Afternoon Delight

While I was thrilled to get a chance to sneak one more 2011 race in this past Saturday, I also needed to get a long run in, because Saturday was my first official day of training for the Myrtle Beach Marathon. Note: I still don't have a training plan yet. I am leaning towards Hal Higdon's advanced training plan, except it's really intense, and I would be starting at week 10 of 18, and I didn't do the other 8 weeks. Oh, and next month I'd have to add in Half Ironman training on top of 50+ mile weeks. Thoughts/suggestions?

Saturday night, at the ugly sweater party, my throat started hurting and it was getting really hard to swallow. I always have people suggest Airborne when I start getting sick. I have a problem with Airborne.

"Created by a school teacher!" should not be prominantly displayed on anything masquerading as a "medicine". If a teacher ever does create a helpful drug by mistake, their career should be kept a deep, dark secret. I am a teacher. We teachers are good at many things, and our skills can be generalized to other situations, like calming down a sobbing friend in the middle of the dark woods after having to wade through an icy creek.

You know what I learned in college? How to make fun math activities and write behavior charts. You know what I didn't learn? Pharmacology. I didn't learn it so much that I don't even know if that's the right word for people who make medicine, but it doesn't have any red squiggly lines under it, so I'm going with it.

I have no idea who makes this stuff, but the box doesn't scream "created by a ridiculously under-qualified person in an entirely different field!", and it was actually recommended to me by a doctor, so I tried it. 

Tastes great, and I felt a million times better Sunday morning. Not great enough to be ready to run 14 miles though. Although that was due to my affinity for lazing around and drinking coffee all morning, not my sore throat.

Also, Eric is at a wrestling pay-per-view tonight, which I don't entirely understand, but from what I can piece together, it would be equivalent to me being at the live filming of a Twilight or Sex and the City movie. The point being, I wanted to spend some time with him before he left. We watched the Biggest Loser marathon and finale on DVR, and didn't move until well into the afternoon. A perfect Sunday.

You can never see enough Dolvett

 I finally headed out for my 14 mile run (distance chosen arbitrarily) around 2:30. The first 10 miles felt great, and flew by. I've never hit THE WALL in a marathon (and secretly don't even really I believe in it), but something similar to what people describe THE WALL as being like happened at mile 10, and I instantaneously went from feeling great to feeling like crap. Probably because my lunch was part of a granola bar and a Gu at mile 7, but I thought the 8 desserts I'd eaten in the previous 48 hours would carry me through. Also the sun started setting and I started freezing to death. 


Mental note: Sunday afternoons are not good for long runs. It was totally worth it for the fabulous morning, though.


14 miles, 9:36 pace, and training has sort of officially begun.


 I tried out the new timeline thing on Facebook, and saw this wall post from after my first 10K in my last semester of college.

Running a 10K in upstate NY in February....genius

5 years later, we finished our first marathon hand in hand. It's like she predicted the future. I love taking social media trips down memory lane. I had no idea I even knew what a marathon was in college.

When do you like to do long runs? Clearly I'm not cut out for any time other than first thing in the morning.


Ever been reminded of something cool that you'd completely forgotten about online? 
I should check out my old Myspace....who even knows what I'd find on there.