My Marathon Experience

As some of you know, yesterday I participated in the Milwaukee Lakefront Marathon. I am going to start out by saying that all in all it was a POSITIVE experience. My only goal with being registered for the marathon was to gain motivation to exercise after Amelia was born. Mission accomplished. Goal fully met.

With that being said, when I arrived in Grafton yesterday morning I had already met my goal. I have been exercising for the past six months, every week. I can honestly say that if I had not been registered for the marathon I would likely have exercised once, maybe twice, since Amelia was born. With so many things going on right now in my life I knew exercise would take the backseat (as it does with many Americans, I am not alone). Saying that I wanted to lose so many pounds in a certain amount of time would not have been motivation, I would have kept extending that certain amount of time... So when I was asked to participate in yesterday's event I decided to say yes. I knew that it would take something big and scary to get me out of the house and exercising.

I was hesitant to even participate yesterday. I knew that I was not ready. I had a really hard time working regular training into my schedule. Right after I registered summer school started and then that went right into the fall semester. I still had an irregular work schedule, based around when classes are, when Jason works and also when I am needed at the theatre. Homework varies day to day/week to week etc.

I decided to go, with the mentality that "I could do it". I kept that mentality most of the morning. When I would pass mile markers and hear them call out the time and what my pace was I felt good. I was maintaining a pace that was going to get me across the finish line within the 6.5 hour limit, with time to spare. I started to get discouraged though when I would come up to water/aid stations that were packed up. There were still a lot of us coming through and there was no one there to assist us with Gatorade/water or even to give us an encouraging smile or word. We were still fast enough to be official finishers and yet it felt nothing like that. Route markers disappeared. Mile markers weren't up, so I had no idea how far I had gone. I sometimes wasn't even sure if I was on the right track.

I know that they can't keep stuff up forever. There are limited resources and volunteers etc. However, if we were at a pace that would put us at the finish within their official time limit shouldn't we have at least had the courtesy of mile markers? So we knew where we were? I know when I was going and I hadn't seen a mile marker I started to feel like I had slowed down immensely (when I hadn't, as I would find out when I finally reached a mile marker with a timer) and it was discouraging.

Anyways, I finished just over 18 miles of the course. I had some hidden doubts about whether or not I would make it to the halfway point (13 miles) so 18 miles felt great. As my co-worker Emily said last night (yes, I worked last night), "your goal was to exercise, you did. That 18 miles was just icing on the cake". I really liked that metaphor because it's the truth, 100%. I pushed myself yesterday more than I ever have. And as one spectator told every runner who passed by (at the 6 mile marker), "You're doing great, how many people do you know that have gone 6 miles this morning?". He was right to.

So, in conclusion, I feel good about yesterday. Even if others look at it as a failure I view it as a win. I have been exercising and will continue to. I have gotten into such a great habit of running to Target for things we need. That's a three mile errand (round-trip). I enjoy running errands and literally running them (sorry, bad pun).

I think that I will try a marathon again. Not next year, but maybe in 2011. I will graduate in December and it is my hope that once school is out of the way I will have more time and will find it easier to settle into a regular routine of exercising/running/training, whatever you would like to call it.

Target Trips

The past few weeks I have been making a run to Target on Mondays because that is when she starts to run low on formula. We run there, literally. It is between 1 and 2 miles away (the neighbor thinks it is about a mile and a half and I know it is more than a mile, but I am not sure exactly how far). Today I got a little carried away...and ended up having to walk home because I bought so much. I had a case of diapers resting on the canopy of the stroller, the basket was full and I even stuck a few things in with Amelia. I like running or walking there. Amelia and I get some fresh air and exercise is always good.

However, I do not like Target employees basically following me around and getting asked every other minute if I need help finding anything (our Target is not known for their helpful employees, it is a recent development that I get offered assistance). I can only figure it is because I am walking around the store with the stroller, which I guess to some could be suspicious. I don't like it though, because I make sure to NOT put anything in the stroller basket because I don't want them to think I am trying to shoplift. Oh well. Some of them are getting used to seeing me on Monday, so hopefully they eventually realize I have no tricks up my sleeve and I can shop without feeling like I'm being watched.

Here are some pictures from our day:

Jogging Stroller = Assembled

Yesterday morning we went to lunch at Twisted Fork on the East Side. My sister had given us a gift card for there because in my final hours of Amelia's delivery all I could think about was a peppercorn burger from Twisted Fork. As I was pushing her out it was all I could think of (I mean, I hadn't eaten in a day and a half, food in general sounded great) besides meeting our baby. Once I was in recovery I decided to eat hospital food at first because I was afraid to gorge myself on said burger. It was good yesterday, as always.

Before I left for work, Jason set to work assembling the jogging stroller. We were pleasantly suprised that it was fairly simple to assemble. It took him less than a half an hour. We were a little worried since REI typically does the assembly for you. I did point out that had we ordered it directly from Phil and Ted's, we would have had to assemble it ourselves anyways, so it should be easy (and it was). Here is a picture of him working on it (I took it because I liked the fact that all 3 cats were in the room with him. At this point they had given up "helping" and were just hanging around):


Before I left I put Amelia in the stroller and snapped a quick picture of her in her new ride:


What a big girl she is becoming!

While I was at work, Jason took her on a test drive in her stroller. He took a few pictures once they were outside and ready to go:


(yes, those are headphones hanging from the top. Jason likes to make sure Amelia has tunes when she is out and about. On this outing she listened to the Rolling Stones, Beggar's Banquet)


Poopy has already taken a strong liking to the new stroller, more than once we caught him in the basket (in fact, he was in it pretty much before it was even done being assembled):


We now have three, yes three, strollers in our stairwell. We have our regular stroller, a cat stroller and now the jogging stroller. When we come home from shopping trips it can get difficult to get everything upstairs with all the obstacles! Oh well. I'm glad we have the stairwell to store these things in, can you imagine all the strollers piled into our apartment? Eeek!

Marathon?!

Well, I have decided to run in a marathon this fall. The Milwaukee Lakefront Marathon on October 4th. My cousin Marcie and her brother Matt are doing it and she asked me if I would be interested in doing it. At first I thought, no way, that is 26 miles of pure exhaustion! Last night I decided to do it though. It will be good for me and it will also give me the motivation to get the rest of this baby weight off! If you are interested in anything regarding the race, you can click here and be brought to the official homepage.

In order to prepare for this we decided to buy a jogging stroller so that I can have the freedom to run whenever I want and not have to plan it around when Jason will be home to watch Amelia. I looked online for what felt like hours last night and also asked my friend Laura about her jogging stroller. In the end, we decided to go with the one that she has, despite it being a bit pricey in comparison to some of the others. As we read countless places, when it comes to a jogging stroller, you get what you pay for (true about so many things). The cool thing about this stroller in particular is that it can also adapt to your growing family in that you can buy a kit and turn it into a double stroller (vs spending money on a single now and double later, when there is another child in the family). This versatility is one of the things that sold us on it. It also had great reviews and overall just seemed like the smart way to go. Plus, we got a pretty good deal on it using a 20% off coupon for REI and saving on shipping costs and having it shipped right to the REI in Brookfield, where we will pick it up.

We decided on the Phil & Ted's Sport Buggy, in green:


Jason has even expressed some interest in running with me as I get ready for the marathon. He says now that he is smoke-free he'd like to try out the lungs and get some exercise! We will see how long that lasts...hopefully long wnough for it to be a routine for him!