Terrible posting, but good running...

So, I know I've been awful about keeping up with my posts. I blame two things: my busy week at work last week, and this whole marathon training thing--it takes a lot of time!
We had our first group training last Saturday in Wellesley, prefaced by the same Marathon Sports spiel about proper shoes, gear, etc that I've heard about six times already. This time I should have listened better, because I still haven't had a cold-weather run that hasn't been cold and sweaty. More on that later. The run itself was only 3 miles, and I ran it with Nicole, who's a friend of a friend and runs about my pace. There's a whole TNT Boston team culture--lots of people do this event year after year, and they all know each other, and I'm the new kid on the block now instead of the old hand--that's going to take some getting used to. I did go to "breakfast" (just Starbucks, nothing like our normal post-run S&S) with some of my friends and some "new" people, which was nice, but I do miss the comfort of seeing all my buddies every week. The run itself was good--rainy and kind of warm, but fine.
The other new thing is the Sunday recovery run. My training schedule last year was 4 runs/week: Saturday long runs, then Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday, with cross-training two days, then Sunday off. Now we do "recovery runs" on Sundays, take Monday off, run Tuesday and Thursday, and cross-train Wednesday and Friday. I don't mind it so much now, because our mileage is still low, but once I'm running 15 miles on Saturday, I'm not going to want to run 7-8 miles on Sunday! Then again, running during the week is so difficult to schedule that another weekend run might work out for me. We'll see.
My Sunday run was great--it had started getting cold, but wasn't too bad. I got myself in gear and ran Tuesday after work (and wore all the wrong things and was WAY too hot!), and went to the gym on Wednesday to use the bike and do some abs (still not doing them every day, though!). I know lots of people that love Spin class, but I haven't been able to get into it. I don't know if it's that my quads are too weak, but I always find that my legs get really tired before I'm even breathing heavily, no matter how carefully I adjust the bike. Still, if my legs really are that weak then that will make them stronger, regardless of whether I'm getting a good cardio workout or not. I was also told by one instructor that if I'm used to running, nothing's going to be as hard as that, so it's harder to gauge my effort.
This evening I went for a run with Katie, who lives close by and who's been a good friend of mine since beginning with TNT (and who's also on the Boston team!). This was her last run before she runs the Philadelphia marathon on Sunday, so I felt motivated to give her a run for her money, so to speak. I was still cold and sweaty by the end, and worst of all, couldn't find my awesome winter headband that I got at a fantastic bike store last year, even though I tore my room apart looking for it. I'll buy another and then find it right away, I'm sure.

One other special thing happened this week, but one that requires some back story. A few months ago, I agreed to be the Honored Hero for the team running the Phoenix Rock&Roll Marathon--I've given loads of speeches, done team dedications, even went to a pizza party in Natick (Natick!) to speak. Honored Heroes (as lame as that sounds!) are there to provide participants with some connection to the mission of the Society--we're the faces that have been helped by the kind of research that all this running is funding. Since I stopped going to city team practice, I haven't seen my honorary teammates, but because it's Thanksgiving, the TNT office asked me to do something for those raising money on my behalf. I was a little shamed that I hadn't thought about it myself. I took a picture of myself holding a giant "Thank you" sign, and another sign that read "You guys are my heroes," and emailed it to the team.

I've been really moved throughout the Obama campaign by the power and vitality of a fairly small, grassroots group of dedicated people who decided that yes, we can change this country, and put their own time and money and resources into making it happen. My teammates are doing that for cancer--the small act of showing up and running on a Saturday morning, the collection can they put on their desk at work, the $25 and $50 donations they get from their friends and family: this is what's going to cure blood cancer, if anything will.

Yes, we can.

I fixed the "Donate Now" link...

So please click it! Don't wait any longer!

Kickoff

Yesterday morning we had our kickoff for the Boston marathon team in the Wellesley community center. Out of 142 runners, 10 or so mentors, 2 coaches, and tons of volunteers, I was surprised at how many people I knew. I was happy to see Sarad again, who coached the first team I mentored but who I haven't seen since early spring; he's going to be coaching our team along with Kelly, who I'd heard a lot about but hadn't met. Two of my teammates will be mentoring this season, so there will be lots of familiar faces around. That said, there's also tons of new people to meet, so I'm really excited.
We got our training schedule (which I promptly left in Amy's car)--since 85% of the team are first-time marathoners, we start really easy, at a 3-4 mile long run! Training is like math class, though--it seems so easy for quite a while, then all of a sudden you think, "When did this get so f*$&%ing hard?"
We also met our honored heroes. One of them, Lindsay Kimball, is 14 years old and a two time leukemia survivor who has been dealing with this disease for her entire life. This is her seventh season of involvement with Team in Training. Can you imagine what that would be like? She was first diagnosed at age 5, had two years of chemo followed by two years of remission, then a relapse, a bone marrow transplant, and nearly a year of complete isolation while her immune system was toast. She's barely a teenager now. I meet people like her and her family fairly often these days, people who understand that sometimes your goal for the day is just to not throw up at school (I can vividly remember the isolated third-floor handicapped bathroom at Dawson I would use when I just couldn't make it, and even worse, I remember thinking that I probably wasn't the only one who took advantage of the isolation of that bathroom!)
Anyway. My back hasn't been feeling great lately, but I have a chiropractor appointment this week, and I really am going to start on my core program again. Really.
Looking forward to our first practice on Saturday!