I am a stubborn runner.

(Well really, I'm probably just a stubborn person, but that's beside the point.)

When I get it in my mind that I'm running a certain workout on a certain day, I hate deviating from the plan.

Sometimes that stubbornness is a good thing. It helps me get my runs in even when my motivation is super low. But sometimes it can also be a bad thing and more often than I'd like to admit, I find myself pushing through runs even when things don't feel right so I can say I hit my mileage for the day.

Yesterday, I gave my stubborn self a break.

I was already compromising the distance of the run. I had 10 miles planned, but knew that wasn't going to fit into my schedule. I was annoyed, but settled on getting in five miles. Hey it's better than nothing right?

So I headed out the door on my lunch break and immediately felt stiff and sore and tight in really weird places. I figured the discomfort would fade once I warmed up, but it didn't. Instead I could feel my right glute and hip getting tighter and tighter, and then my form was completely shot.

My right foot was hitting the ground at the weirdest angles and it was really bothering my ankle and my knee.

I stopped to stretch, still very determined to finish all five miles.

When I started running again, I knew five miles wasn't in the cards. Heck, I knew another mile wasn't even in the cards.

So I pushed back my stubbornness and headed back home sort of feeling like I had my tail between my legs.

I know it was the smart thing to do. At this point in the game, it's not worth pushing through a run and risking injury, especially when I've been known to have knee issues crop up at really unfortunate times. But it's still frustrating as hell.

I hate not finishing the runs I have planned. I hate having to cut runs short because something's feeling off. Oh and I definitely hate that I feel like a major marathon training slacker.

I was not in a happy place when I got home from that run. I'm still a little hung up on it today, but I'm trying to let it go. I foam rolled a good amount yesterday to help loosen things up. I'll do the same again tonight.

I have another 20 miler on the schedule for tomorrow morning and I need to be on my A game for that run. In the grand scheme of things, being healthy for that 20 mile run is more important than a missed five miler.

But still, cutting runs short sucks.

I'll be the first to admit that marathon training isn't always sunshine and rainbows. There are plenty of days where I look at my training plan and wonder how the heck I'm going to fit everything in.

Most of the time I try to make a solid effort, but there are times some of my runs just don't happen.



This has been especially true the last few weeks. As we get closer and closer to race day, my midweek runs are getting longer and longer, and I am really, really struggling to make some of them happen.

Take this week for example. I'm supposed to have midweek runs of 9 and 10 miles. Those runs will take all take 90+ minutes and it can be tough to carve out that kind of time in an already full schedule.

Usually I like to run before work, but I don't have routes that long that I feel safe running in the dark so that means my runs are pushed back to the evening, where they compete for time with other commitments on my calendar.



I fit the nine miler in on Monday after work, but the 10 miler isn't going to happen today. I'll do something shorter, which is better than nothing, but there's just no way to fit in 10 miles when I also have a full day of work and my friend's birthday dinner tonight.

And yes, I'm definitely picking eating good food with friends over doing a 10 mile run.

I'm also struggling with my easy runs. As the rest of my runs get longer, I'm finding I need more rest days and that I'm subbing rest days instead of doing my short easy runs.

Back when I built my training plan, I knew this was a possibility and I did say easy days could be swapped for rest days or cross training, so this doesn't bother me a ton, it just means that's my total weekly mileage is lower than I thought it would be.

Come race day, I know a few skipped runs won't be a problem, especially since I've been majorly prioritizing all my long runs, and they've been going well.

But as a whole, marathon training isn't always easy, and I didn't want to paint the picture that it was.

What do you struggle with when you train for races?

This weekend I was happy to celebrate with two of my friends who tied the knot!

My friends Amy and Ryan have been together since literally the second week of our freshman year at Maryland, and they are pretty much perfect for each other.

I met Amy early on in college because we lived on the same dorm floor.


Throwback shot: Denton 3 girls at a tailgate

I probably knew Amy about one week before I also met Ryan, and not long after, "Amy and Ryan" became a thing.

Their wedding was up in Frederick, Md. at a gorgeous outdoor venue overlooking a lake.





The weather was a little ominous, and it definitely rained before the ceremony. But the clouds broke for about 20 minutes, just enough time for Amy and Ryan to exchange their vows and for everyone to get back under the pavilion before it started pouring.


Amy walking down the aisle

That has to be a good sign for the future of their marriage right?


All married!

We spent the rest of the evening eating and drinking and dancing. And I think Ryan and Amy get points for being the only bride and groom to actually show up to their after party.

It was a fun night, and I don't think I've ever seen Amy look so happy. She just beamed the entire time.

Congrats Amy and Ryan! Wishing you guys all the best!

I am more sore this morning from playing flag football yesterday than I was Saturday morning after my 20 mile run.



What is wrong with that picture?

My 20 mile run went OK. Mentally, I wasn't really feeling it, so I was really glad I had plans to meet up with Megan around mile 5 so we could do a large chunk of the mileage together.


Megan, her roommate Jax and me

Sometimes just knowing you have someone waiting for you is the kick you need to get out of bed and get moving.

The run started off kind of rough. My legs were tired and sore and I couldn't get my mind to stop focusing on how much longer I had to go.

By the time I met up with Megan and her roommate Jax, I was so thrilled to have people to talk with to distract me.

The next four miles flew by as we talked and laughed. Jax split off after about nine miles, and Megan and I split around 16. By the time Megan and I headed our separate ways, you could tell the mileage was wearing on both of us.



I managed to finish the run in 3:19:45, just under a 10 minute per mile average pace. It wasn't as great as my 18 mile run the week before, but it's still a time I was happy with.

I did my best to recover well, knowing I had a big weekend ahead of me with my friends' wedding and the start of flag football season.


Quick shot of me and friends at the wedding. More on this later!

My legs were feeling pretty solid by the time our football game rolled around on Sunday, and I played a decent game. I had two catches for first downs! But of course, after my second catch, I got clobbered by a girl and flew into another guy and took a nice tumble.



I can feel every bit of that fall this morning in my right knee, hip and hamstring. I iced my knee yesterday after the game and tried to stretch out my very, very achy hip and hamstring, but it didn't do much to help.

It's definitely not a serious injury, but I was just surprised by how sore I was this morning, since the fall didn't seem all that bad during the game. Probably a sign I'm getting old. I can't take those football hits quite as easily.

I'm taking a page out of Ali's book this morning and borrowing her "Thankful Thursday" series in hopes that it will boost my mood today.

Last night was Penny's memorial service at Maryland, and while it certainly wasn't as emotionally tough for me as the funeral, I still woke up this morning feeling a little glum. So I decided that instead of being sad all day, I would flip the switch and be thankful instead. After all, my motto moving on from the funeral was "more happy times than sad times."

I'm thankful that I got to know Penny as well as I did during my three and a half years at Maryland and I'm thankful we stayed so close after graduation.



Penny was a great teacher, mentor and most importantly, friend. I was lucky enough to be one of a very small group of kids to take her "fast track" intro to reporting class as a freshmen. At the time, most kids didn't take that class until they were sophomores, except for a select few who had really rocked their first semester on campus. I was lucky enough to be one of those kids.

In her class, she gave me my fair share of F's on assignments. At the journalism school, if you misspelled a proper noun, made a typo in an address, etc. it was an automatic F no matter how great the rest of the story was.

I once got an F because I typed an address as 123 NW A Street, instead of 123 A Street NW (in DC those are very, very different things). But despite my F's, I still managed to pass her class with an A.

But more important than a great grade, I had found a great mentor. I constantly popped into her office to say, "hi" or more often to stress/vent about internship and job decisions. Penny was a great sounding board and gave honest, practical advice all the time. She helped pave the road to a ton of great opportunities for me, and that didn't end when I graduated.

She continued to bring me back to campus to speak to her classes about using social media since it's what I did/do in my current job. We'd stay in touch through email, and I knew I could reach out to her and ask her advice on anything I needed. When I'd visit her classes, we'd grab lunch in between and catch up on life.

Last night at the memorial service her husband read a passage from one of her journals, where she talked about being scared, not so much of being sick, but of not living life to the fullest and not getting to accomplish all she wanted. She wrote that she was scared that there would be no legacy to remember her.

I was so surprised hearing those words because if anyone left a legacy at the journalism school, it was Penny. She was the rock that professors and students alike turned to for advice and guidance, and her legacy certainly lives on in all of the students whose lives she touched.

So while I miss her immensely and feel like there's a giant sad hole in my heart, I'm going to try to focus more on being thankful. Thankful that I got to spend the time I did with her. Thankful that I learned so much and grew so much as a person because of her guidance. Thankful that her family was willing to share her with us even when she was sick because they knew we needed her too.

And I'll do my small part, whatever that may be, to make sure her legacy lives on.

It's been a while since I've recapped one of my MCM training weeks. I'm not sure why I fell off the wagon with that, but I figure it's time to get back on. Somehow, we're just a little more than five weeks away from race day or about 40 days, as the MCM Facebook page reminded me yesterday.



Seriously when did that happen?!

It seems like it was just a few days ago I was creating my training plan and getting ready for my first long run, but now here we are recapping week seven of training.

Week seven was a solid week of training for me after taking a week off.

Sunday: 9 miles, easy pace

This workout originally called for nine miles with six of them at marathon pace, but after taking an entire week off, I knew it wouldn't be smart to push the speed, so I didn't. I just set out with the goal of accomplishing the miles at whatever pace necessary. Apparently that plan worked and I finished with an average right around 10 minutes per mile.

Monday: 3 miles easy

I was pretty sore after Sunday's run and had debated taking Monday as a rest day, but then Megan and I were talking on  g-chat about how gorgeous the weather was and we knew we couldn't pass up a chance for a run. So Megan and I met up, knocked out three nice and easy miles while catching up on life. And of course we celebrated with some post-run fro-yo.

Tuesday: Rest

Wednesday: 4.5 miles easy



It was another gorgeous day for a run with temperatures in the upper 60's/low 70's. I am so enjoying this cooler running weather, though I'm not totally convinced fall is here to stay for good just yet.

Thursday: Rest

Friday: 18 miles



Friday's long run was amazing and a huge confidence booster.

Saturday: Rest (but on my feet all day at a tailgate #fail)

Sunday: Rest

Total mileage: 34.5 

My overall mileage was definitely a little bit lower this week than normal, but I was happy that I hit most of my quality runs and totally rocked it on my long run.  I only have about three more weeks of hard training before I get to taper so we're definitely in the final push here. I can't believe we're so close, but I am so, so excited for race day to be here!

 

Thursday night before I headed to bed, I was insanely nervous about my Friday morning long run.

Running 18 miles is no joke.

It's a distance I haven't tackled in nearly two years so I was feeling a bit anxious about all the things that could go wrong on a run of that distance, and I struggled to fall asleep.

When my alarm went off Friday morning, I groaned as I looked out my window and saw how dark it still was. It's clear that fall is setting in because I'm having to wait later and later for daylight to break so the trails aren't pitch black.

I did my usual pre-run routine of PBJ, water and going to the bathroom a million times because of nerves and then headed out for my run.



One of the things I was most nervous about was running out of steam on this run. After taking an entire week off from training after Penny died, I knew it wasn't going to be easy to jump back in with an 18 mile long run. So my plan was to just take it slow.

I made an extra effort not to look at Garmin very often and to just run within myself and my abilities that day.

The weather was nice and cool and the humidity was pretty low, so I was naturally moving at a slightly faster pace than normal. I was feeling pretty good as the miles ticked by and I was finding I didn't need nearly as many walk breaks as I had on hotter and more humid long runs. Plus the shade on the trail definitely helped.



I had made a brand new playlist Thursday night and was enjoying rocking out to a fresh mix (that featured an embarrassing number of throwback boyband songs) and before I knew it, I was approaching mile 9 and getting ready to turn around and head home.

I took a brief stretch break at the half way point just to loosen things up and then turned and headed for home.

Miles 9-13 were all at a gradual uphill climb and my pace certainly dropped a little bit. I was starting to feel fatigue set in but once I got into downtown Bethesda I knew I only had five miles to go and my spirits soared because I was still feeling pretty good.

I stopped briefly into a Dunkin' Donuts to refill my water bottle and then I set off for home. With five miles to go I was feeling mentally awesome. I was thrilled to see my pace was holding steady and that I wasn't hitting any walls.

I kept thinking about how much I am totally going to kick butt at MCM in a few weeks.

Around mile 15, I made a friend on the trails. She had just moved to the area and asked if she could run with me for a bit. I was so glad to have company, and I had a great time telling her all about the great running in the area. She told me she was surprised I was so peppy for having already run 15 miles.

Truthfully, I was surprised I was able to keep up with her and maintain a bit of a conversation. Go me!

We parted ways a bit after mile 16.5 and I trucked it the last little bit home.


Boom 18 miles, average pace 9:39

Despite that fact that I felt amazing during most of this run, my legs were shot as soon as I stopped. Suddenly I could feel every mile that I had just run.

Stretching and an ice bath helped.



I slipped into my compression sleeves for the rest of the day, which helped too, but I was still feeling some pretty major muscle fatigue for the next few days. (I'm sure being on my feet for like 12 hours at the Maryland tailgate on Saturday didn't help.)

It always amazes me how one awesome long run can boost my confidence so much for a big race. I know there's still a lot of work to put in before MCM, but I feel good about this race.

I am 100 percent confident that I will completely kick butt at the end of October and come out with a brand new PR.

I am beyond excited that fall is finally here, and I don't just say that because I'm excited about chai tea lattes and cooler running temps (though those things are pretty awesome too.)


Definitely made some Starbucks runs on the way to a training class last week.

No I'm excited because fall means football weekends are back.

I live and breath football in the fall. The perfect way to spend a weekend is with a Saturday tailgate and Terps football, then coming home to watch more college football (and cheering for a Notre Dame win) and then waking up Sunday morning to play flag football, watching the NFL games, cheering on the Eagles and freakishly monitoring my fantasy team.

Excessive? Eh maybe a little bit.

But I can't imagine it being any other way.

This weekend, the Terps had a 12:30 home game against UConn, which meant our tailgate started bright and early at 6:30 a.m.

We grilled up steak, bacon and eggs for breakfast, sipped mimosas and played lots of cornhole before heading up to the stadium.


Greg working the grill


Beautiful morning for some cornhole

I don't even want to talk about the game though because our coach blew it so bad with poor clock management and talking about it just makes me angry.  (I'm not bitter at all....really).

Even though the loss was crappy, the tailgating was awesome, and I ended up not leaving campus until 7 p.m. when the post-game tailgating wrapped up. Yes, that means I spent more than 12 hours at UMD on Saturday. It was wonderful.

Seriously, there's no better way to spend a Saturday than with your closest friends.


Our tailgate crew

I got home and attempted to stay awake for the Notre Dame vs. Michigan State game, but it probably comes as no surprise that I passed out sometime in the middle of the third quarter.


Lights out for me

I was happy to wake up Sunday morning and find ND got the W though!

Yesterday Emily came over to watch some Eagles football. (Well she was really here to cheer against the Ravens, while I cheered for the Eagles.) The game was far too close for my comfort, and I ended up frantically pacing around my living room during the last few minutes. But we pulled out the win by one point and now sit at 2-0.

I spent the rest of the day Sunday vegging on the couch, flipping between the Steelers-Jets and Redskins-Rams games, stalking my fantasy score and as always, falling asleep sometime in the middle of the Sunday night game.

Are you a football fan? NFL or college? And who do you cheer for?

1. My plan to ease back into training this week has been going extremely well.

I've hit all my shorter runs and the only thing I have left on the schedule for this week is my 18 mile long run tomorrow morning. I've been slightly more sore during and after my runs this week, but I know that will happen after taking a week off.

Luckily, the weather this week has been absolutely gorgeous in DC. The humidity has dropped off big time and the highs have only been in the low 80's. I'm hoping this trend holds up through the remainder of marathon training. It's so, so much easier to motivate myself to run when the weather plays nice. I'm looking forward to being a little bit chilly at the start of tomorrow morning's 18 miler.

 

2. My calves are still being a giant pain in the butt.

At this point I know I need to just schedule a sports massage and get them worked on, but I've been having trouble finding a good day to do that. I like to schedule my massages the day before a rest day, so my muscles have a chance to recover from the beat down they take during the massage. Rest days usually fall on Thursdays, but my Wednesday evenings have been busy the last few weeks. It's been a long time since I've had a sports massage, and I'm more than a little nervous about how much it's going to hurt, but I know I just need to make the time to get it done if I want my calves to stop hating me.

 

3. I'm happy to say that last week, I was accepted to be a Sweat Pink Ambassador.

I'm excited to be part of this great community of fitness fans to help push and motivate each other. I first met Jamie and Alyse, the founders of the Sweat Pink movement, last summer when I was in San Diego and took one of their bootcamp classes. Not only did they kick my butt, but they made sure I had fun in the process. I've been virtually following along and watching them grow their community all year, and I'm so excited to finally get to be a part of it. These girls are two of the sweetest people I've met and I'm happy for the chance to support them.

I haven't fully had a chance to dive in be super active in the community yet, but I'm really looking forward to getting more involved and finding other ambassadors in the DC area.

 

Diving back into training after a week off is challenging. I knew this week I wouldn't be able to tackle all five of the runs on my schedule. That's just asking for an injury.



So I sat down and figured out which are the workouts that should absolutely happen and which workouts should get scratched this week to leave time for a few more rest days to ease back into things.

Of the five workouts, I have one long run of 18 miles, a tempo run of 9 miles, intervals totaling 8 miles, and two easy runs of three to four miles.

I knew all speed work was out of the question, so that nixed the 8 mile interval workouts.

I opted to keep the 9 mile mid-distance run and drop the tempo piece. I'm keeping one or two of the easy runs and obviously my long run.

I knocked out the nine miler on Sunday morning. I kept the pace easy and stopped to stretch once or twice to work out the kinks in my legs. But even with all that I still woke up extremely sore yesterday. It was a not so nice reminder that taking a full week of from training definitely means I have some ground to make up.

I went out for a super easy shake out run last night and today I'm planning a rest day.

My plan for the rest of the week is something easy tomorrow, another rest day Thursday and then my long run on Friday.

I'm hoping after a slightly scaled back week, I'll be able to get back to my regularly scheduled training without a problem next week.

Weekends when the Terps have away games are supposed to be my laid back weekends to recover, but that was hardly the case this weekend. In fact, this weekend I went on the road to watch the Terps play Temple in Philly.

My dad and brother went to Temple and my cousins Laura, Nate and I all went to Maryland. We've been planning our family trip to Philly for this game since my cousin's wedding back in July.


L to R: Nate, Laura, my dad, me, my brother Tom, my mom (clearly being Switzerland)

If you're a huge sports fan, you may remember that last year, Temple came to UMD and laid a beat down on the Terps. The final score was an embarrassing 38-7, and Maryland only managed to get on the board when Temple put their third string in the game.

My parents and brother came down to Maryland for that game, and ever since that whopping my brother has been talking a lot of trash.


Last year's game at Maryland.

When the Terps put up 29 points in the first half, I was fairly confident we were going to win the game.

But things got a little dicey in the second half, when our offense completely stalled and Temple started putting lots of points on the board.

Then we fumbled a punt return. Temple recovered it in the red zone. Our defense held them to a field goal attempt, which we blocked. And then fumbled away a few plays later. Seriously, I don't think I've ever experienced so many emotional ups and downs in one game.

At the end of the day the Terps were able to pull out the W, making us 2-0 on the season.

My family all had a blast (well except maybe my brother who was a little salty after the loss) and I'm so looking forward to our next family get together at the Baltimore Running Festival.

Thank you to those of you who left kind and heartfelt comments on the post about my college mentor's death.

As you can probably imagine, this has been a really hard week for me. Her funeral is this morning, and I'm both looking forward to it and completely dreading it.

Looking forward to it in the sense that it will be good to have a chance to celebrate her life with many of the other people she touched as much as me.

Dreading it in the fact that it's a funeral, and funerals are never fun or easy.

My emotions this week have been in a complete tailspin, and instead of trying to reign them in and feign some sort of normalcy, I've just sort of let them do their thing. That's meant crawling in to bed way earlier than normal, it's meant fitful, restless sleep and it's meant a heavy heart that can't fathom running or taking the time to cook a real dinner.

I've eaten ice cream for dinner multiple times this week, and I haven't run once.

Sure, that's probably not the best for marathon training (or my health in general), but it's a cutback week and at the end of the day, one week of missed workouts isn't going to destroy my training.

I've taken this week to let myself be sad and to mourn in the way that works for me.

Starting next week, I have three big, important weeks of training and long runs of 18, 20 and 20 miles. I know these weeks and workouts are vital if I want to have a good race. It's the largest build phase I have coming up and I need to be a good mental place to hit those workouts and to finish them feeling strong.

So after a week of sadness, it's going to be time to get back in the saddle and start living my normal life again. I'm sure I'll still have moments of sadness that creep in to my days, it would be foolish to think I won't, but starting next week, it's time to have more happy moments than sad moments.

I will always miss Penny and her laughter, joy and sharp wit, but she wouldn't want any of us sitting around mourning her for too long. She'd want us to get back out there and live our lives because that's what she did every day.

So yes, starting next week, more happy times than sad times, more running than not running and more vegetables for dinner than ice cream.

Some people are really good at running through sadness, heart ache, mourning, etc.

But not me. Bad news just tends to knock me on my butt pretty hard and makes me want to curl up in a little ball in my bed. Running this week just isn't happening.

On Friday, my college mentor died. She was only 50.

(Source)

Penny was diagnosed with breast cancer my sophomore year, and I remember being devastated to find out that news, but she didn't really let it slow her down. She kept teaching and advising students, and health wise for the last several years, she seemed to be doing so well.

I guess things took a turn for the worse a couple weeks ago.

I've been trying to come up with words to describe how much she meant to me and how much I looked up to her and valued her advice, but everything I come up with just sounds hollow and empty. Nothing does her justice. (Though two very nice obituaries have been written, one by another professor at the college and one by the school paper.)

Penny was one of the few professors I still kept in touch with after graduation, and she invited me back to speak to her classes every year. In between classes, we'd grab lunch or just sit in her office and catch up. I'd tell her about work and running, and she'd talk about her family, the newest changes coming to the journalism school, etc.

In my head I knew she was technically "sick" -- she'd once compared herself to Elizabeth Edwards in that sense -- but looking at her and interacting with her, you never would have known it. I think that's why I was so stunned when I heard the news over the weekend.

Since then, it's been a strange few days. The sadness creeps up on me pretty unexpectedly at times and I'll find myself crying in the weirdest places, like in the bleachers at the start of a football game or in a stairwell in my office building.

The funeral is Friday. I'm sure it will be standing room only. The journalism school is small. Everyone knows everyone, and for the most part, they all feel like family. It's going to be a hard and crappy end to what has already been a pretty hard and crappy week.

Going into Labor Day weekend, I knew it was going to be challenging to fit in all my scheduled training runs.

I had three on the schedule:

• a 16-mile long run


• a 3-mile easy run


• an 8 mile hill workout

But I also had a weekend packed full with sports.

Friday night was booked with soccer.


Soccer game with Meg

Saturday was Maryland's home opener in football, which meant that day was lost to tailgating and fun with friends.


Girls at the tailgate


Band before the start of the game

Sunday was day one of a two-day softball tournament, followed by another soccer game, which I ended up bailing on because it was just too much.

And then Monday was day two of the softball tournament.

Labor Day weekend is like this for me pretty much every year, so I've come to learn that I can't put too much concern into whether or not all my runs happen, because most likely they won't.

So where did running end up fitting in to this crazy weekend?

Well, I took Friday off from work so that I could do my long run. Out of the three workouts I had scheduled, it was the one I deemed most important and if it meant extending my long weekend to make it happen, I was pretty OK with that.

Saturday I knew from the get-go would be a scheduled rest day. And yes I rested in the sense that I didn't work out, but I was on my feet for a solid seven or eight hours in flip flops, which in the heat caused my ankles to swell like a pregnant lady's. Even though I iced the crap out of them when I got home, I knew there was absolutely no way I'd be able to run on Sunday.

So I skipped my three-mile easy run.

Monday, I was hopeful I'd be able to fit in my 8 miles of hills before the start of the softball tournament. But since our team lost it's first game on Sunday, we got stuck with the early game on Monday morning instead of the noon game, which left no time to run before hand. So yet another workout was lost to Labor Day weekend craziness.

At the end of the day, I'm not actually that upset about the skipped workouts. I know during a training cycle it happens. A few missed workouts here or there will not derail everything. There's still a solid seven and a half weeks until race day, which is more than enough time to make sure I'm good to go!