Category: running

I’m back from collecting my race-pack at the Palazzo Dei Congressi and managed to meet up with Laura, a new friend whom I got to know through twitter. Like me, this will be her first marathon and we are both excited and nervous for this Sunday.

Considering the previous years when I went to the expo, and how crowded it was, I decided to go on a weekday during work hours in the hopes that it won’t be too claustrophobic. I reached there at about 3pm and while there were already quite a significant amount of people inside, it was still tolerable.

Getting the race-pack was a simple matter. It was relatively empty when I reached there, that I could just go to the booth without queueing up and handed the validation form printout and showed my identification. There, I got a folder with my bib and the race information.

(I just noticed that I’m categorised under Italian again)

Then I headed over to another booth to choose the size and to collect the t-shirt and the backpack.

I think that the sizes run much bigger and I’m stunned to see that I was delegated an X-small when I’d normally wear a M. I was also quite surprised to see that it was white and red. When the one I read on the Maratona di Roma facebook page some months back, it was supposed to be green. When did they change it? I don’t really fancy the design and the cutting but I guess I’d still wear it for the event anyway.

Compared to the huge backpack we got at Roma Ostia, the inside of the Maratona di Roma race-pack is surprisingly small and quite bare-boned. Apart from a pack of dry pasta, I didn’t see anything else edible inside. I was hoping that there will be an energy gel or a small energy bar that I could pack during the event itself.

I tried to pack in a clean towel, a fresh set of clothes and my fold-able mat and it was already quite stuffed. I’m sure there are other things that I’d like to add in later so I guess I’d have to play a game of tetris in the evening.

While getting the race-pack was a simple affair, it was what came after was the headache inducing part. Visitors had to go through a maze of display booths. There is no way to do any short-cuts as there are barriers everywhere and there will always be someone watching you, which is annoying if you’re in a rush but for me, I feel more claustrophobia with the thousands of people in one place and the blaring sound system.

While the barricades is something that I’m still not fond of, this time round I guess I’m seeing with a runner’s eyes, so I saw with a new perspective, a lot of different interesting things being sold and displayed there.

There were magnetic buttons that you could use instead of using a safety pin which prevents you from making holes on your shirts. They look something like this and were so strong that it wasn’t easy for me to detach them.

I also saw a running belt, made of neoprene that I really liked. It came in a myriad of colours and there were slots where you could slip your fuel and a special hook for hanging your racing bib.

I was transfixed at a stand where there was a machine that scans your feet, check your gait and advices you the type of shoes you could get.

I even played a water quiz game by ACEA just for fun of it and was pleasantly surprised to find out that I got a head-buff when I was done. I love head-buffs!

Laura and I even managed to spot our names among the thousands of names on the huge banner and the display set. It may not be much, but it was quite thrilling to see. Even though I was not, I felt like I was in the big league.

But as interesting as the fair was, I’m not convinced that the items being sold are more competitive here. From what I saw, a lot of the items were sold at regular store price : I saw compression socks being sold at about 35 euro and energy gels priced at about 7 euro each. That’s kind of pricey to me. But the nice thing is that some of the booths gave away gifts with every purchase.

Nevertheless, I think I’ll do some last minute shopping at decathlon on Saturday.

(Funny guy we spotted pretending to be all tired)

With the walk I did at the expo, it was more than enough mileage for me to cross out the last training. While I didn’t manage to hit all of my training days, I’ve jogged about 501 km in total the past 16 weeks and it’s now just one day to go to the actual marathon. I should be prepared right?

Except that I don’t feel ready and I’m not sure how well I will get through this. But my mantra has always been to just do baby steps, a little bit at a time and I hope to reach the finishing line at 6 hours, 59 minutes and 59 seconds 🙂

So wish me all the best for Sunday! I think I can do this! 🙂 #rinazdoes42km!

After my injury in week  11, I’ve been taking it slowly, easing back to my schedule again. Only this time, instead of following my table religiously, I’m cutting my training down.

I had to skip week 11 and week 12, but I really wanted to try to do my final long distance run as it’s been said that it was important as reaching this gives a big psychological advantage for the actual day.

Initially I wanted to take advantage of the Roma Ostia path which happened last Sunday, as it takes away the stress of figuring out a suitable path to follow. Even though I didn’t sign up for it this year, I doubt that the organizers would berate me for crashing in.

Only thing is, the day before, it rained the entire day. My shoes were completely squishy wet just by walking outside for a little bit, and it was predicted that the weather would be the same too on Sunday. My distance running in week 9, being caught in the rain was probably one of the most demoralizing runs I’ve ever experienced.

Imagine the insides of your shoes all wet, your outfit soaked and your skin is chafing, and on top of that your legs are screaming out in pain and for some reason, your phone skips to playing emo songs about breakups. When you reach home, you are cold and shivering but your hands are completely numb. I don’t mind running in the rain for short distances, but I don’t want to go through what I went through in week 9 again.

So I changed my mind. The irony however, was not only did it not rain the entire afternoon and evening, the sun came out and cheerfully mocked me. But by the time I had the nerve to start training, it was too late. I knew that I will take a longer time to cover this distance, and I didn’t want to reach home at nightfall.

As you can imagine, I was not happy.

So I did it the day after, Monday. I was nervous as Cart couldn’t accompany me this time round as it was a working day. I had to force myself to not think about it too much as that would only freak me out. Regardless Cart told me that if anything happens, I just call him and he’ll drive to pick me up immediately.

I woke up bright and early, had breakfast and did my pre long-run routine :

• Stretches and warm ups
• Mixed my energy drink
• Rubbed moisturiser on my body
• Put on my running gear
• Dabbed vaseline on my feet
• Sticked on a kinesiology tape just in case

I left the house at about 9.30 am as I wanted enough leeway to reach back home in time for lunch.

Just realised that it’s doing a heel strike. Oops!

I didn’t want to risk hurting myself again, so I willed myself to go on a slow and easy pace. It was a bright and crisp morning and I loved the feeling of being outside at this time. For me, there is something charming, experiencing the bustle of the start of a new day.

After checking street view, I decided to go a new path and that gained me 8 km before starting on my regular route. It’s so different seeing the sights up close which I’d normally quickly glance by when in the car.

Every now and then I stopped for a while to stretch and I was feeling fine, but the more I ran, the hungrier I felt. By the time I reached the laghetto, I looked longingly at the food that some picnic-ers were having and wished that they gave some to me. Perhaps I should have pinned a plastic bag with some food to my belt, a banana, an orange, a cake, chocolate … anything!

There is this endurance sport’s term called “Hitting the wall” which is a condition caused by the depletion of glycogen stores in the liver and muscles. This is when runners suddenly feel exhausted and feel like they can’t go any further. I think I felt it as I was going around the church which was probably after the 21 km mark.

If you happened to be there where I was, you’d probably see me with the most mournful expression. I was close to bursting to tears. My limbs were in pain – my feet and my thighs were throbbing and I was craving for some solid food. The feeling was so excruciating that I had to stop and walked for a while before psyching myself to continue the best I can. My pace worsened dramatically after that.

Despite all the pain, I continued to psyche myself to trudge on, and I was amazed and motivated to see that I finally hit 30 km and I was close to reaching back home. At this point of time, my garmin watch started to run out of juice, so I used my trusty old Nokia to track the final 2 km.

You can only imagine how I was feeling when I was all done. Most of all, grateful that it was all over and disbelief that I did 32 km. All I wanted was to just reach home, have lunch, take a shower and be in warm, clean clothes.

A nice bowl of spezzatino waiting for me

It took about 5 hours to do 32 km. I’m not proud of my timing but my goal for my first marathon is to just complete it. With this timing, I figure that I can definitely reach 42 km in under 7 hours.

Interestingly, when I got back home, as tired and hungry as I was, I didn’t feel as bad as I did in week 11 when I hurt myself. I even managed to do my after-run stretches with no drama. And as uncomfortable as I was, I didn’t feel as demotivated as how I felt in week 9 when I ran in the rain. I actually felt good. I’m quite surprised.

Nevertheless I still felt palpitations all around my body and I had an uncomfortable evening. I couldn’t sleep well with the burning sensation in my thighs, quite an oxymoron considering that I was dead tired and sorely wanted rest. At this point of writing though, I’m feeling much better and I’m going to take it easy for a couple of days for me to recover.

And now that we’re done with week 13, it’s time to taper down and let the body heal so that we can be strong before the actual event on the 23rd.

Looking back at my running history last year, now that I’m training for a full marathon, running 19 km doesn’t seem to be too daunting anymore and I was reading my first experience at the Roma fun run back in 2010. In that post, I swore that I would never participate in a marathon. Wow, I can’t believe that I’ve progressed so much since then. It’s amazing what a person can achieve once they set their mind on it.

I wonder what past Marina would think of present Marina.

At this point of time though, I don’t think I want to participate in any more distance running. I’m kinda tired.

Nevertheless we have finally reached the end of week 13 and less than 3 more weeks to go till #rinazdoes42km! I feel nervous, but excited at the same time 🙂

Cheer for me!

As you remember, about week ago I was supposed to do 27 km for my long distance run for my marathon training. However, I couldn’t complete it due to the sudden pain in my left soleus.

So I went the doctor’s for a specialist consultation and an ecograph scan on my leg.

I don’t enjoy spending a large amount of money, and am now 100 euro poorer, which is completely messing up my 52 week money challenge. It would probably be cheaper if I went to a public one, but for the fact that getting an appointment would take months. Nevertheless, it’s a peace of mind to be told that there wasn’t anything serious and that I can start again running soon.

And so, I haven’t been jogging at all for week 12. I’ve just been taking it easy instead, doing  short walks. Thankfully, my legs feel much better now and walking up and down the stairs for example, doesn’t seem to be a big chore any more.

To be honest though, I feel so envious whenever I pass by someone running, and at times I feel jittery as it does not feel right, to not do something that I’ve been in a habit doing for the past two months or so.

I think the experience in week 11 has taught me that cutting back once in a while, important for the body to heal and recover. And now with this knowledge, if somehow I could go back in time, I would tweak my timetable much differently.

In my defence though, the table that I obtained is from the same site where I trained for my Roma Ostia half marathon last year, and it seemed to fit me well so I thought that I would use the same site for the their full marathon suggestion.

In the end, each athlete is different. What might work for them, might not work for another. Nevertheless. I’m going to take this as a positive learning experience. After all, it’s my first marathon and I’ve a lot to learn, so I really don’t mind any critiques or suggestions and advice. 🙂

I guess at this point of time, I’d have to change my plan of action. While all the while my philosophy in doing races is to not be the last, I don’t think there should be any shame in to just want to complete the marathon.

According to the rule though, it is mandatory to do it in 7 hours. If I use the run and walk technique, that should be doable right? After all this guy did a marathon with hardly any training at all.

Hmm. #rinazdoes42km?

I was supposed to do 27 km yesterday for my long distance run. After going successfully at 26 km the past two weekends, it shouldn’t be too difficult.

So I ran my usual path around Eur. Depending on where you go, going around this route would give you a good 15 – 20 km. I like going around this area as it’s normally not that many people around and there is a lake there which makes you feel tranquil as you go past fellow joggers.

Unlike the previous weeks since starting on my training, this time round it was full of people celebrating the carnevale – you’d see lots of young children wearing costumes, accompanied with their parents. There were so many of them and it started to get bothersome, especially with the number of kids scampering around, not looking where they were going.

Thinking quickly, I made a detour to the church nearby where the road was practically empty apart from the lone jogger or two.

Despite my feet feeling their usual pins and needles, I was feeling good. Moreover seeing that I was on a slow but steady pace made me feel extremely motivated. I even had an inner conversation with myself :

“Marina! You just did 10 km! Lets do another 10 km!”

“Oh wow! You just hit 20 km! Just 7 km more! You can do it!

As tired as I was, I was feeling really proud of myself especially when I think back about my half marathon training. But as soon as I hit 23 km, I suddenly felt a strong muscle pull in my soleus. Huh? Why?

It was so painful that I just couldn’t continue any more and had leave my goal premature. I even felt the sprain while hobbling to the main road where luckily Cart happened to be waiting nearby in his car and convinced me to stop and drove us home.

I felt so disappointed. It was only 4 km more. I was doing so good. Why is my body rebelling?

As soon as we reached home, I couldn’t even do my after running stretches. It was too uncomfortable. And all throughout the evening, I felt like an invalid – I couldn’t walk around without needing support. Not fun at all!

So all I could do was to try to ease the pain by puting an ice pack around my calf and then use a muscle rub some hours after that and went to bed with my compression socks on.

At this point of writing, my leg is feeling much better and I can walk properly now, although the pulled feeling is still there but I think it will ease completely within the day.

Nevertheless, this experience is rather disconcerting and Cart and I were hypothesising about what I did differently this time round :

• I didn’t wear my compression socks while running.
• I tried to go catch up at the traffic light by going slightly faster rather than running on the spot.

While I’m not that convinced that these changes made that much difference, now that I’m so deep in my training, I don’t want to take any more risks and instead I’ll take it as a learning experience.

Rather than feeling demoralised, all the more I feel like this is a challenge that I need to overcome. We’ve come so far and I really want to fight for this!

Sidenote : My next long run seems to coincide with a Duathlon event and it seems that part of their path is my usual jogging route. This could be a good thing. If they don’t block it off to non competitors, I could use it to my advantage. On the other hand, Cart can’t drive here in case something happens. We’ll see.

It’s now 10 weeks since I first started on my #rinazdoes42km training, and already I see changes in myself but I’m not entirely convinced that it’s for the best.

1.  My pace has slowed down significantly

I used to be able to run around 7 minutes a kilometre, sometimes even faster than that. Nowadays however, I’d be lucky if I could go at a constant 8 minutes. I’m so slow! I can’t even sprint any more. And it can get quite demoralising.

On the other hand, my stamina has increased dramatically. True, I take a longer time to run now, but I am always amazed each week through my training that I have the strength go the distance. And true, it’s not easy – I still feel pins and needles at the sole of my feet after each long run. But I am surprised at how I still feel fine. I expected that my heart would pound madly, and I’d wheezing for air and be crying from all the pain.

Every morning when I wake up the next day, I am surprised that I’m still alive. I guess that gives me a little bit of courage that I can still carry on with my training.

2. I found out that I’ve lost the ability to jump

As I’m training with minimalist shoes, it’s important to strengthen the calves and ankles and one recommended way of doing that is by doing jump rope.

Nowadays however, as hard as I try, I am unable to launch myself off the floor. Which is a disconcerting feeling, as I used to be good at zeropoint. But it seems that it’s common for long distance runners to lose this ability as their muscles adapt to endure long distance running.

Nope. I can’t do this any more. 

I never really thought about it before, but I think jumping is an important ability to have in daily life. Sometimes you need that burst of energy to avoid danger like fast passing cars, or unfriendly dogs, which is common where I am. Thus, I’d hate to completely lose this useful ability.

One the other hand :

3. I feel physically stronger

There are days when I feel like I’m running out of steam when I jog. And I’d be complaining that I feel tired, or moan about having pins and needles on my feet after a long run. Interestingly though, my recuperation time seems to be faster and by the next day I’m usually almost back to normal.

I guess I don’t need Wolverine’s healing ability. For now at least 😛

Physically I think I look pretty much the same. It’s not like I suddenly developed a six pack past these 10 weeks, nor does anything impressive happens when I flex my arm. My weight has been pretty much the same too since the beginning of the training.

However, I can see that my calf muscles look more developed now. And my glutes look much firmer thanks to the exercises that I do. I can even twerk my jelly! (No. I will not show you) Although, I doubt I will ever be as good as this lady.

So for the past two weekends, I had to do 26 km, which is quite a significant jump from 22 km, so it’s quite daunting to me. Prior to that, I was talking to Cart about it :

Cart : How many kilometres do you have to do this Sunday?

Me : 26 kms.

Cart : Oh! You are so brave.

Me : No! I am not! In fact, I’m so scared! That’s why I really wish that you’d accompany me in case something happens to me.

Cart would usually decline, saying that he has a hernia issue which he doesn’t want to aggravate. To my surprise he finally agreed to accompany me in my long run. But its not like how you think :

He didn’t run with me, because of obvious back issues. Not with a bicycle either, as he doesn’t want to risk falling off. Not even with a motorcycle, for the same reason as the previous.

He accompanied me with a car!?

I … I have no words. On the other hand, with Cart accompanying me, I feel a morale boost in knowing that I can count on him in case something bad happens to me. And I feel very appreciative that he supports me in my time of need.

I’m still feeling motivated, and surprisingly still feel good. I’ve run 334 km in total so far since starting on my training and it’s just 3 more long runs before tapering and then just a short 2 more weeks before the actual #rinazdoes42km!

I think I just might be able to do this!

During the weekend I hit 22 km on my training schedule – the longest distance that I’ve gone so far. And it will only get longer in the coming weeks.  Eek! (>_<)

I forced myself not to think too much about it as I don’t want to freak out. I’ll just do what I can. For whatever reasons if it happens that I couldn’t run any more, I’ll just walk the remaining distance.

In the morning, I saw the most glorious sunrise outside of my window.  I went ahead and had my breakfast as usual, did my warm ups, mixed my energy drink, then kissed the sleeping Cart and finally headed out of the door in trepidation.

I read online that once you go for longer runs, you should carry with you something that gives you an energy boost like an energy bar to recover the calories that you’ve burned. I haven’t tried energy bars personally, but I think it’s a hassle, trying to munch it while you’re half dead and huffing and puffing away.

So recently, I was at the supermarket and at length, chose the Enervit G Sport energy drink.

Inside the tin, is white crystal grains :

Which you take two spoonfuls of and mix it with 500 ml of water which then changes to light orange.

I don’t usually drink stimulants like coffee, and I’ve been cutting out on carbonated drinks for my training. Which could be the reason why I had a curious feeling while drinking it on my on runs.

Remember how I’ve been saying that I keep feeling tired at the end of my runs? Compared to my previous trainings, the past two times when I took this drink with me, I didn’t feel as tired despite covering more distance

What is in this thing? Are there drugs inside? I feel more alert as compared to before.

Nevertheless, while it helped in keeping up my energy, it didn’t help with the burning sensation that I felt in my thighs. And as I desperately tried to find new paths to cover in my route, I felt like crying as I did the last 2 km.

Two things kept going through my mind :

1. Pain

For me, once I’ve started going past 15km, it’s not play time any more – my ankles start to feel strained, my thighs feel as if they are burning inside. And recently, my toes are starting to bleed slightly from the abrasion. I was surprised to see a curious stain on my shoe and alarmed to see dried blood, the same colour from the stain on the shoe, on my toe.

Even my running top is making my arms chafe and there is a long mark across my underarm. It never did that before! And I now understand how there are people who has nipple bleeding while doing long distance running.

I’m toying with the idea of jogging without my shoes on, but for the thought of all the stones, broken glass and other sharp things on the road.

2. Fear

With the pain throbbing through my legs, I started to question myself, “What am I doing? Why am I doing this? What was I thinking? I can’t do this! FML. I want to kill myself“.

I kept on going nevertheless. After all, it’s just a couple of kilometres more. If I quit now, it would be stupid and a terrible waste.

And when I was finally done, I hobbled home and felt a surge of emotion.  Cartcart greeted me and when I looked at him, I couldn’t decide to cry from all the pain or cheer from my satisfaction on accomplishing such a tough mission. In the end, I just groaned and quickly did my cooling down stretches using the counter on my phone.

Speaking of phones, after going out with the GPS on for my Nexus for about 3 hours, the  battery got depleted significantly. As I don’t feel like spending 200 euro for a GPS watch, I’m contemplating to use my old Nokia Phone instead.  It should last for a bit longer.

After showering, all I wanted to do was to stay on the sofa and vegetate in front of the telley. I don’t even want to move at all unless necessary. I don’t even mind the idea of using an IV drip with my lunch mashed up in a bag if that means that I don’t have to move my jaws.

Thankfully, at this point of time of writing, I don’t feel any soreness in my body, which is actually quite surprising to me. It probably means that my body is growing stronger. I still have to move slowly nevertheless, as my right ankle will complain if I move too fast.

I salute those with full time jobs and are still able to train for the marathon. The fact that are they able to do this and still have the energy to socialise later is really impressive to me.

Regardless, I’m still alive and I’m crossing my fingers that whatever that doesn’t kill me will only make me stronger.

Week 8 down and 8 more weeks to go till #rinazdoes42km!

It’s been a while since I did a running post, so I thought that I’d update how it went so far.

It’s now about halfway through the marathon training and I’m still feeling relatively good so far and I feel a sense a relief somewhat each time I cancel out the trainings that I’ve already done.

Yesterday I jogged for 18 kms and interestingly, I didn’t feel like dying as I did last year for the half marathon training. I did feel very tired though.  While my heart and upper body felt fine, my thighs and knees were complaining badly!

I remember last year, after running this distance, I just wanted to slump down on the floor as soon as I reached home. But this time round, amazingly, I still had a bit of energy left to go grocery shopping afterwards (albeit very slowly)

At this point of typing, I just came back from the San Giovanni Addolorata hospital (Which isn’t too far away from San Clemente by the way)

In Italy, it is a requirement to be certified by a sports doctor before you could participate in the half marathon/marathon. It can be tedious as it involves a lot of steps and is rather costly.

This time round, I found out that this can also be done in public institutions, which may be cheaper for some as they could claim a percentage of what they paid from their union.

The first step is to go to your family doctor for referral as usual. You will be given two slips : one for the sports check up and the other for urine test.

Be sure that your urine test slip have the code ‘1OU’. With this code, your urine test will be free. Or else, you’d be required to pay an additional 16 euro on top of 50 euro for the sports doctor visit.

Anyway, when I got the results back, I was alarmed to see that the haemoglobin and red blood cell levels in my sample were much higher compared to the one last year.

When I showed this at the sports doctor last Wednesday, she gave a quick glance and said, “There is blood in your urine“. And asked me do do another pee test after doing the ECG and the Spirometry test.

Imagine my shock and horror, to find out that there is blood in my urine. I mean, it looks normal to my naked eye, but apparently not, according to the data analysis.

I learnt later that a high level of haemoglobin and red blood cells in urine could be affected by women having their menstrual cycle. It is also common for long distance runners to have it as they stress their body and cause the haemoglobin and red blood cells to increase. It might also be an indication of cancer. I really hope that I don’t have cancer.

All throughout the weekend, I kept thinking that there is a possibility that I might not be able to participate in the marathon after all. I’m actually okay with it. If the doctor says that I am not fit enough to participate, I wont. But I’d feel like I’m giving up on my goal and in a way, that’ll make me feel like a defeatist.

So imagine my relief when I reached the hospital this morning and found out that the second urine test went well, which means that I finally got my sports certification. I’m good to go!

As excited as I am, I have to be honest though, I do feel nervous as in a couple of weeks my training will go beyond the half marathon mark. Further than I’ve ever been before. But step by step … we’ll get there.

6 weeks done, another 10 more weeks to go before #rinazdoes42km!