Running, Running

One of our family goals is to support each other in healthy activities. This fall was my second year of training for a half marathon (while raising funds for cancer research.)  I'm pretty sure I'm the laziest half-marathoner you'll ever meet. I slacked on training this fall, only running two or three days a week. My coworkers convinced me to try running with Meet Me at Maynards on Monday nights - a grass roots effort to get the community more healthy while also boosting the downtown economy. Cool idea. Nerve wracking for me though. Between trying to find parking to maneuvering a big stroller (with the front wheel locked for stability, but sacrificing steering) through narrow, congested sidewalks, avoiding traffic in crosswalks, narrowly avoiding telephone poles and signs, and by November, it was dark even at the start of the run. I gave up a couple of times, but my coworkers convinced me to go back, especially Dave, with his motivational interviewing expertise - "You said you wanted Tyler to grow up exercising with the community..." On Tuesdays, while Tyler and Tyson attended Li'l Movers and Shakers, I squeezed in a quick run at Reid Park. On Saturdays, Tyler, my co-worker Dave, and I ran at Sabino Canyon or at Reid Park. Sabino Canyon has amazing scenery and wildlife, but the incline is brutal, especially when pushing a stroller. But I definitely got stronger running there. Reid Park is flat and not all that exciting, but Tyler's class is right there. I miss my Greasewood Path runs from my townhouse days - looking down over the valley of Tucson and out at the Catalinas, or looking west towards the Tucson Mountains, plus spending some time at Greasewood Park and the wildlife preserve...I'll have to get over there again this spring when the wildflowers bloom.

I ran the UofA Catwalk 10k in October, with Tyler and Tyson cheering me on. (Tyler's asleep here, but woke up before I finished.)

Dave and I spent the first mile arguing about our pace, thanks to our GPS watches. We'd joked throughout our training that, even as I ran right next to him, his "better-by-30-bucks" watch always indicated he was running faster (and farther) than me. So when my watch read 6.5, I was convinced we were starting the race way too fast. Yet his watch read that we were running much slower.  After our mile of arguing, we realized Tyler'd changed my watch settings to display miles per hour, instead of pace (minutes per mile). Oops.

Pretty soon Dave was wanting to stretch his legs farther than mine could reach, so we split up. He was psyched about his personal record.

It was hot, and I hated every minute I spent running, and was just happy to be done with the race. (Some encouraging words from my sister helped.)

 In December, we ran a half-marathon. Dave injured his knee (technically, his IT band) during the Catwalk 10k, and I injured my knee (again, the IT band) over Thanksgiving weekend. Rest and ice didn't seem to help at all. We spent several days debating whether we should go forward with our plans to run the Tucson Half-Marathon, or take a month to heal and run the Rock-n-Roll half marathon in Phoenix in January. We both held off on fundraising - it just didn't seem ethical to fundraise for a race we might not run. Fortunately, a physical therapist gave me a stretch that really helped, and I passed it on to Dave. After one day of trying out the new stretch, we made a healthy, informed, democratic decision to go ahead and run the Tucson Half-Marathon as fast as we could and deal with the consequences later.

It was cold in Oracle that morning, at least for Tucsonans - about 34 degrees. After I turned my drop bag in, I noticed I was about the only person wearing short sleeves. I saw lots of people wore reindeer antlers, and a few people wore Santa Claus hats. My favorite were two older women wearing Mrs. Claus costumes over sweat pants. About two miles into the race, they stopped at the side of the road, bent over and removed their sweat pants. I can only imagine what people driving by must have thought, seeing two Mrs. Clauses nearly mooning them as they passed by. My knee hurt for the first 6 miles but finally numbed out, and I started letting myself run faster. I still ran conservatively because I feared the last two miles of the race - a killer hill followed by a decent incline. But this year, I blazed up that hill without noticing it - I actually thought they'd altered the course to avoid it. I noticed the drummers drumming, and realized that was a clever trick to help distract us from the hill, and it actually worked on me this year. After the hill, I didn't even notice the incline, and ran faster than I'd run the rest of the race. So I realized, I could've run the rest of the race faster. Oh well. Guess I need to race in some 10ks to figure out what my race pace should be.

Dave achieved his goal of finishing in less than two hours. I achieved my goal of running faster than I did the year before, and I was especially happy to see Tyson and Tyler at the finish line.

Look at the gorgeous men in my life! Definitely worth the 13.1 miles I ran to get to them!

(PS the 7up was for me, not Tyler. He likes soda about as much as he did last July.)

Next Glass-Keith Family Fitness Event:

New Belgium's Urban Assault, starring Tyson and Chris - the "2SixPacks fo shure's ChugLife" on Sunday, February 26th. They don't have to raise money for that, and it has nothing to do with cancer research, but hey, if you want to pretend it's a fundraiser and send money anyway, Tyson won't mind a bit.