Tag: run

The Official Race stuff

Jess Guth

First a quick sponsorship update – we are over half way on our JustGiving site and have a couple of pledges offline. Thank you! You can donate by clicking here.

I mentioned in my last post that the race guide has been released and the corral info is now also available so I was a little bit (ok, a lot) excited. It felt like the first day in weeks that  was not somehow dulled by the fog of depression. I ended up having a pretty good day with a 6 mile run and doing some useful stuff like sorting out expenses claims that have been lying around for ages. I was going to do more but I ran out of ‘brave’ pretty quickly – still, progress.

Anyway, the race guide etc:

When I ran the half marathon all I really wanted to do was make sure I didn’t have to start right at the back for this marathon. And look at this, I am in corral J based on the the half marathon time I set at the end of September. So so pleased with this

Corrals

The event guide is 36 A 4 pages… I keep picking it up every now and again and sometimes I giggle with excitement and sometimes I just wimper.

Mickey event guide
Snapshot from the cover of the event guide

The guide contains all the info we’ll need, like start times, recommended arrival time, transport options… It’s all there. Here are some of my highlights, scary things and ‘oh my goodness’ moments

  1. The Marathon starts at 5.30am, transport starts at 3am
  2. The Cool Down Party starts at 2pm – I will just about have finished the marathon!
  3. We have to pick up race packets at the expo and the floor plan for that looks insane. Kath will have to get one of those toddler leads for me so I don’t accidentally wander off!
  4. The Pasta in the Park Party we’re going to on the Thursday before includes a viewing of the Illuminations: Reflections of Earth at Epcot from a reserved viewing area. I probably knew that when we booked but had forgotten
  5. They say there will be clocks at every mile marker – nothing like keeping the pressure on!
  6. 19 water stations, 5 food stops (bananas, Clif products and candy at 22.5 miles), sponges at mile 17.1.
  7. The Course. Oh the course. Of course there are long stretches along the road etc but basically we go from the Epcot parking lot to and through the Magic Kingdom, to and through the Animal Kingdom, to the ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex and on to Hollywood Studios and finally to the finish in Epcot. If I can do a marathon then it will be here. Course map below.
  8. Disney bans selfie-sticks. That makes me very happy
  9. There will be photographers everywhere on course – so there will be evidence of this total and utter madness.Course map.jpg

So reading all this has given me a bit of a final boost. Body and mind have been pushed quite hard over the last few weeks and now there is only one long run left before we do this for real. I am more excited than petrified – but it’s a fine line!

 

Look, no walking

Jess Guth2 Comments

Ok, I don’t know how to ask you all to sponsor us for this run without hassling, without it sounding really naff or annoying or whatever. Please please please just do it if you are able to. We are over half way if we count money pledged off line. No amount is too small and you wouldn’t believe the boost it gives my runs to see the total creep up. So click the link if you can, do it now. Thanks you

Our Just Giving Page

So today has been a good running day. I ran 6 miles without stopping to walk. Yep. I sort of wondered if I could. I headed out on my own, downhill for the first stretch. I did have to stop abruptly because I was suddenly faced with an alsatian not attached to a human and it came bounding up to me, circled me and then jumped up – paws on shoulders. I don’t know how I didn’t curl up in a ball and scream. Turns out its human was trying to catch it – wasn’t going well then… I also had to stop briefly twice to let cars go before I could cross the road (rude, don’t they know how hard it is to get going again). I was pretty happy until 3.5 miles and then I suddenly thought I may have been a bit ambitious. I thought I might as well keep going to 4 miles though. 4 miles seemed a bit of a silly distance to stop at though and I wasn’t anywhere sensible to come off the canal to head home so I kept going. I had to keep telling myself that one I got to 5 miles I could stop. 5 miles is respectable. I got to 5 miles and decided that I could probably run for another 12 minutes and therefore get to 6 miles – so I did.

20151209_135624[1]
My ‘I just ran 6 mile and there’s something distracting to my left’ face

Then I walked the 2.5 mile loop from where I was to feed sheep and get home.

In other news – the official race guide for the marathon has been released, I have printed it and the waiver forms. I got stupidly excited about being in corrall J and I have done 2 lots of yoga and 80 squats today. More on the race guide etc next time. It’s well passed my bedtime!

Numbers

Jess GuthLeave a comment

24471. Yep, 24471, that’s me. That’s my bib number for this crazy adventure. 2-4-4-7-1. It’s a number I think I can make friends with, I already have. It’s a number that doesn’t put me right at the back. It’s a good number. Here are some others:

30 – days until the marathon weekend madness begins

34  – days until marathon day

29  – days until we fly out

38 – weeks of training  – which means about 45 ish weeks since I started running again

450 – approximate miles run in training

93 – approximate miles left on the training plan

1 – number of really long runs left on training plan

15 – number of runs left on training plan

492.90 – amount of money raised online so far. (This is a number I’m happy to see increase – you can donate here )

 

Post 20 Miles post

Jess Guth7 Comments

So it’s the day after the 20 mile day. Time to reflect on yesterday’s run. Well, good news I guess – nothing hurts. The toes on my right foot are a little tender and my hips are tight. I’ll do more stretches later.

I forget from long run to long run how hungry I get after. As I said we had a perfect recovery meal very quickly after the run and then we went out for tea –  early, before 5pm and I had another big meal (and chocolate cake – come on I just ran 20 miles!). I woke up hungry and I’ve been hungry ever since really. I had a bacon sarnie in the supermarket cafe before doing our food shop, our usual Saturday morning breakfast and I’ve nibbled my way through the morning and am now ready for lunch… I need to strategically place bananas, grapes and other healthy snacks so I don’t end up eating biscuits all afternoon.

I’m also tired. I didn’t sleep well again – probably because of the wind – it sounded wild out there. I was awake from just before 2am until who knows when and then from 7am ish. I was struggling to get comfy because my hips felt tight so I was tossing and turning a lot resulting in teh catten being attached to my feet a lot. And once awake of course my stupid brain kicks in.

So I have been over that 20 mile run/walk in detail, lots of detail. I shall spare you it all because it’s all depression induced crap. It’s all the usual ‘OMG how pathetic was I at that point’ and ‘I really should have done better there’ and ‘well if I can’t even cope there then let’s just forget the marathon…’. I think I might be getting a little stronger though, just a little, but still. My inner voice is still screaming at me to pull out and not embarrass myself; it’s still telling me I can’t do this but I’m a little more confident in the fact that it is probably a liar.

Kingfisher taking us home

Jess Guth7 Comments

So, 20 miles is a long way! Our long runs haven’t exactly gone to plan so it was good to get out and get it done today. We were sort of hoping we might get 23 in but that would have meant going quite a long way past home and coming back and I just wasn’t up for that mentally today.

So, here’s how it went:

  1. Wake up repeatedly in the night worrying about not being hydrated enough and to go to the loo because I clearly was hydrated enough
  2. Get up at 6am, pull on running gear, eat bagle with peanut butter, drink mug of hot water.
  3. Drive to Mum’s place at the bottom of the hill, get bus to station, get train into Leeds.
  4. Toilet stop, bottle of water and a short walk to the Leeds-Liverpool canal and we were off.
  5. First bit of Cliff bar (oh my goodness, the sugar rush) at about 6 miles
  6. Going quite well along the canal for a bit longer
  7. Canal towpath shut with diversion instructions next to useless – couple of miles or so of randomly following road/footpath vaguley in the right direction. Mentally really struggling with things not going to plan – walking a fair bit
  8. Met lovely bloke with lovely dog who gave us directions. Ran a bit
  9. Found canal
  10. 10 miles- first niggles and some additional walking
  11. Oh my goodness we made it to Shipley! More Cliff bar and a mobile catering van for water
  12. Saltaire – but shop boat shut so no more water
  13. Reversal of intervals – running one minute, walking 2. Hips now very tight and back beginning to ache
  14. Mentally nothing left. Resisting urge to call up in a ball and cry
  15. Called Mum to give her an ETA with 3.5 miles left
  16. Don’t remember – it hurt a bit but I just put one foot in front of the
    Common_Kingfisher_Alcedo_atthis
    This photo was taken by Andreas Trepte at http://www.photo-natur.de. I got it from Wikipedia

    other and then I saw the now almost familiar flash of blue. For about a mile or so we ran with a kingfisher. It kept flying out and then stopping a little further down the canal. We stopped to watch it just sitting on a branch and when it flew off we followed again. It kept me going.

  17. Half a mile left – I ran for 3 minutes.
  18. Less than a quarter of a mile left – we ran out of intervals on the garmin and had to restart it.
  19. 4 hours, 59 minutes and 20 seconds after we started we completed 20 miles. Slow but within RunDisney required minimum pace.

What did I learn?

  1. We need more water along the way. The small bottle to start and one at Shipley wasn’t enough, we both felt the lack of water later on
  2. I need to fuel more in the second half of the run – I had a bit of my Cliff bar at 6 miles and at 11ish but then nothing. Partly that’s a water issue, I don’t like eating anything without water. I only had about half the bar – I’ll need a full one for 26 miles – possibly even 1 and a half.
  3. I am mentally struggling at the minute – I’m tired and I don’t have anything left to push through when the running gets tough. I didn’t deal well with the diversion – it zapped all my energy
  4. I also didn’t deal well with the fact that I couldn’t keep to the intervals – I really wanted to be able to do that and not doing so zapped more energy because I started second guessing my ability to do this thing.

We got to Mum’s, had some water and a banana and then drove home. We did some stretches, had a bath and then great recovery food – a chicken breast on quinoa and mixed grains with avocado and cherry toms. Yummy.

Chicken on quinoa
Chicken breast on quinoa with avocado

I feel a little sore but I can move, my feet are in one piece and I suspect my hips are going to be tight tomorrow but let’s see!