be in the best shape of my life. At least by a few metrics, anyway. Today I definitely ran the farthest I've ever run in my life, and just a few days ago ran what was easily the fastest 5K of my life. (Now, maybe at the peak of my soccer fitness I might have been able to match Thursday's 5K pace if I was running a race, and granted Thursday I was on a treadmill, so it was a little easier to stay on pace over the last mile, but still, you see my point.) This all seems to fly in the face of my whole established Exercise-Pain-Fitness belief system (a sort of Aeschylean "He who learns must suffer/And even in our sleep pain that cannot forget/Falls drop by drop upon the heart,/ And in our own despite, against our will,/ Comes wisdom to us..." but for "fitness" instead of "wisdom," I guess) Hmm....

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Saturday: 6 miles - same distance and pace as Wednesday, but it's amazing how much easier the same run feels after a day of rest.

Sunday: 12 miles. I'm trying not to gush each time I increase my previous record for distance by one little mile, but still...I was excited!
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Currently reading: Just finished that Michael Chabon book...and actually, I was a bit disappointed. Maybe I'm only remembering the essays that I really liked from the other collection of his that I read, but this one just didn't strike me as being nearly as good. Oh well.

Remembered cheese fact of the week: Fresh, imported Gorgonzola is so, so much tastier than the wrapped, packaged wedges I often get at the supermarket. A factor of two or so more expensive, but, once in a while, definitely worth it.

Current estimate of my odds of completing a marathon on May 1st: Compared to last week, I'm giving my self +3% for feeling generally fit and in shape, but also -2% for a creeping confidence that I'll be able to do this without a problem. Mustn't get too cocky. 76%

Week 4 - In which I wonder a bit if I am, in fact, the sort of person I think I am...

Specifically, I've always liked to think of myself as a very determined, stick-with-it, if-I-say-I'll-do-something-then-I'll-do-it sort of person. (Well, I suppose, who doesn't like to think of themselves that way...) But at the same time, I'm not sure that aspect of my character has really been put to all that much of a test. I mean, when I think about it, most of the medium/long-term projects I've undertaken that have required some degree of determination to get through have also happened to be at things that I am both fairly good at and enjoy doing. And those conditions, well...not exactly a fiery furnace in which to test one's mettle.

Anyway, I was thinking of this because this week I went ahead and actually registered for The Race. I know that - both here on the blog and in person to many of you - I've been saying I was going to do this, but I feel like registering was really the key thing: now there's really no way for me to walk back any verbal claims about deciding to try to run this. Well, I guess we'll just have to sit back, wait, and see what the next few months reveal about me.

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[Update: In the spirit of some sort of anti-competitiveness I've decided to stop referencing each run with its relation to my goal pace. And, really, It was kind of absurd to do that in the first place without ever saying what the goal pace was, no?]

Monday: 40 minutes on the stationary bike.

Tuesday: A fast set of 6 x 800 meters, followed by a slow, 1 mile cool-down jog. I think I rather like doing these once a week intervals.

Wednesday: 6 miles...it's very strange to me that I'm starting to think of 5 and 6 mile runs as only "medium" length endeavors.

Thursday: 4 miles, with a ~0.5 mile warm-up/cool-down run to and from the gym

On Friday, a nice, restful day.
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So, the semester has finally started...although, as the one class I'm taking has only met once so far, it's not like things have gotten all that busy just yet. Still, I'm pretty optimistic that this semester is going to be a good one: I think the class ("Phase Transitions" - with a professor I've taken a class from before and thought he did a good job) will be a good one, and I'm sure with only one class it won't be that much of a problem to keep up with the research.

Also, lately there have been some crazy rumors swirling around about actually attempting to make a turducken for Super Bowl Sunday. I can't quite decide whether I'm terrified or deliriously excited. Probably both.

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Saturday: 6 unpleasantly fast miles. Definitely hurting at the end of this one.

Sunday: 11 miles! I don't mean to boast, but holy mackerel - I just ran two digits worth of miles!! Also, today I discovered that doing these long runs with somebody else is far, far more enjoyable than logging miles on the treadmill. Who would have thought, right?
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Currently reading: Finished "The Broom of the System," and I have similar thoughts about it now as I did two weeks ago. Very good book, but not nearly as polished or as fun as Infinite Jest. Still, it was neat to see a lot of the same themes and motifs appear in his earlier work, and all in all I enjoyed reading it. Anyway, I've now just started Michael Chabon's "Manhood for Amateurs" - it came recommended from a friend, and essay collections are particularly well suited to being read during the semester.

Current estimate of my odds of running a marathon on May 1st: For actually registering and for pushing past the 10-mile mark on Sunday, I'm giving myself a ten percent boost here. 75%

Week 3 - In which I contemplate my love/hate relationship with the treadmill...

Seeing as it is the wintertime, and of course I neither have nor particularly plan on investing in cold-weather running gear, by necessity all of my running is at one of the two gyms on campus. Furthermore, the indoor tracks are both short (one just less than 200 meters, the other closer to a bizarre 300 meters) and have a fixed schedule of clockwise or counterclockwise running - which would mean, for instance, that if I were to run only on the track, every long run on Sunday -or every interval workout on Tuesday, or what have you - would be in the same direction. Much as I relish the prospect of having one leg substantially larger than the other, this mean that I end up running mostly on the treadmill.

I used to loathe the treadmill. Or, rather, I assumed that I did, never having to use one much. And now that I've had a few weeks of heavy treadmill usage, I'm still not the biggest fan, for all of the usual reasons: the monotony, the lack of scenery or even the sensation of moving through space (it's not like there's that much scenery on the indoor track, after all, but at least you feel like you're moving), the lack of a breeze (what I wouldn't give for a fan in front of me on those longer runs!), etc. Plus, I'm left wondering just how comparable running on the treadmill really is to running on the ground... are the pace settings really equivalent efforts to running that fast over pavement?

However, I'm slowly coming to appreciate the 'mill, at least a little bit. A few weeks before I started a friend of mine remarked that treadmills take a lot of the mental effort out of running/exercising. At the time I didn't really understand that remark much at all, but now I see how true it is: you just set the pace and incline to whatever you like, and then just run. You don't have to focus on maintaining a pace (which is good - it turns out maintaining a steady pace is something I'm terrible at), you don't have to worry if you're slowing down a bit. You just tell your legs to keep running, and you can then just space out - or listen to the music, or what you will - until the little clock tells you that you've run the desired distance.

Also, I really like the name. I realize that treadmills and treadwheels were once actually used for milling purposes, but I just like the idea that the treadmill is there, slowly grinding me down and leaving behind only...well, I'm not quite sure... the quintessence of distance running or something like that, I suppose.

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Monday: A scheduled "easy week" (with the quotations only because to me it still seems absurd to label a week with 24 miles in it "easy"). So, 20 minutes on the stationary bike, and 8 minutes of Eight-Minute Abs (which, it turns out, are way less fun when done outside of Mission or Prospect).

Tuesday: 5 x 1000 meters at MP - 0:30

Wednesday: 5 miles at MP - 0:15

Thursday: 3 miles at MP + 0:15, followed by 2 miles at MP - 0:15

On Friday, The Coach said "rest."
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Anyway, other than running and steadily putting in the time at the office, this was a pretty uneventful week. The semester starts this coming Tuesday, so I'm sure things will start picking up soon. But for now, nothing much to report... sorry!

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Saturday: 5 miles at MP - 0:15

Sunday: 6 miles at MP + 0:15
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Recent goal accomplished: This week, with "The Man Who Wasn't There" and "Blood Simple," I finished my quest to see every Coen brothers film over the break.

Current estimate of my odds of running a marathon on May 1st: 65%

Week 2 - In which my mind is sharp, my legs are tired, and I'm quite sleepy

So, last Sunday I felt like quite the Renaissance man! After my long run I went in to the office and got some quality work done, then went home and cooked myself a dinner made extra delicious by some outside-the-recipe spice additions, and then went out to the Blind Piglet where my team won the weekly trivia competition. I wish all my days could be so diversely productive!

The next few days, sadly were not quite so exciting. And, Monday and Tuesday I had the strange feeling of my legs feeling tired and generally weighed down with moderate quantities of lead, but with absolutely no soreness. I'm not sure I've ever experienced that particular combination...very strange. Anyway, I also had trouble sleeping this past week. I think, with everyone gone, I kept shifting my schedule to go to sleep progressively earlier in the evening, until this week I hit the point where I would go to bed before I was really tired enough. Which inevitably resulted in my sleeping for a few hours, waking up, and then being unable to get back to sleep. I'm going to have to work on re-setting my sleep schedule before the semester starts.

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Monday: 40 minutes on the elliptical. My preliminary feelings for ellipticals are not very complimentary.

Tuesday: 6 x 800 meters at MP - 0:45.

Wednesday: 5 miles at MP - 0:03. I meant to do this run at MP + 0:30, but I think running the intervals on the treadmill messed up my internal sense of pace.

Thursday: 1 warm-up mile at MP + 1:45, 1 mile at MP + 0:45, 2 miles at MP - 0:15, 1 cool-down mile at MP + 1:45

On Friday, The Coach says to rest.
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So, speaking of The Coach, I suppose now's as good a time as any to explain. The Coach (I'll have to post a picture sometime) is just a big collection of papers - monthly calendars, notecards, etc. - that I've got attached to the refrigerator. The monthly calendar, with its schedule of what to run on each day, is a veritable Blue Label of training plans, blended from only the finest hand-picked plans into (what I hope is) an exceptional final product. Should I really be mixing and matching from training plans, each of which seems to have its own logic? Who knows? Well, I certainly don't, and I'm not going to let that stop me! Each plan on its own seemed to have one problem or another - this one had reasonable mileage progression, but seemed boring; that one had great variety, but seemed far too ambitious for a novice runner; and so on - so I tried to take the strengths of each and roll them all together. And, since I'm not going to be competitive, and any time at all would be a Personal Record, it probably won't make all that much of a difference.

The rest of The Coach - a halo of index cards and post-its arranged around the calendar - is a collection of advice, pace guideline conversions (which I need plenty of... The training plans all had the pace for a given day's run as "your 5K pace today" or "run this at a 10K clip" - as if I have the faintest idea how fast I can run those distances!) , encouragements, and general running tips that my Assistant Coaches (i.e. friends) have been sending to me. There's still plenty of room on the fridge - and I've got more than enough magnets - for some additions, so if you have any advice please do let me know; you too can have the honor of being an Assistant Coach in this mad little endeavor! [As an aside, is it strange that my Assistant Coaches are all real people, but The Coach him-/her-/itself is just a collection of paper? Shouldn't I have organized things the other way around?]

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Saturday: 5 miles at MP + 0:15. I can't believe I'm saying this about a distance of five miles, but after Friday's day off and today's moderate pace, this felt like an easy run.

Sunday: 9 miles at MP + 0:45. Nine miles!! Farther than I've ever run before! Something I'm presumably going to have the opportunity to say that a lot over the next few months.
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Currently reading: Mid-way through "The Broom of the System." It seems a bit more uneven than his later books, but I'm still thoroughly enjoying this one

Current estimate of what I think the odds are of me following through with this and being able to finish on May 1st: 63% - I mean, I don't feel particularly closer to being able to finish, but I also feel like almost by definition each week that I stick to the plan and put up a post the number has to creep a bit higher.

The Marathon Blog begins!

First, sorry about that tag-line; it was the first thing that popped into my mind, and I know it's terrible. I'll change it soon. Anyway, as you can see, the Bread blog has been reborn and re-purposed as I prepare to run a marathon on May 1st. Only, I'm still keeping the breadblog address... because, you see, "bread"... it's like a metaphor for those things which sustain me, and... okay, really I'm just too lazy to register a separate blog.

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Monday: My designated cross-training/rest-if-needed day. This week, 30 minutes on a stationary bike.

Tuesday: 3 miles at 30 seconds faster per mile than my goal marathon pace (or, in my notation for this blog, MP - 0:30).

Wednesday: 5 miles at MP - 0:15.

Thursday: In a boring repeat of Tuesday, 3 miles at MP - 0:30.

On Friday, I rested.
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So, why on Earth would I decided to run a marathon? And why restart the blog? Unlike the first time I answered those sorts of question, this time around it's the second question that's easier to tackle: I figure the more people I talk about this, the more likely I am to actually go through with it. Also, knowing that I'll be posting my runs will help keep me honest in sticking to what The Coach tells me to do. (I should here point out that The Coach is not a real person...just what I've nicknamed the training schedule I drew up for myself. More on that, maybe, in a future post.)

So, that still leaves the matter of why I've started on this fool-crazy plan. I mean, I can come up with a lot of reasons why this won't work: (1) I don't really enjoying running by myself, and in preparing for this it sure seems like there's a lot of precisely that in store for me. (2) Before I started training (~ two weeks ago) the longest continuous run I'd ever done was probably between five and six miles. The idea of more than quadrupling that in 19 weeks is preposterous. (3) The middle of this Spring, around March, is going to get very busy for me between coursework, heading to a conference, and preparing for my prelim, and I'm not sure where I'm going to find the time. (4) It's too cold for me to really run comfortably outside, so probably the next two or three months of this will have to be run on a track or treadmill in a gym. How could that not get pretty boring, pretty fast? Well, I could go on, I'm sure, but you get my point: ordinarily there'd be no sensible reason at all for me to even be thinking about signing myself up for a run this long.

Basically, for me a marathon has just one thing going in its favor: in nature it is almost perfectly complementary to my work towards the Ph.D. Lately I've decided that the mood I'm in is decided too entirely by how my last day at work went, and this is, I think, problematic. After all, while the goal -- finishing my degree -- is very well defined, the actual process of research is not. "Completing the thesis" is just some vague and dauntingly challenging objective far off in the future, and on any given day it's practically impossible to tell if you're any closer to finishing. In contrast, "running a marathon on May 1st" is concrete. A medium-term goal that, at the moment, seems completely unobtainable, but a goal that comes with the promise: listen to The Coach, just do what is on the schedule today, and the day after, and the next, and by the end of the first Saturday of May, you'll have accomplished something. At the moment, I find that very appealing.

Plus, of course, I'm feeling up for a good challenge, and especially one that will keep me in shape during the winter months. At first I was only going to try for a half-marathon (and, let's be honest, there's always the possibility that's what I'll end up retreating back to), but that just didn't seem like it would be enough of a challenge and enough of an accomplishment to keep me motivated. I mean, if pushed, deep down I suspect I could run a half-marathon right now; it wouldn't be pretty, and it wouldn't be fast, but I could probably stagger across the finish line one way or another. But a marathon? From where I sit now? Not a chance.

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Saturday: 5 miles at MP.

Sunday: 8 total miles. 6 at MP + 0:15, then the last 2 at MP - 0:15. Right now, I really dislike whoever came up with the idea of running negative splits.
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Currently reading: Just finished Murakami's "Norwegian Wood," which I enjoyed reading... haven't decided yet, though, whether I liked it more or less than The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. Probably a bit less, but I'll have to think it over. Anyway, just about to start DFW's "The Broom of the System."

Current estimate of what I think the odds are of me following through with this and being able to finish on May 1st: 60%