01.20.14
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Battle plan

I had my podiatrist appointment last week, and it went way better than I expected it to. I had a bunch of x-rays, and nothing is broken or out of place, which is a big relief.

I had to give this guy my life story of the past 8 months: how it happened, what I’ve tried, which doctors I’ve been to, how it used to feel, how it feels now, what I’ve been doing exercise-wise, where I got my orthotics, the whole nine yards. When I described how the piano came flying toward me and crushed my ankle against a concrete step, he was horrified. When I told him I ran a marathon on it, he was incredulous, but pleased in the sense of “well, if you could do that, it can’t be that bad.”

There’s no name for what’s going on with my foot and ankle, with is annoying because it makes it cumbersome to describe. It’s not like “runner’s knee” or “IT band syndrome” or anything like that. Basically, that piano bashed the ever-loving hell out of some ligaments that tried to heal themselves and became knotted up with scar tissue and adhesions, which are stiff and inflamed, which prevents my foot from having a proper range of motion, which my foot adapted to because it’s lazy, which causes more swelling, which irritates some nerve in my foot, which makes it tingly and achy.

Solution: deep tissue “massage” and intense “stretching,” AKA torture. Basically, they are going to squeeze and smash the scar tissue out of me with assorted torture devices. I’m set to go to therapy twice a week for three weeks, then then see where I’m at.

While I was there, I also had him look at the custom shoe inserts I had made over the summer, and he was somewhat baffled. They cast the molds correctly and they fit my feet fine, but apparently they used a much stiffer material for the bottom half than what is common. Typically, they use a softer cork so there’s a bit more give when your foot hits the ground, but mine is really dense and stiff. He made a few adjustments and they’re fitting much better, but he said he’d like to replace the cork on the bottom with something more appropriate, so I’ll probably look into that after I see how therapy is going.

I ran 1 mile on the treadmill after going to the doctor Thursday, then Dan and I walked about 7 miles on Sunday. I don’t think my ankle is quite ready to pound the pavement just yet, and I’m definitely not comfortable dropping any money on race registrations, but I’m feeling much more positive about the situation and closer to running “for real” again.

01.08.14
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Unfinished business

I’ve only run a handful of miles since my marathon all the way back in mid-October. It total. It doesn’t feel good. My foot and ankle actually feel worse somehow, like my arch has fallen and I have no support through it.

Ever since I got back into running after a hiatus in college, I’ve noticed a trend: I pick a race, train for it like crazy, have some minor issue that I don’t take time off for, race and am disappointed with the results, then get sidelined because the minor issue becomes major. It sucks. I have wasted so much time the past three or four years recovering from stupid injuries when I could be building on my fitness levels to get faster and stronger. As a runner, it’s in my nature to be a hard-headed idiot, but it’s time for me to learn some lessons and get it together so I’m not constantly saying “if only.” “If only I hadn’t hurt myself. If only PT weren’t so expensive. If only I had a few more weeks to train.”

I’m ready for 2014 to be a PR year. As proud as I was after running my first marathon, hindsight and perspective have left me wanting more. I still haven’t attained my sub-2 half marathon goal, the one I set back in 2011. Why? I was so burnt out and sour after my first attempt that I stomped off in the other direction and did nothing for a while. Then Dan broke his leg, and I didn’t have the time, let alone the finances or energy, to sign up for something else and try again. Then inertia took hold, and I wimped out of really pushing myself toward that goal and settled for running races in distances I’d never done before. Automatic PR, right?

I’m Twitter friends with a lot of runners, and it’s driving me bonkers seeing all of the “I signed up for _____ as my spring marathon!” and “Just registered for ___!” posts. I’m freaking jealous! I want to feel like I’m achieving something quantifiable, something I can chart and compare and say to myself “this is better than last time.”

Now that the holidays are over and we don’t have any travel or excitement on the agenda, it’s time to tackle the scary questions: What in the hell is wrong with my foot, and what will I have to do to fix it? Will I ever be able to run pain-free? Will I ever be able to run long again? How much is this going to cost? I have an appointment with the podiatrist next week, so hopefully I’ll have some answers soon. Until then, my current race times will be burning in my brain, and my subconscious will be whispering “you can do better.”

11.27.13
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32 years

Today marks my parents’ 32nd wedding anniversary. I already said it in a Facebook post, but that is a long time. In that time, they’ve moved more times than I can count in three states, built 2 houses, successfully raised 2 kids [jury’s still out on that third one ;)], fed tons of hungry teenagers and college kids, and shown everyone around them what true, unconditional love looks like.

I’m proud to be part of a family that has made it as a unit for this long. I’m thankful to have such a great example of love and selflessness, to have something so amazing to aspire to.

Happy anniversary, mom and dad! Without you, I wouldn’t be here.

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Suckers!

11.21.13
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Caught in the rain

When Dan and I moved to the city almost 6 years ago, we fell into an unofficial tradition of taking Sunday walks in the fall and winter. It was a good way to explore our new neighborhood, get some exercise, and have some time together. Over the years, that tradition has morphed from just going on a walk to going on a walk to a deli and getting lunch. We haven’t been home much on the weekends lately, so this past Sunday was really the first such walk we’ve taken this season.

The sun was bright, the sky was clear, and it was almost 70 degrees. Walking to the deli was a no-brainer. As we set out, I commented on how warm it was. It’s about 1.5 miles to the deli, and around the halfway point the wind seriously picked up. It was the kind of wind that flings dust and leaves into your eyes and stings your shins with debris. As I looked up, I saw it: a huge, ominous cloud, rapidly traveling toward us.

At first, it was a refreshing sprinkle. Nothing too intense, just enough to cool us off. But then the rain started coming down harder, the wind became violent, and, within a minute or so, we were soaked to the skin. Blocks from the deli, no shelter to be had.

I couldn’t stop laughing.

It reminded me of the crazy weather we’d get when we lived in New Orleans. My brother and I would take our giant golf umbrellas outside and jump up in the air, hoping the wind would carry us away.

Getting caught in that storm made me feel like a little kid again. My one and only worry was just trying to escape the rain. It was so simple, a problem with minimum consequences that could be easily solved.

We got to the deli in record time, sopping wet and ready for some food… and a beer.

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Yes, this was all for us. Yes, we ate it all.

By the time we ate and finished our beers, we’d gone from soaked to damp. The sky couldn’t have been clearer on the walk home, and we were dry by the halfway point. It was like none of it had ever happened.

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A tree in our neighborhood that blew over during the storm. I told you, it was windy!

This year has been pretty stressful for us, but I’m hoping that 2013 will be kind of like that storm. Intense, but over fairly quickly. It might leave behind a little damage, but nothing that can’t be fixed. And maybe, if we’re lucky, we’ll feel like kids again for a minute.

11.19.13
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We did some fun stuff.

We’ve actually been doing some pretty cool stuff lately, which is nice! I feel like we’re always “soooooo busy” all the time, but then people ask me what I’ve been doing and I don’t have a good answer. Which means I’m not spending my time very fruitfully.

I’ve been a big slacker about hitting the gym. I never did make my goal of hitting my one spin class for the week whenever that was, and I only got to the gym once last week. No good! I usually post my workouts on Dailymile, but they’ve been so underwhelming since the marathon that I haven’t bothered lately. They send a summary of your week’s workouts every Monday, and I was met with the dreaded “Your friends miss your training :(” Sad face. Sorry guys, I miss my training too.

Speaking of which, I finally got the custom insoles for my shoes and… THEY DON’T FIT. I went back to get them adjusted and haven’t tried them out yet. They were causing a lot of pressure and soreness on the arch of my right foot, as well as making my heel slip out of my shoe. The left one (for the foot that isn’t messed up, figures) is totally fine.

Now that the boring news is out of the way, let’s move on to the important stuff.

Nail news: I had time for a few manicures over the past couple of days, nothing too time-consuming or elaborate. Not that they ever are, but whatever. If nail art isn’t your thing, skip ahead to the BEER.

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First up is matte and gold. The burgundy is yet another mini from that old OPI set I have that doesn’t have any names on the bottles. I put 2 coats of Essie Matte About You on top, then dotted the gold over that (also from that OPI set). I had a hard time getting a good picture of it, but it looked pretty cool, minus, the parts that are outside of the lines (cleaned those up later). Unfortunately, like most matte manis, this started to chip pretty soon. Probably within 36 hours. Boo.

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Mani #2 was a modern twist on a classic French tip. I started with 2 coats of Maybelline Express Finish in Racy Red and painted the tips with two coats of Ciate’s Ladylike Lux. Topped the whole thing off with a generous helping of Seche Vite topcoat. Yes, it really was that shiny! It held up, chip-free, for several days. This is one of my favorite from my latest manis, and it was so easy.

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Big news! I made my first polish, hooray! I got my polish-making kits in the mail a while ago, but couldn’t really experiment with them until last week. I was aiming for something a little bolder and darker, but this turned out pretty. I need to get some little scoops to make adding mica to the base easier to measure. This is a combination of purple and copper mica, with a little bit of a dark gray mica that had a greenish-purple sheen to it.

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And official mani #3 [the previous one didn’t count, it was more of a swatch to show off my new color :)]. Two coats of Sinful Colors in Shock and Awe with a chevron pattern of Marc Jacobs in Petra on the tips. Love the MJ; it only takes one coat and sparkles like crazy with some Seche on top! This is the mani I’m currently rocking. I’m hoping it’ll last through Thursday.

Friday night, we went out to celebrate my brother’s birthday a few days early. None of the pictures turned out, given that it was really dark everywhere we went. That makes it sound much more scandalous than it was, though there was karaoke involved.

Saturday, Dan and I signed up to go on the SIP Club tour of the Schlafly Taproom.  Unlike at the Bottleworks, where they have tours regularly, tours at the Taproom are typically reserved for special events, auctions, etc. (or at least, that’s what the guide said). We went last year and had a good time, so signing up for 2013 was a no-brainer. We only RSVP’d for two (Dan and I), but the amazing Jeffery, a.ka. the nice dude in charge of the tours, looked the other way when he saw we had a third.

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Third wheelin’. Yep.

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Safety Dan, part deux.

After getting a short lecture on the history of the brewery and its surrounding area, we suited up with some fancy goggles and headed to the dungeon/basement for the good stuff. They had some Pi Common, a California common style of beer that can only be found at Pi restaurants, hanging out in the conditioning tanks. Wouldn’t you know it, it was ready to sample! So sample we did.

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Pours out of the pigtail.

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Dan taking a sample/talking shop with the tour guide. “Ooh, is this beer?” “Yes, this is beer.” “I like beer.” “Beer is good.” Something like that.

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More suckers in line for free booze.

There was some more beer talk, then we made our way to the back of the basement, where they house conditioning tanks that contain some of their big standards. Yum. History/trivia time: the logo on the far left was Schlafly’s original logo, which the marketing people axed once the company started to distribute to grocery stores. The rest of the logos you can see were designed by local tattoo artists and are variations on the fleur-de-lis.

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“Here’s some more beer.”

Next up was the cask room, where they ferment their sour beers. It used to house the boilers back when the building was a printing press. Now it’s the mad brewers’ laboratory.

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Potentially delicious science experiments in the making.

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“Take a picture of me in here.”

After all the boring stuff was over (just kidding…) it was time for SAMPLES. We had about 20 minutes to drink as much of the beer as we wanted. Within reason. Our options included the Hefeweizen, Tasmanian IPA, Old English Ale, the Biere de Garde, and something else I can’t remember. The TIPA and Biere de Garde were my favorites. There was also an assortment of cheese, toast, and cured meats.

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BEERS!

It was a really fun tour. If you’re on the fence about joining the SIP Club, just do it. For $25, you get a rad imperial pint mug, 20 oz. beers for the same price as 16 oz., 10% off store merch, and invitations to cool stuff like this tour. Come on, you know you want to. At the end of the tour, we each got a really nice sampling glass with the original dragon logo on it, a sturdy bottle-opener, and a Schlafly sticker. Not bad!

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The end!

11.11.13
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Long weekend

Dan’s dad has been in town from Phoenix since Friday, so we’ve been out and about all weekend. Friday was pretty low-key; we dropped by Talayna’s for some pizza, then headed back to our place to hang out in the backyard with the fire pit. It was a little too windy, so the party stayed inside, but we had fun – and stayed up way too late nonetheless.

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Photos of the century. Google+ will save photo bursts of 5 or more shots as a GIF. (click the image to see it in motion)

Saturday afternoon, the boys hit up the Loop to grab some food an check out records while I spent a few hours recovering from Friday’s festivities. BFF Lacy and her Mr. were in town from Madison, and she and I hit up our friend Nikki’s wedding while the boys went to a Blues game and drank all the beers!

Sunday was the big family chili day, which I somehow managed to not get any pictures of.

We took today off work and hit up Crown Candy. That place has always been a staple in St. Louis, but it really took off once it was on Man vs. Food. There’s usually a line out the door. We had to wait about 30 minutes for a table, which is nothing.

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Malts and chili. You can’t see it, but there’s about 2 lbs of candy under the table. Don’t worry, we didn’t only get malts and chili; the guys also got roast beef sandwiches, and I had a turkey club the size of my head.

After consuming our body weight in malts and bacon, we went to the zoo to avoid a food coma. Tons of animals were out! We got to see the sea lions being fed, which I’d never watched before. The day started out chilly and overcast, but it warmed up even though the clouds never really took off. We were going try for an A-B brewery tour, but it was closed for Veterans Day.

We weren’t really thinking about the holiday when we planning our outings, so I’m glad that zoo was actually open! I head back to work tomorrow, but was great to walk around the zoo in such wonderful weather without any big crowds.

Next on the agenda: The Silver Ballroom, then a lazy night at home.

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11.06.13
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All work, no play…

Well, you know.

This week has been all about work. I’ve been buried at regular work and with freelance work, so my days have been spent in front a computer or checking emails on my phone. Not the best.

I was so tremendously sore from lifting on Saturday that I took Sunday and Monday off from the gym. I hit it hard again on Tuesday (lifting from the New Rules) and now I’m so sore that I had to take today off. I’m going to force myself to do do some kind of workout tomorrow; I shouldn’t be this sore after a few 40 lb. squats (pathetic, I know)!

For dinner on Sunday, Dan and I combined forces to make some roasted red pepper ravioli stuffed with goat cheese. Dan made the dough and rolled it out;  I assembled everything. We don’t have a handy dandy ravioli tray – yet – so they looked a little wonky but tasted great! We dipped the finished product in store-bought marinara and in an olive oil/balsamic/herb mixture I cooked up. We rounded out the meal with spinach salads topped with feta, proscuitto, tomato, and balsamic vinaigrette. Not bad for a Sunday night.

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Dry ingredients with roasted red pepper mixture.

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Let’s add a few eggs in there.

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Ball O’ dough.

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Pasta maker! Actually, that would be Dan. So, pasta presser? Roller?

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Sheets of delicious pasta!

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Sheets of delicious pasta being stuffed with goat cheese.

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Aerial shot of the pasta battle station.

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My handy work. I used a pizza slicer to cut them into squares.

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The finished product! We were going to try a few drizzled with honey, but we forgot. Maybe next time.

Last week, I ordered some nail polish making supplies that finally arrived on Monday! Unfortunately, I’ll probably be too tied up with work to be able to experiment much this week, but I hope to play around with them some time this weekend. Trust me, there will be (multiple) posts on that!

11.03.13
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Spare time

Now that I’m not training for anything, it feels like I have all the spare time! Which I do, and don’t.

Frankly, I’m not great at being productive when I don’t have a schedule or plan. When I’m training for something, I have to map out my days so I can get everything done. When I feel like I have a ton of free time, I tend to put things off… indefinitely. It’s something I have to work hard at and be mindful of.

Dan and I were awful this week and only managed to hit the gym twice. Once on Monday, then not again until Saturday! I don’t know if we’re just super tired or what, but we managed to sleep through our alarms almost every day this week. Now that the time change has happened, I’m hoping the sunshine will make it easier to get out of bed.

At the gym Monday, I went to spin class for the first time in 4+ months. It was really intense. I’ve lost a ton of strength and anaerobic capacity from being so focused on endurance during marathon training. I was huffing and puffing like crazy; my lungs haven’t burned like that in ages. It felt good. Saturday, I got in a strength session and some good cardio on the bike and stair climber. Again, I am so weak! My lifts are nowhere near where they were this time last year, and I’m super sore from my (embarrassingly light) dead lifts.

I’ve been doing my nails a lot lately, trying to stay inspired. Here are 2 manicures from this week:

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Metallic burnt orange with fancy glitter.

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Flat greige with dark plum accent nails. Tried to do a zig-zag pattern with my Marc Jacobs polish. It looks cool when the lighting is right, but the colors are a bit too similar. It didn’t pop like I’d hoped.

I’m realizing I have a lot of blue/plum/gray type colors in my collections. My last few manis were all in the same color palette, so I wanted to shake things up and do something kind of fall/Halloween-themed, hence the orange and glitter. It’s hard to capture in a photo just how blinged out this manicure is, but the light really caught that glitter like crazy. I got a lot of compliments on this simple manicure, which is always nice! The glitter a Deborah Lippman mini I got from Sephora; they had it as their free birthday gift this year (I think). You can get the full size here. The orange is a mini from an OPI gift set. I have a lot of great colors from that set, but they didn’t bother putting the color names/numbers on any of them, and I threw out the packaging ages ago! Kind of frustrating.

I’m less in love with the plum/greige manicure. The sparkles just didn’t pop they way I thought they would; I had swatched the color combination on some paper before I did it, but it didn’t translate well on the nail. Oh well. Gives me an excuse to try something new later this week.

This morning, Dan and I were up bright and early to volunteer at the St. Louis Track Club’s Half Marathon. The volunteers in Chicago really made the race something special for me, and I wanted to give back to the community. It’s been a while since I volunteered at the race and I figured I might as well help out if I can’t run! We helped direct traffic on the course (the roads were open to cars), and it went pretty well for the most part. Generally people followed directions and were patient, but there are always a couple of jerks, including a woman who told us we really “fucked up” her Sunday and a cyclist who decided that stops signs didn’t apply to him and yelled at Dan for waving traffic on.

As you can see, Dan was thrilled to be up at 6 a.m. on a Sunday. We were running a bit too late to have breakfast and coffee, so things were a little rough at first. However, the crisp fall air and dazzling sunlight perked us up pretty quickly. We were out on the course for about 3 hours, and it really blew by. It was great to see so many runners tearing it up out there and having a great time. I’d highly recommend volunteering at a local race some time. It’s a really fun, easy way to give back to the running community and make someone’s day a little brighter!

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So excited.

In other exciting news, I get my custom shoe orthotics tomorrow! I’m really hoping that I’ll be back on track to start running again soon. This is my favorite time of year to hit the pavement, and sitting out has been driving me nuts. My foot soreness/stress fracture precursor is feels healed up, so fingers crossed!

Goal for this week: Hit spin class at least once, and do 2 lifting workouts. Get in some other kind of workout; maybe yoga or a long walk. Here’s to another week!

10.23.13
by

So…now what?

Tricky thing about training for races, especially longer ones: They happen, you feel awesome, then you have a bunch of free time and no idea what to do with it.

In classic runner fashion, I went from excited about training, to feeling overwhelmed with it, to being irritated with myself for signing up, to being proud of my improvement, to looking forward to tapering, to losing my mind during the taper, to successfully finishing my race, to being so happy it was over, to missing running all the time.

So there’s that.

The same ankle that’s been harassing me this entire training cycle did so well during the race… then that same foot started acting up. Ms. Super Genius over here wasn’t thinking when I packed footwear for Chicago and spent all day Monday walking around the city in Chuck Taylors (I know). The outside of my foot started throbbing toward the end of the day and has a weird nob/bump on it. I went to the doctor, who promptly told me to quit being an idiot, put on real shoes, and stop running for a week or two lest I give myself a stress fracture. So, that’s where I’m at right now.

I’ve been icing, elevating, and calcium-ing it. I have to admit, it is feeling better. My custom orthotics have arrived, but the office can’t get me in to “fit” me for them (aka, let me pick them up and make sure they didn’t mess up my order) until Nov. 4. Until then, no running and minimal walking (as much as I can help it).

For now, I’m going to hit the weights and the bike, hard. I bought “The New Rules of Lifting for Women” some time last year and made it through the first few cycles with pretty significant gains, so that’s what’s on the agenda for now. I’m hoping to improve my strength, which shouldn’t be hard given how little time I spent in the weight room over the summer, and correct some muscle imbalances in doing so.

After that, it’s time to tackle my half marathon and 10k PRs (PR = personal record). They are old, outdated, and not indicative of my ability. Look out, spring racing season, I’m coming for you… as soon as my foot heals.

10.20.13
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Chicago marathon!

I know, I know. It happened a week ago, but better late than never, right?

As I was running my race, I realized that 26.2 miles is really far, and that there was no way that I’d be able to remember or register everything that was happening during those miles in order to write about it. Having that thought is essentially the only thing I remember thinking during the entire race. Oh, that and the PAIN.

I’m only sort of kidding.

Actually, everything about the day of the marathon could not have gone better, which I am tremendously thankful for.

Dan and I got into town on Friday night, where our friends Lindsay and Kevin promptly took us out to eat at a great pasta place I can’t remember the name of. I didn’t even take any pictures of my food. Helpful, I know. I was being really lame, so we watched a horribly depressing episode of Taxicab Confessions then went to bed.

Saturday morning, we woke up and Kevin took us to Bang Bang Pie Shop where we enjoyed the most amazing biscuits, homemade jams and butters, and candied bacon ever. Breakfast stuck with me so long that I wasn’t hungry for lunch until almost 3…which is miraculous. After breakfast, I met up with some acquaintances/friends who were nice enough to let me third-wheel it all Saturday.

Katie and I met at the national ACES conference [nerd alert] in Cleveland back in 2006 [ouch]. We kept up over the years though social media and both started to get really into running around the same time. She and her longtime friend Mike try to run a race together every year, and Chicago was 2013’s selection. They found a nice apartment for us to stay at on Airbnb and were kind enough to let me tag along to the expo, go to lunch, chill at the apartment and indulge my crazy nail art hobby, go to dinner with their friends, stay with them Saturday night, and navigate to the race start Sunday morning. As Katie said after, it was nice to be friends in real life for once!

We made our way to the expo with Katie’s fiancé, Lance, leading the way. He worked in Chicago for several years and had a better sense of the city than the rest of us, that’s for sure! The expo was huge…it was so overwhelming that I was too busy navigating the crowds to bother really taking any pictures. It was really well organized, there was just so much…humanity. Not paying attention to where they were going or what they were doing. We got our numbers/shirts, and I made a brief stop by the DetermiNation tent to pick up my Charity Village credentials and make an extra race bib. Then we got out of there!

My DetermiNation bib.

My DetermiNation bib.

After the expo, we grabbed some Chipotle and went back to the apartment to chill out. We had a 7:45 dinner reservation for, you guessed it, more pasta, but we didn’t get our seats until I don’t even know when. By the time we ate and paid, it was well after 10 and we were fading fast. We headed back to the apartment and got our race day stuff together, agreed on a 5 a.m. wakeup time, and went to bed. Actually, I stayed up a bit longer to finish my race day nails, then finally got into bed around midnight. I slept OK; I fell asleep pretty quickly, but woke up a lot throughout the night. The upstairs neighbors were playing their music a bit loudly, then I heard gunshots, then fireworks, then it was time to wake up! Despite my fitful sleep, I hopped out of bed and was ready to roll pretty quickly.

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Obligatory nail art picture (grasping celebratory post-marathon wine).

My favorite part of the morning was probably the 5 minutes of standing in the kitchen with Katie and Mike, silently choking down various combos of peanut butter, bread, and bananas and drinking our coffee. Even though we didn’t say anything, it was really nice to share that moment with other people after months of doing the exact same thing all by myself every Saturday morning.

After breakfast, we walked to the L and made our way to the race start with no problems. Security was stricter than any other race I’ve done; I kind of felt like I was at the airport. Your race number had to be showing constantly, and they went through everyone’s gear check bag before admitting runners into Grant Park. We checked our gear and had just enough time to take a few pictures and wait in line for the bathroom before we went to our respective corrals.

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Me, Katie, and Mike right after entering Grant Park.

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Chicago skyline, right before entering Grant Park.

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Ready to rock and roll!

We lined up in our corrals with approximately 1 billion other people, and before we knew it, we were crossing the starting line.

I know it’s hard to believe, but I really don’t remember a whole lot about running the race. There were so many people everywhere that I was just trying to concentrate on not getting stomped on or elbowed or tripping over anyone. I was mostly successful. The crowd support was overwhelming. There were tons of spectators and they were cheering so loudly, it was like being in a wind tunnel. I just tried to stay calm and relaxed to avoid getting caught up on the moment and going out too fast.

Around 3 miles in, I realized I needed to hit the bathroom again. The lines were crazy long, so I decided to wait until the next stop, at around 5 miles. At that point, the lines were still really long,  but I figured that I would be uncomfortable for a large portion of the race, and I might as well be as comfortable as possible for the earlier, easier miles. I also figured it’d be better to get it over with early in the race so I wouldn’t have to stop and then try to regain momentum later. Unfortunately, my pit stop cost me somewhere between 8 and 10 minutes because the lines were pretty long. Not ideal, but I’m glad that I did it instead of risking feeling sick later in the race. Luckily, that’s the only time I had to stop.

From that point on, I put on the cruise control and kind of zoned out, making it a point to look around and check out my surroundings every few minutes. I didn’t bother checking my watch too often, as my Garmin paces were all over the place and wildly inaccurate. I tried to take a few Honey Stinger chews every 3 miles and mixed Gatorade and water at each of the water stops, which were spaced out about every 1.5 miles or something. I’d walk for 30ish seconds to drink and eat a few chews, then resume running. That was my strategy for the whole race, and it worked really well; I never got a stomach ache or bonked.

Dan, Lindsay, Kevin and the rest of the crew were all waiting for me at mile 16, so my primary goal was to make it to that point looking and feeling strong. I was due for some more chews around then, but I didn’t want them to see me walking, so I held off. I never did see them, though they saw me and yelled. Dan said I was totally ‘in the zone,’ which must have been true for me to miss them. I didn’t want them to see me walk, even just for a fuel break, so that propelled me through mile 17.5. Once I realized I had likely missed them, I just put my head down and powered through. I kept repeating the phrase “controlled fall” in my head and made it a point to check my posture and run as relaxed as possible. We hadn’t discussed it beforehand, but I knew that my mom and our friend Ann would be at the finish; I just had a feeling that I’d see them. I focused on getting to mile 20, then from that point on reveled in the fact that each additional step would be a personal distance record for me.

Around 22 miles in, I definitely started to hurt. I didn’t hit the infamous WALL, but my hips and low back were aching and my calves started feeling a little crampy. I had to step off the course twice for about 20 or 30 seconds each to stretch a little. People always praise the Chicago course for being so flat and fast, but that also means that the exact same muscles are taking a serious pounding for all 26.2 miles of the race. It was a huge relief to shake out a little.

At no point did I ever, ever feel like I wouldn’t be able to finish. My ankle also felt great the entire time. After months of training, and several weeks of fretting over my ability to happily complete the race after missing some significant training runs because of my ankle issues, I felt oddly calm the entire time I was running. Once I crossed the starting line and began running, my brain shut off and I just went on auto pilot.

I took a slightly longer walking break at mile 24, probably about 2 minutes, then made a deal with myself that I would run the remainder of the race, and run I did! I got some kind of second wind and I’m pretty sure my legs were just numb after hours of pounding. It was a little frustrating, because the course got pretty narrow in certain parts and a lot of people were walking. Weaving around them was too much energy at that point, and I didn’t trust myself to not trip or lose my balance. I feel like I could have gained some valuable time had I not gotten stuck, but oh well.

Once I got around 1,000 or 800 meters away from the finish, I heard “GO, SALLIE, GO!!!!!!” Sure enough, it was my mom, screaming at the finish just like I knew she’d be. For context, there are thousands of people at the finish line, cheering, ringing cow bells, blasting music, etc. My mom has a…signature cheering voice that is capable of piercing through pretty much any other noise. Not only did I hear her, but I was able to zero in and find her and Ann in the crowd. After that, it was game over. I was so ready to be done, I tore up the “hill” (I think it was a bridge or on-ramp or something. I was super thankful for my Tower Grove Park hills at that point) and cruised across the finish line. Official finish time: 5:01:26.

I threw my hands up and let out a triumphant yell as I crossed the finish line. I miiiight have shed a few tears of joy as I hobbled through the finish chute and got my medal.

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Wahoo!

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Me with my new hardware and a giant smile.

The walk from the finishing area back to the gear check and park exit was brutal. It was about a mile or something and required descending some stairs. After running all that way, I managed to walk to the beer table, grab a cold one, and hobble off to the side of the fenced in area. I collapsed and enjoyed about half of my beer (after calling mom to tell her not to worry, I just needed to sit for a minute).

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The sweet taste of success.

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Bling bling.

Mom and Ann took me back to their hotel, where I took the hottest, most glorious shower of my life and passed out for a few hours. After I was back among the living, Lindsay and Dan joined forces to make an amazing celebratory dinner of Italian pot roast, horseradish mashed potatoes, fresh green beans, and homemade bread. There might have been a little (a lot) of wine and champagne, too. I fell asleep with a full belly, happy heart, and major sense of accomplishment.

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Pizza and beers at Piece, aka Heaven on Earth.

Getting out of bed the next day was another story…but I managed to fight my way through it and eat all of the pizza and beer!

Overall, I feel great about this experience. Running in memory of Kim and in honor of my grandma was so tremendously rewarding. Thinking of them and of all the people who donated to the American Cancer Society in support of this run was a huge source of comfort and motivation during my training, especially when I was having doubts about my ankle. I wish I hadn’t lost that time in the bathroom, because a time of 4:XX would have felt pretty darn good, but I really can’t complain. I didn’t bonk, my body held up, I didn’t doubt myself, and I was able to raise money for a great cause. I can definitely see myself running another marathon in the future, but for now, I’m just going to bask in the glow of what I’ve accomplished thus far.

I did it!