Monday, January 27, 2014

Marathon #14 - A Shout Out to My Big Sis


Dreamy Carlsbad, CA or as my friend Molly used to call it, “Carlsgood”, either way it is a wonderful place to be, let alone run around for most of your morning, but that is exactly what I did on January 25th, 2009. I arrived in Carlsbad the night before the race and stayed with my sister Mary, her wonderful husband, Jim, and their adorable dogs Sawyer and Tyler.  I am always a sucker for quality time with large four-legged doggies, and these two are hilarious. 
 
 
Mary is two years older than me, and a remarkable human being, but we could not possibly be more different.  For example, she is a beautiful 5’6 brunette with olive skin, and a fashion sense rivaled only by Anna Wintour, while I am a freckly red head just shy of 5’11 who applies make up and dresses maybe five times a year.  Maybe.  We had some serious battles growing up, one of which resulted in me laying a strip of masking tape down the center of our bedroom, my mom really loved that, another involved a bruised cheek, and there have been way too many bruised feelings to count.  However, we always set aside our differences for sixty minutes every Thursday night at 8PM to watch Beverly Hills, 90210. My brothers thought that show was miraculous to bring peace between us, and it was.  Nothing beats quality togetherness like some quality time with the Walshes.

Nevertheless, after twenty or so years of not liking each other very much, I can easily say that Mary is one of my best friends, and the person on the other end of my crisis hotline.  All that said, Mary is not a runner, which may not come as a shock, but she is literally my greatest cheerleader, and understands my goals, so it meant a lot to have her play a vital role in my fourteenth marathon


Race morning was cold, dark, and early. For some reason this race felt special, I was not as excited for it during the weeks of training leading up to it, but standing below the starting line in the pitch darkness of a way-too-early start time, with thousands of fellow marathoners, I was brimming with adrenaline, and thrilled to start running, “Bang!”

The first ten miles or so of the course travel along the ocean, and since the race started early, we were witness to a beautiful sunrise that gave me both a jolt of energy, and clarity; I was simply happy to just have the ability to run a marathon, and felt blessed and thankful to be in my shoes at that beautiful moment.

I saw Mary and Jim around mile eleven, a great place to watch for you future spectators because it is far enough into the race to give the runners the pep we need to feel good about how far we have come, and enough zing to keep us trudging through the tough mid-race miles in our near future.  Mary was wearing a big sweatshirt, clanging a bell, and screaming her head off, it was awesome. I was both laughing and crying because it was amazing to hear her scream my name in such a positive tone.  She did look a little tired, but it was about 8:00AM, so I appreciated her efforts to rise, shine and run with me.  Yes, Mary Kelly Heim was actually running next to me for a good minute or so, it was epic!  I have always wanted to make her proud of me, even when she thought I was a disgusting troll of a little sister always getting in her way throughout our formative years, and literally making her sick to her stomach because I smelled like baby oil and coconut, apparently, her sudden desperate display of running to keep up with me that morning granted my wish of over thirty years, my big sister was proud of me.

The next few miles were warm as the sun was truly making an entrance to the day, but I felt good up until mile nineteen.  There is a turn-a-round point right at the crest of a short, but seemingly steep hill, and it was rough.  Luckily, there is a solid crowd at this difficult spot on the course, so I heard many chants of my name as I rounded the top, and thundered on down to run the final seven miles into the finish.  My pace had a slowed a bit, which is natural so deep into a marathon, but I was still cranking out some quick miles, so I held on as long as I could, and cruised into the finish shoot stunned that I had once again qualified for Boston in 3:38…  NiceJ
 

Friday, January 17, 2014

Marathon #13 - The Battle with LA traffic


 I ran my 13th marathon in October of 2008 in lovely Long Beach California, again.  I decided this would be a great race to keep me tuned up after Louisville, but also intrigued to see how a marathon would feel without the swim and bike ahead of it.  I think it is fair to admit that I was a wee bit overconfident leading up to this race, which may explain the large dose of Karma that dumped on me early race morning.  I have made it my creed to leave my house no later than two hours before any start time, and since I lived about fifty minutes North of Long Beach, I was safely on the road by 5AM.  Unfortunately, the traffic gods wagged their finger at me and my cavalier attitude, and I cemented me in traffic.
 

This sort of scenario is only second to the ultimate nightmare of sleeping through my alarm clock and missing the race altogether, but I was pretty miffed.   Let me just say that I have the utmost respect and understanding of the freeway and overall traffic situation/way of life for us Angelenos.  I spent most of my early twenties in my Honda Civic driving all over Los Angeles while working as a Production Assistant, and I can tell you that nothing was more valuable to me than my Thomas Guide and upbeat adventurous attitude.  I got lost more times than I can count; however, I view getting lost as just a new way of figuring out to find some place.  That said, I guarantee that I could give you seven different options of getting from Point “A” to Point “B” in the greater Los Angeles area, the most coveted secret of all, Fountain Ave. in West Hollywood, better known as the freeway of Hollywood, you’re welcome.

Needless to say I make it a habit to give myself PLENTY of buffer time when traveling anywhere in LA, but that amount of time bloats tremendously on race morning.  The drive itself from our apartment in North Hollywood to Long Beach was smooth, and curse word free, but it took me nearly an hour just to exit the freeway, grrr.  After I finally surrendered to my predicament, I said out loud to myself,”Oh well, this is a chipped race,” meaning my official time would start when I crossed the starting line, not when the gun went off, and the plastic chip weaved through my laces would ping the sensor and let the universe know I was finally on my way.

Once I parked successfully and trotted on down to the start area I hit up the Port-o-Potty’s, (the most important part of the day), then sprinted across the starting line, carefully weaving my through the “Back of the packers” who were either jogging s-l-o-w-l-y, or walking. Suddenly, my killer instinct switched on and I started to juke in and out the snail like crowd like an NFL running back; my usual cool demeanor was still stuck on the 710, and my evil twin “Terry” had taken me over completely.

The course was slightly annoying because it narrowed down from the width of a normal street to the slender concrete bike path around mile seven, which meant if I wasn’t throwing elbows before, I certainly was now.  I think I was running at a respectable pace up until the halfway mark, then my way-too-speedy alter-ego caught up with me, and I started to lose steam. 


The most memorable part of this race is marker for mile twenty three because it is so close to the end, and it sits at the crest of a punchy, sharp hill, so once I saw that sign, I knew I just needed to smile, hit cruise control and enjoy the rest of the ride on in to the finish.  My time was fine, not amazing, but decent, 3:45.  No matter what happens during the Odyssey of a marathon, there is nothing quite as special as crossing the finish line, no matter how many hours and minutes it takes to get there.  Indeed, I started the race with a chip on my shoulder from being nailed by LA traffic, but I recovered, and discovered a higher gear I had yet to hit in previous races, so that was a plus.  I don‘t think I battered or bloodied anyone in the process, but if I did, my apologies, and I hope you had a great raceJ  Next time, I will leave the house even earlier.

Friday, January 3, 2014

Marathon #12 = Ironman #1



Hmm, let’s see, where was I?  Oh yes, marathon #12, ooh, this is a good one…. I ran marathon #12 at the end of an already long day outside as it served as the final leg of my first Ironman triathlon on August 31st, 2008.  My apologies for the run on sentence, but I think it represents what a very long day it was.  Let me take you back to about eleven months prior to race day, I had my heart set on racing my first Ironman in Wisconsin during September of 2008, however, when I went to go sign up for that race it was already sold out… I am talking minutes here… To say my heart was broken would be an extreme understatement, but I just rolled up my sleeves and searched a little deeper until I struck gold, or Bourbon maybe, Ironman Louisville was slated for late August, and was open, perfect.  So, I paid the daunting entrance fee and sat back to realize I had a little over a year to prep to be an Ironman, good times.   

I mentioned in a previous post that I was inspired by my brother Peter to become an ironman, so naturally I went straight to him for advice on training, his advice was, and I am paraphrasing here, “You need to be in the saddle all the time.” Got it, I need to ride my bike a lot. I launched into my true training schedule about twelve weeks out from the race, which was basically the beginning of June, and one may wonder how I could have gotten all of that “saddle time” in while working twelve plus hours a day? The simple answer is that I quit my job. “Whoa, whoa, whoa, what?” Yep, it’s true. I have been trying to think of a way to put in writing why and  how we made that decision, Marion and I, because honestly it was almost more him than me, he really wanted me to have the proper time to train for the race, or just not do it at all, which was not an option.  However, the real answer is that A LOT went into my decision to quit my career, let’s be honest, that is what happened, but I will leave the nitty-gritty for my book, and leave you all with the idea that I left to devote all of my time to training and becoming a triathlete superstar and go pro within a year or so, which is kind of true, but not all true.

The training for the race was amazing.  I was doing at least two work outs per day for three months and followed a crude training plan that is comical in retrospect, but sufficient, and I made it to Louisville confident I would be able to finish the race with a smile on my face.  The swim was hysterical, but awesome.  I am not a great swimmer, so when I saw that I met my goal time I was stoked, and ready to crush myself on the bike. 

Oh, the bike… I know that I go on and on about my love for running, and yes I do believe that I am a respectable runner, but riding a bike is really my strong suit.  It could have something to do with the fact that my legs make up nearly 80% of my body, and never give me any Smart-alecky back talk, so I made up a lot of ground on the bike leg from my less than stellar swim performance, and was in a great spot to start the marathon.  **In case any of you don’t know the distances of an ironman triathlon, they break down like this: 2.4mile swim, 112 mile bike ride, 26.2 mile run, which means that when I started my twelfth marathon I had already been “working out” hard for eight hours in the hot, and humid late Summer Kentucky sunshine.

When I ran out of the transition area Marion yelled at me, “Now just go run your usual four hour marathon!” I can’t remember if I laughed out loud at him, or just to myself, either way I thought it was the funniest thing I had ever heard, bless his heart.  There was no way in the world I was going to run the marathon anywhere near four hours, or was I?

The first couple of miles they sent us over the bridge across the Ohio River, and you know what, I was feeling pretty good.  The course consisted of two loops, and was flanked with a great crowd most of the way, and top notch support with aid stations at every mile stocked up with water, wet sponges, hoses, food, and flat coke.  I chatted with a few fellow runners along the route, and even though I was not moving very quickly at all, I felt like I was flying.  I had never felt so in my element; and alive, months of hard work and sacrifice had come down to these moments, and they felt priceless.  The sun had set at around mile twenty two, and it was nearly, not quite, but nearly dark when I rounded the final turn toward the final shoot into the finish line set up at 4th Street Live, the epicenter of Louisville nightlife.  I crossed the line hearing Marion, my Dad, and Hannah cheering for me, even now I am tearing up, so I probably was then, too, because it the greatest experience of my life, so far.  The crazy part was that I felt good, great even, and was smiling from ear to ear, I was an Ironman. 



My finish time was 12:52 and change, about an hour faster than my goal time, and my marathon split was 4:28, not a PR marathon time of course, but I knew I could do better next time…