Now What?

Runner’s World sent an e-blast this morning that essentially mirrored one of my post-marathon write-ups regarding PMD, and essentially every other thought that’s crossed my mind since Nov.12th:

i've asked myself that question every day for the last 10 days. holy crap. it's been 10 days??

Apparently I’m not the only one who equates race-day excitement to Christmas morning. And post-race depression to the after-holiday haze.

And my being one of those people is the reason it’s taken me until 11:30 to get myself writing a post for today.

I spent a good hour or so covering the dirt paths of a quiet and overcast Central Park this morning, racking my brain for ideas of something to write about once I finished.

I didn’t do anything cool and NY-ish last night. I had a late night at work, plugged away for a bit on the elliptical and went home to have a bowl of cereal for dinner. Not exciting at all.

I wanted to try a spin class as part of my plan to “use this month of downtime to train in fitness areas outside of running.” Spin class was filled. Fail.

I banged out 6-ish miles on my favorite running route this morning. Big deal. I’ve done that a few times in the last two weeks. It wasn’t part of a marathon training plan so I can’t even mention Hal’s name when rehashing it to you. And you’re probably bored by the rehashing.  You probably don’t care or need to know that I was way overdressed for the warm weather this morning or that my glutes are still a little tight from The Marathon but overall, I felt comfortable, and good. And like my legs are getting back to normal and I really, realllly want to hit a distance higher than 6 in the near future.

So last week PMD left little hints that he was planning on making an appearance in my life in the near future. I acknowledged those hints for about 5 seconds, then pushed them aside and started gushing about my marathon again. If you want to see another picture of my medal, I’m happy to show you. Or perhaps you’d rather take a peek at my sweet marathon-worthy tshirt:

this shirt won me two awesome friends on Race Day. their names are larry and tracey. you knew that because i talked about them 24/7 last week and still hope they will stumble upon this blog some day and say hi to me.

But this week, despite my trying to convince him not to come–my NYC apartment is way too tiny, and my life is too busy since I finally have a real job and the holidays approaching–PMD moved in anyway. The jerk.

Luckily I’m only one more boring run around the reservoir (please note that my whining about my “monotonous” runs these days have nothing to do with how I feel on them or the route–I love them, just hate boring you), half a workday, and one very long and potentially frightening Chinatown bus away from the greatest holiday of all time with the most fun fam in the world:

raise your hand if YOUR thanksgiving includes props?

there are no words. but everyone’s welcome. so if youre interested in having the best turkey day of your life, let me know and book a chinatown bus ticket.

I’m 100% positive that this weekend will convince PMD that I don’t need him in my life. I have plenty of other things to make me happy. Like the people you see above, and many, many more. Not to mention…the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, pumpkin bread, delicious food, board games and of course, wine.

 

I plan to come back happy, refreshed and miles away from that nasty PMD. And I plan to come back with a gameplan on how I’ll tackle this next month of non-running focused fitness, but also a gameplan on how to get back up to 8 miles, and 10 miles and more. Not just for me, but for you reading about my recaps on it.  

 

In the meantime, for putting up with me and my PMD-afflicted self, you get the chance to win free delciousness. Friday’s giveaway is still on, and readers can continue to enter until it closes tonight. A winner will be announced in the morning!

 

Have a very happy Tuesssssday kids! I may not, thanks to the unwanted guest I’ve got, but I still certainly hope you do!!

The Aftermath

So. After diligently training for 18+ weeks, what does one DO after completing a marathon?

Well, for starters, they do a lot of fist pumping and walk around BEAMING. And pretty much just remain in that fog of excitement for the next week or so.

i may be in severe pain. but im too happy about that sub-4 to notice.

After posing for many photos with your friends and family who cheered you on in the chute, you then dictate a few strict orders–you need 2 bottles of water, one bottle of Gatorade and a banana–STAT, but the banana has to be kept out of sight and out of mind until the vom-feeling goes away (turns out, that will be an hour or two LATER).

You get giddy over the sight of stairs and pace up and down them as much as possible.

You walk in circles among a very crowded post-marathon party in the park while your friends and family reconvene and make plans for the post-race celebration back at your parents house.

After doing squats in the parking garage elevator, and severe muscle tightening on the car ride home, you nearly fall flat on your face while walking into the house because your legs have momentarily turned to jello. But you remind yourself how good the stairs felt only 30 minutes before, and climb them to go shower off the massive amounts of sweat and salt.

Then you spend a few hours chugging water, munching on the massive piles of delicious food your family made and fruit bouquets they ordered.

so pretty you don't really want to eat it. except for the fact that for a good hour or two, fruit was the only thing i could stand the thought of consuming.

After fielding many congratulatory phone calls, retelling the entire experience a few times over, and having many mental battles with your body over whether you should nap for a “few minutes” or power through and continue enjoying the company of people you’re hanging with, you finally decide on the first option. And pour yourself that long-awaited glass of vino.

there are no two things that would make me happier to be holding than what you see right here kids.

I’ve heard stories of people finishing their first, second, fifth and 23rd marathon and rocking out until the wee hours of the night.

Those people really ARE crazy. I passed out HARD on Saturday night. However, aside from one early-morning stair encounter (well, and some continued dehydration which I’m sure the wine didn’t help), I felt surprisingly okay on Sunday morning. Yes, of course I was tight and achy (still am), but all post-marathon pain-inflicting horror stories considered, I felt pretty darn good (and still do).

So when my very awesome family suggested that we spend the afternoon in the great outdoors of the beautiful mountains of Charlottesville, I was in!

No, we were not hiking. Again, I’m not crazy.

We were picnicking and sipping more sweet goodness at Kluge…known now as Trump Winery.

pay no attention to the fact that i look like a girl who ran 26.2 miles after something like 3 hours of sleep. and just know that it was a super pretty vineyard and an awesome dayafteramarathon thing to do!

Afterwards we also stopped at the bottom of Carter Mountain at an apple orchard, where though the apples were no longer in season, there were at least beautiful views to enjoy and lots of yummy fall treats, such as hot apple cider and homemade apple and pumpkin donuts.

dear virginia, i love you.

a lot.

From there it was catching a plan back to the Big Apple. While I missed having the JD in Richmond with me for this epic weekend, I think this is where I missed him the most. Traveling solo after such an adrenaline rush of a weekend was a little strange and slightly uncomfortable. Too quiet. Too somber. I was already missing the marathon, and the cheer squads. And as much as I wanted to tell every stranger passing by me at RCA that I had just run a marathon and wait for them to jump up and down and be giddy and full of questions, I had to refrain. Mostly because I knew it wouldn’t reap the desired results.

Luckily, that feeling didn’t last too long because the flight from Richmond is super short. And before I knew it, I was looking down on this:

hello you sexy, city you. get ready. im ready to run you next november.

I’ll now spend the next six months missing my Richmond marathon, the six months after that preparing to tackle New York. And on and off over the course of that entire year, be itching to sign up for another 26.2.

Puddle Jumpin

I guess I can’t complain about all this rain, seeing as how I was fortunate enough to get lots of sunshine while in Richmond for Labor Day. While there, I knocked out another half marathon (sort of by accident), a 4.5-mile jog the next day and randomly covered 8.75 miles on Sunday morning. I almost reached 40 miles last week. Sooo, that was pretty cool.

Then, for the first time in a long time (maybe since I started marathon training), I did what Hal told me to do. And took a total rest day on Monday. And I mean TOTAL. Because I was in RVA and not NYC, there wasnt even any mileage covered by walking to the store or up and down our apartment stairs. Instead, I spent the morning shopping and spent the afternoon posted up by the pool. And it was delightful.

Then, due to the drive back to NY and lots and lots of intimidating rain (which is odd, because just two weeks prior the rain didn’t stop me from hitting the pavement), I took another total rest day yesterday. TOTAL. Complete with lots of sweets and wine. Oops. [Sidenote, I've officially decided that to live up to my blog's name, it's only right that I indulge in a few glasses of wine here and there, because this is about marathon running WHILE wine fueling. Or something like that. Or at least that's what I tell myself when the little devil on my shoulder kicks of the halo-d Katie and says "uncork that bottle now!"]

So today, in an attempt to be a good student and really listen to Mr. Hal, I ran yesterdays 3 miles. And today’s 7 miles. And just a smidge more during the cool down. Put me in coach! I’m ready to play!

Was it stupid to do like 11 miles today? Yes and no. I’m still early enough into training that one extra rest day couldn’t have killed me. Then again, my legs had two full rest days behind them, and I took it slow out there. So, all in all, not so bad. The weather was perfect for sweeping around Central Park.There are a lot of interesting runners in the park midday. I saw a man decked out in hot pink spandex kicking a pink soccer ball around the loops, saw a man in street clothes sprinting through the grass with what appeared to be a small tire under his sweatshirt and another old dude–kudos for being out there!–doing JillianMichaels-esque high knee skipping along the bridle path. Not the normal 6 a.m. crowd I’m used too, but made for some great people watching.

I covered the 5 mile loop, 4 mile loop (careful both times to avoid the Harlem Hills) and it was misting the whole time which kept it nice and cool. The heavy rains didn’t really hit until just as I finished up and was ready to do some walking to shake it out. Thank you Mr. Raincloud, for postponing your visit!

Before I head back out of town Monday I realllllllly want to try to make it to both yoga (I have 3 Living Social-given classes that expire next week!) and the gym–I neeeeed to reconvene with that heavenly foam roller AND do some strength training. MAKE ME STICK TO IT. YELL AT ME. TELL ME FIRST TIME MARATHONERS DONT CROSS THE FINISH LINE WITHOUT DILIGENT YOGA. I’ll know you’re lying, but I’ll feel sissy and scared enough to listen to you. Great, thanks in advance for that.

Now I’m off to stretch, contemplate spending money I don’t have on my own foam roller, and spend this rainy day catching up on True Blood. Before you scoff, go watch the first season straight through and try and tell me its not addicting.

Have the happiest of hump days kiddos!

Hello world!

Everything about this blog to date is misleading (and its only about 5 minutes old). As I’m sure you oh-so-savvy and seasoned blog readers noticed, I was trying to be creative with the title.

Let me back up a minute. I graduated from JMU in the Spring of 2007 with a degree in Media Arts and Design (concentration: print journalism, minor: writing and rhetoric). Beginning in some of my earliest SMAD classes (abbrevo for school of media arts and design that I will use often) professors were urging us to start blogs–they were the “wave of the future,” “the future of the industry,” “The Reason magazines and newspapers were on their way out the door.”  I never had any desire to, and for a number of reasons:

1. While I missed the leo-line by a mere two or three days as far as birthdays go, I am lightyears away as far as personalities go. It’s hardly ever “all about me” in my own little world, so why would the world wide web have any interest in what I have to say?

2. I don’t have that much to say. At least, not that much that I think is deep and profound enough to shoot off into cyber space. 

3. I don’t even read blogs, so don’t know the first thing in the world about starting one, keeping one going, finding and maintaining a readership, etc. etc. etc.

All of those reasons still ring true as I begin this blog–with the exception of numero tres. Since moving to New York City, joining New York Road Runners and signing up for my first-ever marathon (much more on all of that to come), I have become quite literally obsessed with all-things running…specifically, blogs devoted to running.

So I promised myself that to enhance my career (if you can call it that) and recommit to the fall marathon I’m running (you know what they say, the more people you tell the more likely you are to reach your goals), I would sync up the launch of my first-ever blog with the first training day of my first-ever marathon.

Well, that first training day wassss….last Monday. But better late than never, right?! I did at least begin my training according to my coach’s plan the Hal Higdon marathon guidebook and the delay in the blog was due to lack of creativity in coming up with a name. Which brings me back to where this all started.

I need to to be clear to all those who dare to read any further, that if “Winer” is supposed to be a clever spin on words, its a spin of “whiner” and never “winner.” I by no means consider myself a winner when it comes to running–I still have trouble convincing myself I’m a “runner” at all (I did after all opt to follow Hal Higdon’s Novice 1 program. What, Katie?! Couldnt even buck up for Novice 2?!). And while I do love, love, love my red wine, I am also by no means, a wine connoisseur. I don’t really plan to ever become a wine connoisseur either. But I do plan to become a better runner as I train over the next 16 14.5 weeks, and a better blogger as I track that training. And you better believe that after I hit my first PDR (personal distance record…which will be anything beyond 13.1 miles) my reward will be a glass of wine. Well, I’ll indulge in such a reward for many distances before 13.2 as well, but thats besides the point. The point is, I do love to run. And I do love wine. And after two weeks of trying to sum all that up in a blog name and finally get this party started…and failing…I shared those sentiments with my geniusly creative cousin, and such was born: Marathon Winer.

And for those of you completely uninterested in everything I just said and planning to never return to this site again, I will leave you with this: When I’m not running or enjoying a glass of wine somewhere [preferably outdoors], I am for certain traipsing all over this awesome city–hitting every tourist spot in sight (I’m not afraid to say so) and discovering every little street festival, sidewalk art, musical act, workout freebie, restaurant gem and turning over every other rock this dear old dirty town has to offer. So if you’re not on the island–live quasi-vicariously through me. And if you are–return to this site for tips on whats cheap fun and/or free ( I swear I can give couponmom.com a run for its money) or at the very least, to critique my opinions on what is cheap fun and/or free.