September 27, 2013: TGIF

Two weeks 'til the Windy City Marathon. 16 days. It's getting so close I can almost smell the morning dew on the grass of the Chicago Grant Park.

No ladybugs were harmed in the making of this picture.

Who am I kidding? I've never been to this Grant Park. But I hope the grass - if any - is shorter than in the picture.

Alright, enough B.S., let's go back to me and my training. I ran an easy 3 miles on Monday, an easy 6 miles on Tuesday and I crossed-trained on Wednesday by spinning 60 minutes on a stationary bike. Doing so, I tried the energy gels my triathlete of a coworker suggested. It's called Hammer Gel, it has 19g of complex carbs, sodium, and some amino acids. And it tastes like shit.

Puke or diarrhea? Lemme know what it does for you. 

Coincidence factors to-be-determined, I took this gel at 8am on the bike and by 3pm I was so sick I had to leave work and go home. I had random pain in all my muscles so there was definitely an immune reaction to something. But surprisingly no sore throat, no cough, and no fever. I just stayed in bed until 10am the following day. And it was mostly gone, although I was still tired. Since I would have been an M.D. in another life, here are my two hypotheses:

1 - My immune system is awful and I had an intense reaction to something that wouldn't have an effect on normal people.
2 - My immune system is amazing and my body nailed a severe cold in about 24 hours.

I vote for 2. In actuality, I have noticed the frequency and the duration of my colds have significantly decreased since I started running about 2 years ago. My colds used to last solid 2 weeks and my sore throats sometimes 4 or more weeks. Now, nothing lasts longer than a week. At least I'm not a marathon runner for nothing.

I dare you to invade my marathon runner body, dumb asses.

This morning, I went back to the gym and ran an easy 4 miles. Heart rate was higher than usually, about 165bpm for a speed of 5.8mph and an incline of 1%, but I suspect it's because my body is still recovering from the 5 billion bacteria that invaded my body Wednesday afternoon.

Thus far, I've ran only 13 mi this week so I'm gonna try to do 8 mi on Saturday and maybe 10 on Sunday. And I think I'll be fine, it's the tapering period after all. And anyways, it's still better than Pamela Anderson's training plan (see this website).

I'll post again on Sunday or Monday. I hope you have a great weekend, watching Breaking Bad and commenting on my posts.

September 22, 2013: 16-mile long run... a la Pyrrhus

This was the most important week of my training for the Chicago Marathon that will take place October 13, 2013.

On Monday, I didn't workout...as I really wanted my joints to heal from the 13.5 miles ran last Sunday (see that post).
On Tuesday, I did a very easy 5-mi run so see how I was feeling. No pain.
On Wednesday morning, the soreness from Sunday started to kick in: I could barely go down the stairs. Obviously, I didn't go to the gym either.
On Thursday, legs were still sore and I granted myself another day of rest.
On Friday morning, my alarm failed to go off, and I also forgot my running shoes at home... that was clearly a sign for me to not work out that day.

- "Make sure Noé does not work out today, OK?"
- "Amen"

So, Saturday morning came around, and I woke up realizing that I had only ran 5 miles the whole week. That was clearly unacceptable for a 5K marathon runner like me. Then I made a major decision: LET'S DO THIS EFFING LONG RUN ONCE AND FOR ALL! My girlfriend quickly addressed the situation:

I think what she means is "I love you".

Clopin-clopant, she and I left the house and started our little run. This time, she took her roommate's bike so hopefully it would not break down before me.

From mile 0 to 7, everything was fine, however tension was beginning to build up in my muscles so I stretched around mile 7. At 8.9 miles, my right knee was starting to ache so I stopped and stretched. At 11.4 miles, it was my foot's turn to ache pretty bad so once again, I stopped and stretched. And it helped. At the half-marathon mark (13.1 mi), I was running on the Harvard bridge (which really should be called the MIT bridge, but let's leave it for now). Both of my knees were experiencing a locking sensation, and my left foot felt a constant, yet bearable pain.  I did a last break at 13.5 miles and then I went straight home without interruption.

Once home, I wasn't really tired, but my right knee and my left foot were aching pretty badly. I iced the foot right away, took a shower, and applied a huge anti-inflammatory patch ( known as the Flector patch). Then I massaged my knees with a combo of Tiger Balm and pure Wintergreen oil. My legs were feeling hot and good.

Then I looked at my pace and heart rate statistics. And then died.

I miss the times where I could complete a 5K in 22 minutes... Me so slow it's humiliating. But hey, I have tendinitis, remember? Cut me some fucking slack. Also, my heart rate was higher than last Sunday. This is directly linked to the sun and temperature, which was fairly hot toward the end of my run, maybe 80°F.

Now, there are two questions I'm sure you're all wondering:
- Will my foot be healed by the marathon day?
- If so, will I be able to complete TEN MORE MILES than this "long" run?

Well, today is Monday and my foot is still hurting. The anti-inflammatory patch worked very well, but I had to remove it because the diclofenac that it releases interacts pretty badly with my heart. So now I'm stuck with ice and Tiger Balm. Once again: I have hope. Of course, on the marathon day I will let the pain go beyond what I allow for training days. Of course, my blog readers will cheer me on with huge signs reading "GO NOÉ, GO!", screaming at me in French: "VAS-Y PUTAIN, TU PEUX Y ARRIVER!"... But realistically the Chicago police will kick me out because I'm outrageously slow and they will be busy reopening the roads to regular traffic.

Alea jacta est, my friends.

September 19, 2013: Chicago Marathon Route

Out of curiosity, I decided - and I guess it was about time - to check the 2013 Chicago marathon course map.

Is... that... a... joke...?

WOOOW! What? Wait, is that real? I have to go from the start to the finish line using my feet? With one of them having a 40%-strength tendinitis? NEVERTHELESS, there is good news. I was worried I would be hungry whilst running, but they are giving away free Big Macs along the route. And you can withdraw cash at Bank of America ATMs. And you can get ripped off at Merrill Lynch (that's harder to find on the map).

"I'd like to borrow $20,000 to run the Chicago marathon 2014 and cover my medical expenses."

 Plus if you make it to mile 20 you can enjoy free bananas and run Mario Kart style.

Pooping banana peels into opponent faces.

In above picture, replace "1st" by "44,782th" to get a better picture. Yes, there are 45,000 participants. C'mon I can't be the worst of them all!

About my training... I'll try to run 14 or 16 miles this Sunday. Wish me good luck!

Last, but not least, it seems like more and more people are reading my blog! (or someone fell asleep on the "F5" key on their keyboard...).

Alright, have a good weekend folks, stay tuned, eat healthy, post this blog on your facebook, and use your credit cards.

September 16, 2013: I have hope.

My legs are sore this morning. Very sore. As I walked down the stairs to go to work, I felt that wonderful sensation in my muscles that reminded me of the absolutely fan-fucking-tastic past week I've had.

This past week was a prime week training-wise; I broke two personal records:

1. I ran the longest distance in my life ever.
2. I ran the most mileage in one week.

My workout week is summarized in the spreadsheet below. As you can see, I ran 13.5 mi on Sunday, totaling in 43.1 mi for the whole week!

Let's focus on the Sunday run, which is by far the most important. I used the new heart rate monitor I got in the mail a few days ago, the Polar H7. I had already bought a similar device a few months ago (Zephyr HxM) but it wasn't working well, so I returned it to Amazon. This device, coupled with my phone (Nexus 4) gives very useful data from the workout, such as position, speed, elevation, and heart rate.

Bluetooth Smart Technology - Runs only on Android 4.3 and up.

Sunday morning run across Massachusetts. Meanwhile, some of my coworkers are at work... A-HA.

My girlfriend came with me on the run, but she was on her bike that she never uses. Of course, the bike broke down after 4 miles.

Is it my foot, or the bike?

 We ended up ditching the hunk of metal and hid it in some bushes, then I tried to make her run along with me. Of course, she couldn't keep the pace I had, and soon she had to completely stop because she is so out of shape because I love her... Consequently, I had to observe numerous pauses (according to the above graph, 20m38s of them). Ok, let's be real one second, I'm trying to find excuses here, because the sad truth is: I'm slow as a turtle with diarrhea.

Sick, dude.

Pain-wise, it was fine until mile 12 where a sharp pain started on my tendon, above my left foot (the injured one). I immediately stopped, stretched said extremity for 5 minutes and resumed... the pain was miraculously gone. Maybe there is actually a God somewhere.

You're going to Hell, son.

After the run, I wasn't even hungry (thanks to the three French toasts drowned in maple syrup that I devoured two hours before running) and I was barely tired. Legs were strong. I iced the heck out of my tendons using fragments from the ice luge we had slurped citrus vodka from a mere 24 hours prior. And I drank a protein shake. Felt good. I'm kind of optimistic this time. Knock on wood.

As we all know, all good things must have an end. Around 4pm, I returned to my car that I parked on the street using my girlfriend's 2-Day visitor parking, and I found a citation under my windshield blades. It said I have "abused" the guest parking. Apparently, one can only park 2 days a week, and not any two days consecutively. Fine was $50!! Then I logged into the City of Somerville website to file a claim... only to discover I had another fine for the second day I "abused" the permit. Grand total, $100!? FUCK YOU CITY OF SOMERVILLE; THAT IS OUTRAGEOUSLY EXPENSIVE.

September 12, 2013: Chienne de vie

Let's get it straight: my life sucks. This post is dedicated to demonstrate why in 3 facts.

Fact #1: I was looking at the statistics for this blog, in particular which keywords my readers typed in search engines Google. I was expecting anything... but THAT:

 Unfortunately, this is not a joke. 

So wait, I've spent 14,587 hours writing this wonderful piece of literature of a blog so gross pervs can j*** off on my girlfriend's photos? (Or on mine, but let's leave that assumption out of it.) In France, we have a nice expression: "C'est de la confiture aux cochons" which means: "It's jam for the pigs." I mean, I can't be too surprised...75% of the internet is sex (the other 25%- apparently just really earnest people looking to heal their knee injuries).  Nonetheless, I'm convinced I have also a bunch of quality readers (yeah Bob M., it's you!).

Fact #2: I emailed the Chicago marathon staff to tell them I won't be performing that well on the marathon day. Consequently, they changed my corral and put me in corral... J. Like not A, not B, not even F... J. Let me explain to you. Corral J is for people with an expected finish time between 4h56 and 5h16.

Hey guys! Mind if I run with you? Oh, should I fuck myself instead? 

You got it, I will be surrounded with old people, fat people, or... 12 year old kids. Wait a second. Seems like a déja vu, remember?

Fact #3: I'm back in my cubicle and it SUCKS. Everybody is frustrated that I left for 4 weeks and they're trying to smoke me.

My boss wasn't expecting to be dancing so early in the morning. Click for the full AVICII video.

VOILÀ - Quod erat demonstrandum.

A little word about my training (also called "note to myself"): I'm doing okay, I'm at 21.4 mi already for this week. I STILL have some pain in my tendon after a few miles but I just have to accept it. I will NOT be fully recovered for the marathon and I WILL suffer A LOT on the D-Day. C'est la putain de vie.

September 6, 2013: Doubt. Fear. Panic.

My 4 week vacation in France is almost over, and progress was made. But I'm still far behind from any marathon training plan. The 2013 edition of the Chicago marathon is in a month, and my long run has been... 10 miles. That is 38.17% of the marathon distance. And that's still far from the 16-18 mile long runs recommended in the literature. So, am I fucked? Should I give up? Should I rip off my tendon and still give it a try? I haven't decided yet.

Let's start by a snapshot of my vacation in south of France.

Me in love / eating a croissant / jumping into freezing water / riding my 1947 Jeep

Wow - VACATION. I thought this period of the year will never arrive. Agreed, I had an amazing vacation in April but it was somewhat tainted by the Boston bombings (see that post). My girlfriend came to France with me for a week. One morning, I put the alarm clock at 7:00 am because I wanted to go for a long run. She wasn't happy about that. To say she was merely "cranky" is an understatement. But then after a few miles we discovered what only the  early birds get a chance to see.

La Rivière Éspérance: Here's to hopeful thinking for the marathon...

This time, we ran 8 miles. It wasn't easy, there was an elevation drop of about 300m at the beginning and then 300m back up at the end. But we' were glad we did it, although I had some medium, medium-high pain in my extensor tendon after the run. Luckily, it went away after a couple of days.

Then I came back to Paris, put my girlfriend back on the Air Putain (yep, Air France) plane for Boston, and I kept training, this time on relatively flat trails. I've done a couple of other 8 mile workouts, and then I finally decided to increase the distance to 10 mi. Surprisingly, the pain in my foot was really not that bad, and my legs were strong. The weak link, this time, was the general fatigue and my heart. It was a hot day in Paris, and I decided to run at 2 pm when it was very sunny and about 88°F. I had a heart rate monitor and I averaged 167 bpm over 2 hours. My average speed was 5 mph but it includes some stretching. Still pretty lame. That gives me an estimated marathon finish time of... 5 hours and 14 minutes...

Well, I'm telling you my friends, I will be VERY HAPPY if I get to finish this fucking thing, even if I have to run with grandmas (which I have no doubts I will). In fact, it's barely impossible. Right now, my weekly mileage is about 20 mi and my longest run was 10 mi. According to my book, 5 weeks from the marathon, I should average 50 mi a week and I should have done a 16 mi long run. See? I'm screwed. But you know what? I'll keep training until the very last day and only that day I'll decide if I give it a shot or not.

I decided to do a last long run on Sunday, September 15, 2013. I will run until the pain in my tendon is "medium", or 16 miles, or 3 hours, whatever comes first. I will have my girlfriend ride her bike next to me so she can feed me with Gatorade, croissants, and foie gras (flashforward she's tired of riding her bike and I only run an hour...).

Dear readers, I'm in the home stretch of my training now. If you have any last minute recommendations, insults or gifts you wanna ship me, please go ahead. I promise if I resign during the race, you'll never ever hear from me again... so this is your last chance.

God Bless America (and my tendon).

Bye guys!
-Pinky and the brain (she's the brain, obviously)