A while back you might recall I was debating joining the local gym. I really wanted to because I wanted access to a pool. I’ve always loved to swim, but running has been my main form of exercise for about 12 years now and honestly I can’t think of doing anything different.

Yet while training for this marathon I’ve been considering trying a sprint triathlon, and so I decided that to prepare myself for the next race, and to condition my body in a different way,I would start swimming.

I wasn’t sure if I would enjoy it. I haven’t really swam in years and have never done so as a form of exercise. I really wondered if it would even be beneficial.  I know running is: I can feel it when I’m done. But swimming? How could floating in the water, paddling even, really work me out?

But it has.

I love it.

Swimming is a lot like running in many ways. As a form of cardio, it is outstanding. It is amazing how out of breath I was those first few swims, and how I could barely make it down one side of the pool and up the other without gasping for air.

It is also a solitary sport, one that you can do alone with little equipment and just by yourself. I get lost in the water much in the same way that I get lost when I run.   It is just me and the water and my body pushing itself. I can clear my head, think about other things, and suddenly realize that half an hour has passed.

The difference, I’ve noticed, is that swimming is much easier on the body than running. No constant pounding, no jarring of the feet, no toe numbing going on when I’m swimming. I may ache some in the morning, especially my shoulders, but it is nothing compared to the pain I feel when my toes begin to lose sensation.

I’ve been able to increase from 20 minutes to 35 my length of swimming, and I’ve found that it really is a great workout along with being a wonderful means for stress relief.

If you are training for a marathon or if you are just a regular runner looking for something else to do on your days off, consider swimming. I would say that it has increased my ability to run the distance as well, being able to work on cardio without pounding my legs on those days when I would normally do no exercises.

There are numerous reasons that I love to run: gets my blood going, calms my mind, enjoy the silence of the early morning, love the way that the body feels purged when it is all over.

But my number one reason for loving running as a form of exercise is this: No matter where I go, I can do it.

All I need are my shoes.

I’ve been on cruises before with nothing more than a quarter mile track and/or a treadmill, and I’ve run.

I’ve been at conferences before with nothing but a two hour break between lunch and afternoon workshops or early morning hours before everyone else was awake, and I’ve run.

I’ve been in foreign countries on vacation, and I’ve run.

No matter where you go, as long as you have your shoes, you can run.

This afternoon I’ll be flying out to Denver and then on to Florida to visit my mom, who is recovering from her stroke in a nursing home. I’ll be staying almost one week-Wednesday to Wednesday-and during that time have three runs scheduled: a 6 miler, a 15 miler and a 3 miler.

I’m taking my shoes, gel packs, waist pack, music player and running clothes. No heavy equipment, nothing that won’t easily fit into the suitcase.

I  don’t need to find a gym, equipment or a pool.

All I need to do is pull on my shoes and run.

The largest problem: Finding the route I will take. I know the area already, and I know that I need to run about 17 miles on Saturday, which will take me about three hours, so if I start in an area I know well then I can just run and run and run.

Neighbors probably think I’m the crazy running lady.

Toward the end of my long runs I pop on my Ipod and begin listening to music. I generally wait until the last four miles because these are the miles I hate the most-the busy street, the stoplights, the exhaust fumes.

In an effort to make this part of the run better I listen to great music. Lately i’ve been uploading songs from online that I can listen to while I run the marathon, because I’m sure that sometime after mile 14 or so I will want to listen to music.

So far I’ve added Love Stinks, Everlong and the Toadies Possum Kingdom.

But I don’t just listen to music; music moves me, much like my shoes.   When J Geils starts out I can’ t help but toss my fist in the air and shake it along with Love Stinks. “Love stinks, ya ya, love stinks . . . ” I mean, how can you not?

I sometimes wonder what people driving by happen to think about the woman who is out there running along the street at 7 AM shaking her fist and singing along to her music.

Do they say wow, she’s a happy runner? Do they think i’ve only done one mile? How could I be coming off of 14 if I’m still happily singing a tune?

Music – that’s how.

I can’t listen to it for all of my runs. I reserve the beginning part  of each run for figuring things out. Right now I”m working on how to make my mother better.  But at some point, my mind becomes free of all clutter and the day is bright and crisp and suddenly the need to dance a little while I run hits me. I put on my Ipod, turn up the volume and the music takes me home.

I’m glad i started marathon training early. In the past five months I’ve had fires, a death and mom’s stroke to contend with. These long Saturday runs are of course important in order to build stamina, but close to impossible when something comes up. I started training a few weeks early and took off one week for a cold that I couldn’t get over and one long run because of the fires.

I’m down to the wire now. The race is in just six short weeks. I have two long runs left, a 19 and a 21. Next week should be my 19 but I’m heading to Florida to help my mom, who is being moved to a rehab facility tomorrow. So I don’t know how long I will make it. I’m planning a 15 miler, and then a 20 miler. Not what I wanted to do, but that’s not the important thing now, of course. Puts it all into perspective. we can train and train, and sometimes, something out of the blue can  happen, something unexpected, and there it all goes.

I’m not complaining. Life is life. I’ll keep running, and I’m going to run this marathon. I don’t care if I only train to 17 miles; my friend trained to 16 and ran one, and while it wasn’t the best idea in the world, she did. I’ve run 17.5 miles; I’ll do one twenty miler before the big day and then I’ll do the 26.

Tomorrow I should do 13; that won’t be tough. I need to get out and clear my head. With everything that has been going on, I’m feeling a little claustrophobic. I need to put on my shoes and go.

I’ve already decided that I’m going to put on the back of my shirt: For Mom: Strokes Suck! on race day, along with Go Mommy and my two daughters’ hand prints.

For now, though, I’m tired. Dealing with all of this that my poor mom has suffered has drained me much more than a 17 mile run. But we are going to kick this stroke’s ass, and then keep going.

As I always say those last few miles of a very long run, I just have to “Get it done.”

This is not going to be a happy, upbeat post about marathon training.

I’m pissed off.

I started long distance running several years ago, just a few weeks after miscarrying. I thought I was 11 weeks along, was still sick as a dog, and went in for a standard u/s only to find out the baby had died.

During the D&C I bled so much they hospitalized me because they told my husband they felt I might need a transfusion.

I didn’t have one, but my iron levels plummeted and I was on supplements for a long time.

During that time, I started running A LOT. During recovery I read about marathon and half marathon training and thought, “That’s what I want to do.”

I’d always been a runner. I’d quit during the pregnancy. Then, when I had enough strength, I slipped on my shoes and jogged a mile or so.

I got pregnant again and gave birth to my beautiful second daughter Nicole, who just turned one on the 9th of December. I ran through that entire pregnancy.

I decided to run a half marathon when she was about 8 months old, and ran my second half marathon in october, on the 14th.

On October 12th I received a call: One of my closest friends had died from pneumonia that morning.

During the first half marathon I ran after my miscarriage, I  spent the entire run saying goodbye. It was a painful  race emotionally. Physically I didn’t feel much at all.  But when I got done, my body had been purged of the sadness that had been hovering over me for so many months. At least from some of it. I had laid my dreams and my baby to rest in the ocean and realized that it was time I moved on and ‘got better.’

The second half marathon, my loss was only two days out. Karen died and two days later I was at the starting line thinking of her, running for her. I considered not running the race, but I knew I had to.

Then, one month later, the day before Thanksgiving, my aunt succumbed to brain cancer.

That first long run during training, I stopped so often to cry that I thought I’d never complete the run. And in the middle of the run I questioned why I was even running. What was the point?  One day I would die. Why was I doing this? What was I trying to prove?

But when I watched the sun come up over the mountains to the east, I understood. I was running to purge myself of at least some of the pain.

Now, when I spend these long mornings running, I talk to her. I ask her how she is doing, and I tell her things that are going on in my life. She is up there in the sky watching down, I know, and somehow that makes it easier to complete the runs. She is my cheering squad.

Yesterday morning around lunchtime I received a call from my mother: She had suffered a stroke that morning and was in the hospital. Six weeks before the marathon, and another loss. Luckily she survived the stroke; I did not lose her completely.

But we lost so much. We lost the idea that we would have all of the time in the world to do what we wanted. The holiday now has been lost to this damn stroke. It robbed her of her ability to come out and visit. She is devastated that she won’t see her granddaughters this holiday, as she was set to fly out on Saturday morning. She spent weeks making my daughter a bunch of dress up clothes; she won’t be able to see her open these, and she is so sad by this. I lost my mom, the one that I rode bicycles with, went to dinner with, walked the beach with-at least for a while. Will she ever walk again unassisted? We don’t know. For now, she can’t, and I’m angry.

Yet this morning, I woke at 5, pulled on my Saucony’s and went for a run.It is what clears my head, and makes me realize that we can fight whatever it is that we need to fight. I made a plan. I figured it all out in those forty minutes: that i would head off to Florida for a few weeks, help her get settled in her home. She is not able to walk right now. I will help her fight that, to beat that.

I will help her heal.

And then she can come out for my marathon in February and watch me cross that finish line, and I will run through my grief for her, and my aunt, and for Karen, and for that baby that was never meant to be.

I’m sick of running through the grief. But if I didn’t have running, I would never make it through these sad times.

I will help her heal, and the running will help me heal.

That’s why I love running. no matter what happens, it is there, in my shoes, on the pavement, in the early morning before dawn. It is there, the running, and it makes me stronger so that I can be stronger for everything else, for everyone else.

I love you mom.

We will get stronger together and beat this bitch.

Saturday morning I completed my 17.5 mile run, and when I got done I thought, only 8.5 to go to finish that race! Funny how four months ago 8.5 was my long run; now I’m happy that 8.5 is all I have left to do the 26.2!

I ran at 5:20 AM after eating half a bagel with cream cheese. The first half of the run was great. I actually ventured into unchartered territory, turning up a street I don’t normally go. I ran it one other time, during the half marathon that I ran a few years ago, which is part of the full marathon I will be running this time around!
I changed courses this week for several reasons. First, as I mapped out my next few long runs,which will take me up to 21 miles, I realized that if I continued on my regular path I would almost end up at home, then have to turn around and do the entire run over again. i knew how disheartening this ‘could’ be in training-to get so close to home and then have half the run left. When you get up to 15 miles and beyond it is difficult to think this way! I knew I didn’t want to play head games with myself, so I added some miles to part of my run to get out of that danger zone.

Also, the new part of the run has some hills, and I will have these same hills during the marathon. I figured I should start training on those before the big race.

I also started this new path because like with driving, when you run a new course it sometimes feels longer the first time. I didn’t want to get into race day and think that this felt so much longer because it was new. I really believe you should try to run at least part of the course before race day, but that is of course if you live near the course. For me, I knew it might make it more tough if I waited until race day to tackle that part of the training course.

The second part of the run went well too. I did experience my toes going numb, but other than that no big ills. About 14 miles in I felt the need to stop for a minute, so I went to the bathroom even though I didn’t need to go. It gave me a chance to ‘catch my breath’ so to speak. I ate a few crackers after, put on my headphones and finished up the next part of the run feeling much more motivated. As I went into the bathroom I thought oh no, I’m going to hit a wall. As I started running after, I thought wow, I feel great. It’s amazing what a quick pee break can do for the mind on a long run!

i ate a few cheese crackers on this run, and I had two of my gel packs and a bottle of water.

That night  I sat down and though wow, I ran 17 1/2miles! We drove out to Knotts Berry Farm the day after and I said this is really far away and my husband said, “It’s only 12 1/2 miles. You ran farther than that yesterday!” Lol, that kind of put it all in perspective for me.

I’ve found it is easy to lose the idea of how far I am running. Yes, I know I have long runs,and they are long, but sometimes I don’t see how long they are.

17.5 miles is phenomenal. I have to remember that.

I have six weeks left until the marathon,and my long runs are as follows:

-13 next Saturday

- 19.5 the following

-14

-21

-12

-8

RACE DAY!

Seems so close now. I can’t believe it. I have been training for four months. I never thought I’d get this far. I knew I wanted to, but 26.2 seemed unbelievable.

Now it just  seems right.

I never get sick. My immune system is like a brick wall that can handle any hard objects tossed its way. My daughter gets sick, my husband gets sick, my best friend gets sick . . . and I get, well, nothing.

Until I began training for this marathon.

I read in my training book that those training for a  marathon will generally end up with at least one cold during training period.

I scoffed in the face of the sick chapter.

i don’t get sick, I told my husband, rolling my eyes and shutting the book.

The next week I sneezed and knew that my lucky no-sickness streak was a thing of the past.

So far, while training for this marathon, I have been sick twice. Not once, but twice. Not just sniffles, either, but not able to breathe, tired to the core sick. You know, thick green snot sick. Don’t feel like running sick. That kind of sick.

The first time around I ran through it. I forget the exact mileage I did that day, but I ran right through it. pushed through the pain.

Last Saturday, well, I just couldn’t keep up. I should have done about 13 miles; I did 11. Okay, sounds like no problem, but I have about 8 weeks to go to the big race and I can’t afford to shave off any miles from my long runs.

This week, I’ve taken it easy. I did continue my workout schedule, but I didn’t do much else each day. luckily by owning my own business I can create my own schedule and take the jobs that I need to take, and decline the ones that I don’t have time for, and so I went with that this week.

I realized that I have to make some things a priority and some things, well, not.

For the next two months, I’m going to have to make my running a top priority. I have to sleep more, and so I have been going to bed each night at 8;30, reading for a bit and then falling asleep within an hour. I have started taking vitamins again. eating well. Drinking OJ. And taking less work.

The cold has seemed to left our home now. The girls are better, my husband is better and I only am stuck with  a lingering cough. This week I’ll do 17 miles. Last week I didn’t think I’d be able to complete this training session. Now i realized I was just sick, because I am actually looking forward to Saturday’s long run. in fact, I’m thinking that all along I should have done a few lower mileage runs as my training book suggested; perhaps that is why he had runners dropping back every week or two during long runs, so that they would not grow tired of the monotony.

Or sick with a cold.