Just One Marathon

A Slice of Heaven -- Medium Fat

I postponed hill training this week. Our family visited Montreal with my sister-in-law, husband and their two kids for a couple of days. I’ve got to hand it to myself: I don’t think I could have consumed more calories in a thirty-six hour period. If it wasn’t a personal record, then it was pretty damned close.

Our family’s favourite place to visit in Montreal is a Schwartzs' Deli on St. Laurent. Their smoked meat sandwiches, pickles and French fries are legendary – worth lining up in the snow, cramming in at communal Formica-topped tables, and throwing dietary caution to the wind. We paid our respects on the way out of town yesterday.

However, I didn’t like the idea of tomorrow’s 26K run on five days rest and a gut-full of medium-fat-on-rye, so I had to get those hills in. To generate a little motivation, I asked my husband to join me. He is one of those maddening people who never skips a run. This morning, I used his envy-inspiring self-discipline to my advantage. When I dragged myself out of bed, he had already made my tea and pre-run breakfast oatmeal and walnuts. That put an end to the little plan forming in the back of my head to just forget the run and read the entire newspaper from cover to cover. 

This week’s haiku interval workout: 2 x 17 syllables.

Can’t do hills this week

Gotta shop in Montreal

Hurray for March Break!

Fifteen years, two kids

Makes running five slushy hills

Together: a date

Tomorrow is 26K (16 miles). And I will probably have to make my own breakfast.

Borrowed Inspiration

The big running funk continues. Head cold. Work stress. Over-programmed children. Pick an excuse – I got ‘em all. So, in true Reluctant Runner fashion, I’m giving up. Taking the week off. Instead, I’ll read about other runners.

Fortunately, two of my favorite running bloggers just finished big events and posted very inspiring reports. I feel about race reports the way I used to feel about watching the TV show “Birth Stories”. It’s like experiencing the whole glorious event minus the pain. See for yourself:

§         Vanilla is, to my mind, the funniest running blogger out there. Here’s how he describes his state of mind at the halfway point of the Denver Half-Marathon: “By mile 7, I wasn’t paying attention to my MP3 player, I wasn’t thinking about how cold or tired I was. I was simply weighing the pros and cons of peeing my pants.” Want to know what he decided? Check out the race report at his blog, Half-Fast.

§         How can you not love a blogger who feels almost as passionate about dirty martinis as running? P.O.M. (stands for “Pieces of Me”), is the Bridget Jones of running bloggers (if Bridget was from California and, y’know, a real person): funny, honest and human. Last Sunday, she ran her first marathon and posted her uplifting report.

Scheduled end to my running holiday: Sunday. I’ll report back then, bright-eyed, full of renewed enthusiasm, etc., etc.