I enjoy a good footrace as much as anyone, and I did trek downtown to gawk at the freaks document the event for you guys, but my costume did not involve an umbrella or a rain slicker, so I decided it was best to sit this one out. Good thing too, because there were two people in pink pig outfits with “H1N1″ written on their bodies who looked rather contagious. Between that and the wet leaves littered on the course path, I probably would have broken my neck and then developed pneumonia.

My bystander status meant that for the first time in my life I got to watch the start of a race instead of standing patiently at the back waiting for everyone else to move. Did you know they have people on bicycles leading the runners? I had no idea! I always thought that the lead runners had studied the course in advance as part of their rigorous training regimen to know which way to go. It looked rather fun to be leading a costumed pack of people through the dark. The locals taking an evening stroll down the canal sure did look surprised to see Spider-man and The Flash run by. Spider-man was outpacing The Flash too, which didn’t seem right. (What do the comic book freaks have to say about this scenario? Could that really happen if The Flash were handicapped in some way?)

I enjoyed seeing everyone’s costumes. I particularly like that moment when my mind makes the connection between how they’re dressed and who they’re supposed to be, like I’m figuring out a puzzle. There were about 200 people, but two-thirds of them were dressed like runners. I bet they were embarrassed that so many people were wearing the same costume as them! There probably would have been even more people if the weather had been nice. Here are some highlights if you need some costume ideas for next year:

Bacon and eggs! Cute costume, but I would be afraid of being eaten.

The Ghostbusters looked rather waterproof.

The crazy cat lady was my favorite outfit. In the background there is a guy in a green suit who was near the lead of the pack. What is he? A green screen?

Pac Man and one of those ghosts that try to eat Pac Man!

Other highlights included:

• A man and a woman dressed as mustard and ketchup bottles, with a kid dressed as a hot dog
• The seven dwarves (I only saw 4 who told us the other 3 were faster than them)
• The cast of the Mario Brothers game, including Mario, Luigi, Princess Toadstool and others. One of them was carrying a boombox that played the Mario theme
• Boy George, who also had a boombox, this one playing Boy George music
• A man in doctor’s scrubs pushing a woman in a wheelchair. I admire her race strategy.
• A PC and Mac, like from the commercials
• Wayne and Garth
• Christmas presents with lights
• Indiana Jones

And what, pray tell, was I going to dress as?

Bzzz, bzzz! I was going to be a bumblebee and I was going to make some sort of joke about Flight of the Bumblebee. Alas it was not to bee, and it was just as well because I saw three other people dressed as bees, like they were all from the same hive. Bees don’t fly in the rain though, which is why this little bee stayed under her umbrella.

Unlike my first running of the IrishFest 5K, I didn’t witness an unofficial “Escape The Cops 5K” on my way to the starting line. This year’s race also wasn’t at night like the one two years ago was, so they did not hand out any glow sticks :( But by God, there were bagpipes!

I sat on a folding chair waiting for the race to start, when a thirty-something man in a grey shirt and square-frame glasses came up and said, “Excuse me, but do you know what pace you plan on running?”

“I have no idea,” I told him honestly. I haven’t been tracking the distance I’ve been running while training, just the amount of time I spend running. “Maybe a 12-minute mile pace?” I said optimistically recalling my average pace a year and a half ago.

“Do you mind if I pace off of you? I haven’t run a 5K for almost two years and it would help a lot if I could pace myself with somebody.”

“Sure,” I told him.

“I just thought I’d ask you…because you still have a jacket on,” he said, though I wondered if he really meant, “because you’re heavier than most of the other freakishly lean and well-muscled people here.” It was about 60 degrees out, yet many of the hardcore athletes were only wearing their running shorts and t-shirts. Either way, it made for the second time someone has propositioned me to be their running buddy because I’m a slow runner; the other person was a woman on the nature trail about 2 or 3 years ago.

So that is how J1m H0gan and I ran the IrishFest 5K together, though I have obscured his name in case one day an employer Googles him and decides they simply cannot hire a slow runner for a job. For the first 25 minutes, we did intervals of 4 minutes of running and 1 minute of walking. Then for the rest of the race we did intervals of 2 minutes of walking and 3 minutes of running, finishing in 44:12, which is over three minutes faster than my last run, which goes to show I perform much better when it’s not hot and humid with no water stations in sight. I brought my own water bottle this time too, and the cool weather was much more pleasant for a three-mile run. I wasn’t sure if I’d like running with someone, but it made me accountable to stick to the intervals I’d set. Otherwise, I might have chipped 20 or 30 seconds off the running intervals because no one would have known one way or the other.

My best 5K time ever was 31:17, and I remember at the time thinking it was still rather slow because the fastest runners could finish in about 15 minutes. Comparing it to my current time of 44:12, it looks downright speedy, and I finally understood my aunt who once commented on how good that time was. I suppose it’s like how I used to look at old photos of myself from high school, a time when I felt HUGE, and realized I hadn’t been that fat at all.

I improved on my last time, which was my goal, and ultimately I’m only competing with myself. After the 5K I went online and signed up for another race scheduled in about a month called Run Like Hell. It’s held at night on the day before Halloween and the participants are encouraged to dress up for the occasion. Looking at last year’s photos of people dressed as everything from a school bus to the three little pigs, it appears to be a hell of a lark. Anyone got an idea for a costume that might win me a prize, but that I can also run comfortably in?

I like the fitness room in my apartment complex a lot. It’s much nicer than the fitness room at my old apartment, which was located in a carpeted room that looked like it used to be part of the lobby. The new fitness room has mirrors on the walls, more machines, and overhead fans. But whenever I run on the treadmill there I get really hot and sweaty. It’s so much nicer to run outside in cool weather because the sweat on my skin evaporates in the breeze instead of soaking into my shirt like at the gym.

I only wish there was someplace nice to run outside around here. I miss the trail! There is a little path near my apartment that is only 4/10 of a mile long which is sufficient for running outside, if also insanely boring. I have to run back and forth on the same stretch of pavement several times. Sometime people are fishing in a pond right next to the trail, so I feel rather silly running back and forth past them. I’m tempted to wave and yell, “Yep, it’s me again! I’ll see you again in about 6 minutes!”

I’ll try just to be happy that I am still running. I have a 5K in less than two weeks that snuck up on me. I’ll keep running indoors or outdoors and hopefully I’ll be ready in time!

Sadly, this does not refer to my finishing placement but to my bib number. I was evidently the second person to register for the event, only after the elusive number one who I never sighted. This made me such a celebrity that a guy ran up to me after the race to ask, “Are you really number two?” to which I replied, “Yes, I’m number two!” Then his friend took a picture of us both holding up two fingers like a victory sign.

I had planned to run the Midsummer’s Night Run in Lexington, Kentucky with my old college roommate, Kelly, who lives in town. Sadly, Kelly injured her foot while riding a slide into a basement dressed as the Cheshire Cat, so I had to run alone. This was for the best because it would have been Kelly’s first 5K, and it was so AWFULLY organized that it probably would have turned her off to racing all together.

I had positive thoughts for the race at first because there was a festival atmosphere around the event. There was a kettle corn stand, ice cream, balloons and plenty of kids, some in strollers who would participate with their parents in the race. What they forgot to include was WATER.

After a messy start, we pounded down the road and passed a cop yelling, “MOVE OVER! Runner’s ahead of you are coming back this way.” The race route doubled back on itself, but the organizer’s decided to have someone yell at us about it instead of using traffic cones to mark a return lane like they have in other races I’ve run.

My plan for the race was to do intervals of four minutes of running followed by one minute of walking. This worked well for the first 15 minutes, after which the 80-something degree heat and high humidity had dehydrated me so much that my mouth was parched. At the one mile marker, there was no water station. I kept running and I kept looking for a water station. And looking. And looking. I didn’t see a water station, but I did see not one, not two, but three fountains along the race route, including this one:

I wish the race had been routed through there, and I was seriously considering making it a personal detour, but I was carrying a camera and a cell phone which I didn’t want to replace after they short circuited, so I carried on. We passed several groups of people at tables outside restaurants who cheered us on, but what I really wanted was for them to grab me a glass of water from the soda fountain. Finally, the race path went past the very end of the race, where there was a table on a sidewalk not too far away full of water. I ran away from the pack of racers, chugged a paper cup of water and then grabbed two more to drink as I walked. I then continued on and finally found the “real” water station, which was almost two miles into the race. I didn’t grab any water there because I’d just sucked down about 12 oz of the stuff, but only 2 minutes later my throat was dry AGAIN and I regretted it.

I tried to rally and keep jogging down the hard, hot Lexington streets, but I was fading fast and ended up walking all but the final stretch of the rest of the route. When I finally did run across the finish, I had to walk another block to get to the water station at the end, and was given only a brown, mushy, over-ripened banana to eat that looked like something Kroger had thrown out.

So, all in all the race sucked. I was disappointed by the poor organization and I was disappointed that I was unable to perform as well as I know I could have if I was properly hydrated. I’ve run 5 other races which varied in length from a 5K to a mini-marathon, and each one had water stations at least every mile. Some even stocked Gatorade! All of those races were during cooler temperatures than this race, so not only was it the hottest race I’ve run, it was the one with the least amount of water.

I ended up finishing in 47:23, which is somewhat pathetic considering all the training I’ve done in the past two months. I know, I should be proud to just finish. Rah, rah, rah, hooray for me. But seriously, I know I could have knocked that down to at least 44:00 in better circumstances. I was afraid at first that I was the only one who thought the race was poorly organized, but then I read the other reviews and was glad to see it wasn’t just me.

So, I have signed up for the Irish Fest 5K in downtown Indianapolis next month, which was the first 5K I ever ran two years ago. I hope to improve on my time and I also hope they will have water there, even if it’s contained in a sheep’s bladder they expect me to eat.

——————

By the way, thank you to everyone who sponsored me in the race! We raised $733 for headache research. The National Headache Foundation even called me and thanked us for the donation.

I have been following the Couch to 5K program with, um, only slight modifications. During week seven they made me start running for 25 minutes without breaks, which I did except for that one day where I took a two minute walking break near the end. There was also a day or two where I didn’t run for the whole time requested because I tried running several hours after I’d eaten anything and felt like I was going to fall over and smack my head on the treadmill console or vomit on it.

Otherwise it’s been going rather well, though I admit I’m dreading the 30 minute runs I have to do next week. I think it would be more appropriate for me to have a 10 or 11 week program instead of the 9-weeks one, but the race is coming up, so oh well! I also find it odd that the scale says I’ve gained five pounds since I started doing this, which I will just pray is muscle or water weight or my 5-year-old scale finally losing it’s silicon-plated mind. My pants still fit, so that’s a positive.

Some of you reading this might have started the Couch to 5K program at the same time I did and now are berating yourselves because you stopped training. “I could be running 25 minutes now like PastaQueen!” Well, don’t beat yourselves up. Just start over. You can always start over (when it comes to running at least). When I went to BlogHer, I didn’t run for several days, but I picked back up again. As Nike says, just do it.

Just a reminder that you can still sponsor me. All donations go to the National Headache Foundation. Thank you to everyone who has donated!

Also, congrats to Deb from Maryland who won the Stonyfield giveaway and has already accepted her prize.

The last minute is always the hardest. I am tired and out of breath, just like I’m out of quarters for the laundry. But I keep going because the last minute is where I make the most gains. It’s where I push my body a little bit further than it’s gone before, so tomorrow it can heal and go even farther the next day.

Today I will run for 8 minutes and walk for 5 minutes and run for 8 minutes as part of the 2nd day of training in the 5th week of the Couch to 5K program. I’m halfway there! I am pretty sure that last minute will be rough, but it will get me closer to the 5K and farther from the couch. It’s only a month and two days until the Midsummer Night’s Run 5K, and I’ve got to stick to every day of the training schedule to be in shape in time.

I’ve “enjoyed” the Couch to 5K program so far, but I have to put quotes around the word “enjoyed” because it has been challenging. The program has pushed me hard on each run, but not so hard that it’s impossible. (Uh, except for that one day when I stopped a minute early. Whoops!) I can feel myself gradually getting in better shape and I’m looking forward to the day when I can toss off a 5K again like it’s no big deal.

Just a reminder, if you sponsor me for at least $20 on my upcoming 5K, I will add your site to the list of sponsors in the middle rail. All money goes to the National Headache Foundation. Thanks for everyone who has donated so far!

• Run Lazy
• My Basement Gym
• Airplane Extenders
• ResuMAYDAY
• Yogurt Beats Cake
• …Things are going to start happening to me now
• Gravel and Rust
• Booth or Bust
• Fat Girl, Thin Dress
• Cupcakes Take the Cake
• Why the Weight?

This morning I completed the first day of week 3 of my Couch to 5K training. I like using the Podrunner Intervals MP3s while I’m running because they make a beeping sound when I’m supposed to switch from running to walking or back again. I’ve done interval training in the past by using my watch, which only makes me focus on the time. I’ll be huffing and puffing and look at my wrist to see I only have 30 seconds left…and then I check again and I have 20 seconds left…and then again I see I have 15 seconds left…and OH MY GOD CAN I STOP RUNNING YET?! Surely 30 seconds have gone by, right? A watched pot never boils, and a watched sports watch moves slower through time than an unwatched one. Having the podcast alert me when to switch gears let my mind wander and focus on other things than the time, making the whole run go by quicker.

At least, it usually does, until that last 3 minute interval I had to do today. I ran down the trail in one direction and turned around at the usual spot I’ve used during these runs, but because I was doing long running segments this week, I got back home faster than normal. So I had to keep chugging past the gate to my complex…and chugging some more…and then, oh really, let’s just walk the rest of the way even if I have to cut 60 seconds off the last interval. It is muggy and hot and this is good enough. Anyway, I’m still on track for the 5K, which is now less than two months away!

Were you aware that this week is National Headache Awareness week? You were? Wow, you’re really aware of your awareness weeks. Good for you! I am excited about headache week because now I get to be like all those people who run around talking about their diseases to raise money, like Michael J. Fox for Parkinson’s or Christina Applegate for breast cancer. I never had a favorite charity because I never had a disease that came with one. (There is no chicken pox foundation.) But now that I have a chronic headache, I’ve basically been assigned my own charitable cause! Yippee!

As I mentioned yesterday, I’ve entered the Midsummer’s Night Run 5K race that takes place in Lexington, Kentucky on August 15. The race is organized by Central Baptist Hospital, but there is no official fund raising program associated with the event. So, I am launching my own sponsorship campaign to benefit the National Headache Foundation. All the money will be donated to programs devoted to headache education and research, so maybe one day they’ll figure out what’s wrong with my noggin’ (besides the obvious).

Please sponsor me! I am out on the trail, bouncing my booty, training hard for this race. Surely that is worth a dollar stuck in my drawstring sweats. You can go to my First Giving page to donate, or if you don’t want to contribute online, you can send a check to my PO Box listed at the bottom of this entry. Make the check payable to “National Headache Foundation.”

To sweeten the pot, if you donate at least $20, I will add your web site to a list of randomly rotating links that will be displayed in the middle column of this blog from now until race day. That is 10 weeks of advertising time! Only one link will be featured at a time, but the links will randomly be displayed, giving everyone equal time. To get your link, either leave your web site address in your comments when you donate on my First Giving page or send me an email after your donation with your information. I reserve the right to approve or reject links. (No acai berries.) Please give me a day or two to update the site with your link. Despite what you might think, I do not monitor my email 24 hours a day.

To sweeten the pot even more, whoever donates the most money will get a free 125×125 ad in the middle rail of this blog for a month after the race thanking you for your sponsorship and letting the whole Internet know what a kindhearted, generous person you are. (Again, I reserve the right to approve the ad. No Hoodia ads, sorry.)

Thanks, everyone! I’ve set my fund raising goal at $3000 and I think we can reach it in the next 10 weeks. Your donations will help make a difference in the lives of millions of headache sufferers, and will motivate me to reach my own fitness goal.

For donations via mail, my PO Box is:

Jennette Fulda

PO Box 90186

Indianapolis, IN 46290-0186

Please make checks payable to the National Headache Foundation.

I used to exercise because I knew it was the only thing keeping the world from exploding. I would dash onto the trail immediately after work so I would have enough day light to complete my runs. I would lift weights as I watched Good Morning America. I did Pilates so much I found myself able to roll backwards and then leap up off the mat. I did this for months and months after I got my horrible, awful, no-good headache. I did it because I knew if I didn’t the universe would collapse and we would all die, because it was only the force of me exercising five times a week that was preventing total world annihilation.

But after about 8 months of the pain and the pathetic push-ups, I stopped. The running shoes stayed in the closet and my Pilates mat stayed in the corner and my weights just stayed put, period. And the world did not explode. The universe did not end. This was a very bad thing to discover. I needed to believe exercise was non-negotiable, but when it wasn’t, I started negotiating. I began to do what I wanted to do instead of what I needed to do. This usually involved ice cream and prime time television.

I’ve been feeling a lot better now and I’ve been walking regularly, but I am no where near as fit as I used to be. I have known I need to work on working out more, but I’ve lacked the spark I had during my running years to make it happen. Even my behavioral psychologist at the headache clinic has been on me about it, listing all the benefits of regular aerobic exercise, and making me giggle inside my head that someone is giving me weight-loss tips.

Then Kelly emailed me. You might remember Kelly from page 8 of my book, where she appears as Karen, my abs-crunching college roommate. I didn’t know how to contact her for permission, so I changed her name in the book to protect her identity (though I doubt anyone would be embarrassed to appear as the health conscious roommate in a weight-loss memoir). Kelly would work out in our dorm room and I would watch while I ate Twinkies. Like everybody and my father, Kelly is on Facebook, which is where we found each other again and decided that we’d enter the Midsummer Night’s Run, a 5K race held in Lexington, KY on August 15, 2009. Kelly’s wanted to run it for years and I need a clearly defined and measurable fitness goal to work towards, so we have submitted our money and are registered.

The race is 10 weeks away, which gives me enough time to complete the Couch to 5K running program. Developed by the Cool Running web site, Couch to 5K gets you from the couch to a 5K in nine weeks, though in my case it should be “Loveseat to 5K” because I don’t own a full couch. Many people have raved about this program, but I never got to try it because I’d already started running regularly before I’d heard about. Now I can test it for quality assurance!

I downloaded some podcasts linked from this Couch to 5K resource page, loaded up my MP3 player, and completed the first run on Saturday. To my surprise, I didn’t have to scrape my lung off the pavement like dog doody! It was actually…easy. I am not as out of shape as I thought I was! Woot! I was tempted to push harder and longer, but the program specifically tells you not to do that, so I was a good little girl and eased off. I’ve got 10 weeks to go and there’s no sense in burning out or injuring myself.

It felt surprisingly good to run again, making me feel more connected to the planet and to my body and myself. When I was at my most fit, I knew that I could get up and run a 5K whenever I wanted to. Just knowing that made me feel, well, kinda’ badass, oddly enough. Yet I know that at this moment I would not be able to run a 5K, though I could walk one. I’m looking forward to getting back to that level of fitness, and to keeping the world from exploding.

I love how the girl next to me is casually checking her watch as I plow across the finish line with a grimace on my face in the hopes of shaving half a second off my time. This morning’s 5K is part of a series leading up the Indy 500 Mini-Marathon in May. Next month I run a 10K and the month after that a 15K. I ran this morning’s 5K in 31:17, a new personal record which beats my Irish Fest 5K time of 32:35 by 1:18. Go, me! The race results say that the average time was 32:55, so I’m better than average. (ETA: Hey! I just checked the link and the average time went down to 31:43. Bizarre. But I’m still better than average.) That seems a little odd since I placed in the bottom 50% of finishers, but maybe there was a pack of really slow people who raised the average time for everyone? If so, thank you, slow people!

The course for this race was essentially identical to the course for my last race. My bib number was practically the same too: last time 51 and this time 518. I had to run the same hills slight inclines and declines that I did last time, meaning my improvement can all be marked up to me and not an easier course. I was relieved that the chance of rain and snow predicted turned out to be as great as my chance of winning a foosball tournament. After running in 6 degree weather, 40 degrees seemed rather temperate and lovely. I am most surprised that my left foot seems to have healed *knock on wood*. In the past, I’ve rested and iced injuries and it’s done jack shit. I’m incredulous that the ibuprofen and rest actually did what it was supposed to do this time. I’ve been particularly careful about injury prevention, stretching before and after workouts even though it’s boring. I even walked around the parking garage for 5 minutes before the race, risking looking like a stalker/mugger, just so I could warm up my muscles. It’s my responsibility to take care of my body. No one else is going to do it for me.

The last mile was a complete bitch – a slobbering, rabid, bitch that you feel is chasing you down the last mile and is all that keeps you going. At my last 5K, I picked up the pace for the last mile, but this time I was concentrating on keeping an even pace since that’s what I’ll have to do at the Mini-Marathon. I was hoping to maintain a 10 minute per mile pace, and I came damn close with my 10:05 pace. They were distributing free apples, bananas, cookies, chips, and Panera bagels at the finish area. I seriously considered taking a cookie. And just hearing the words “Cinnamon Crunch Bagel” made me stutter in my stride, but I went for the apple and banana instead. I don’t have anything against eating cookies, and chomping on them after a race is probably the best time to do so, but I ate way too many processed, crappy foods in December and January. It made it much harder to stay on track and contributed to me losing my groove. It’s time to get off the crack. There’s no doubt that stuff does psycho shit to my blood sugar. I handle it better when I’m only aiming for maintenance. If I want to lose weight it’s easier to take a zero-tolerance approach. I certainly intend to eat cookies again in my life, but I’m going to lay off them for now. The Cinnamon Crunch Bagel will still be available next year. And really, is it that frickin’ big of a deal to turn down bagels and cookies?

Whenever I start eating lots of processed carbs, I feel like a mentally ill person who’s decided to go off her meds. “I feel so good! I’m fine! I can (eat donuts again/stop taking my pills)!” Only I can’t. Some people need to take their pills and I definitely need to stay off the bagels. Missing one pill from time to time won’t make you crazy, and eating one donut occasionally won’t make my blood sugar crash like the American economy, but if either event becomes a habit you’re in trouble.

And they gave me a free hat, so who am I to complain?

In continuing Mini-Marathon training coverage, I made a Google calendar of my training schedule, if anyone wants to see what I’m doing. I know I sure was surprised! I hadn’t looked past the first page, but once I got to the end of March I started typing things like “Run 1 hour 45 minutes” and preceded to freak out a little. After doing that, I just might eat a bagel.

I’ve also added a countdown widget in my blog’s sidebar on the right, just below my stats. When I first posted it, I had 92 days left, but I did not consider that time would continue flowing onward in a linear fashion. Over a week later I only have 83 days left. I’m assuming that if there are no bubbles in the space-time continuum, a week from now I’ll only have 76 days left. This continued lessoning of numbers also freaks me out a little, reminding me that, “Oh yeah, you really are going to run 13.1 miles in May.” I got on Google maps and determined that this will be like running to work from my apartment and then running halfway back. After which I will definitely eat a bagel, and probably half a pizza too.