Wednesday, September 19, 2012

10 Days Until Terror Strikes!


Know what today marks?  10 days.  10 days until the Tower of Terror 10-Miler.

TEN days.

Eeeeeek!!!

Suffice it to say I’m not feeling ready for it at all.  Still battling IT Band Syndrome, I did manage to complete 8 miles last weekend, my final long “run” of pre-race training… but I walked a huge chunk of it, only managed a 14:22/mile average pace, and by the end, my knee contained David Banner-like fury (though it did not turn green, thankfully.)  It wasn’t the kind of training run that elicits a sense of comfort and “Yeah, I’ve got this!” y’know? 

So I’ve been spending time focusing on the race planning elements that have nothing to do with running in order to distract my mind from thoughts of gloom and doom.  For starters, my race outfit.

I’m not doing a full-on costume – I’m all about comfort and I’m not very good at costuming in the first place.  I’ve known for a while that I want to wear my Badass Mother Runner tank and decided to add a skirt from Team Sparkle to wear over my go-to running skort.  Add on a matchy BondiBand to wick away forehead sweat and – voila!  My outfit is complete.

I may not be fast, and I may not even be able to run much, but by golly – I’ll look festive!

I’ve also spent lots of time putting together a special playlist for the race.  When I realized how much I’ll be walking, I knew I’d need more music loaded in, so what I wound up with is a mix of creepy, dark, themed sounds with a few pieces that are outside of the theme, but are proven pick-me-ups when the going gets tough.  Since I can’t count on maintaining a certain pace, I gave up on sequencing the playlist and I’ll just let it shuffle.  Here it is, all shuffled up:

Agent Orange: “A Cry for Help in a World Gone Mad”
London Philharmonic: “Carmina Burana, O Fortuna”
Social Distortion: “The Creeps”
Ray Parker, Jr.: “Ghostbusters”
Queen Latifah & L’il Kim, Feat. Macy Gray: Cell Block Tango”
Madonna: “Die Another Day”
Metallica: “Enter Sandman”
Daft Punk: “Derezzed”
Nin Inch Nails: “Sin”
Tones on Tail: “Go!”
Pitbull: “Back in Time” (from Men in Black III)
Green Day: “Brain Stew”
Marilyn Manson: “The Beautiful People”
Kanye West: “Gold Digger” (don't judge - it's got the perfect rhythm!)
Cee Lo Green: “Love Gun”
Nirvana: “Smells Like Teen Spirit”
Daft Punk: “End of Line”
“Halloween” main theme
Red Hot Chili Peppers: “Higher Ground”
The Cult: “Fire Woman”
Blondie: “Rapture”
MC Hammer: “U Can’T Touch This”
Nine Inch Nails: “Head Like a Hole”
Eurythmics: “Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)”
Danny Elfman: “Mission Impossible” main theme
Florence & the Machine: “Dog Days are Over”
Michael Sembello: “Maniac” (because Flashdance was totally badass)
Marilyn Manson: “This is Halloween”
Girl Talk: “Oh No”
Girl Talk: “Here’s the Thing”
Salt-n-Pepa: “Push It”
Pink Floyd: “Another Brick in the Wall Pt. 2”
Metallica: “Master of Puppets”
John Williams: “The Imperial March” (Star Wars) (I'm not into character pics, but if I see Vader? Watch out)
Royal Stockholm Philharmonic: “Danse Macabre, Op. 40”
Danzig: “Mother”
Will Smith: “Men in Black”
Survivor: “Eye of the Tiger” (please - you know it's the BEST motivating song ever!)
Daft Punk: “Arena”
Michael Jackson: “Thriller” (the full version, Vincent Price included, natch)
“X-Files” main theme
Social Distortion: “Mommy’s Little Monster”

I’ve tried it out on a couple runs and it works well.  I just hope “Halloween” doesn’t come up in a particularly dark, empty stretch, as it did the other night… while I was running after dark… all alone… next to a stand of creepy cypress trees… ~shudder~

With my outfit and soundtrack ready to roll, the next planning steps should be easy: scheduling and packing.  10 days – eek… again!

Tuesday, September 11, 2012

10 (Running) Things...


You know those “25 (or 10, or 20, whatever) Things You Don’t Know About Me” lists that were popping up on Facebook with the frequency of pimples on a hormonal teen’s face a while back? I loved them.  LOVED. them.  (The lists, I mean, not the pimples.  Thank all that is good in the universe for Retinol.)  I love answering quizzes, making lists, and, just as much, reading everyone else’s answers and lists.  I don’t much like people, as a whole, but I find them fascinating and those Facebook lists never failed to entertain me.  But they’ve been absent from my life for quite a while and, though I social media it up as a profession, I’m not a Facebook trendsetter, so I haven’t had the nerve to start a new one up.


So imagine my joyful surprise (picture a kid awaking to find a pile of Benjamin’s left under her pillow by the Tooth Fairy) when my favorite lady runners posted this little number on AnotherMotherRunner.com this morning: 10 Running Related Personal Questions.



Ooooooooooo!!!  Yes, I literally squealed in delight.  In the middle of car circle, whilst dropping off my 10-year-old son at school.  He was… thrilled.  I’m sure.


I’ve been mentally working on my answers all day and I’m now ready to commit them to paper (pixels, whatever) and share with you.  And I’ll be checking back on Another Mother Runner’s site to see what other people answer – remember, the answers of others are even more fun than listing your own!  Hope to see yours, too.

1. Best run ever: This is actually a tough one and I have to do that annoying thing of giving it a tie.  Go ahead and hate me now.  It’s hard to beat the excitement of my first race, especially when it involved running in one of my favorite spots on earth – Epcot – with my favorite person, the thrilled son mentioned above.  It was runDisney’s Royal Family 5K in Feb. 2012; we weren’t fast, but we took lots of pictures, made lots of memories and became inextricably hooked on running in Disney.  Which makes my second nominee for Best Run Ever rather unsurprising: my first time over 7 miles, run while on vacation this past summer in Disney World.  We were staying at Disney’s Beach Club Villas and it was a beautiful, strong, well-paced run… with the promise of rides and piles of yummy food offerings at its conclusion.

2. Three words that describe my running: Determined. Cleansing.  Wonky. (‘Cause that’s how I run – wonky.)

3. My go-to running outfit is: A C9 black running skort from Target, Badass Mother Runner tank, black compression calf sleeves, white visor.

4. Quirky habit while running: As I’ve written before, my cadence naturally goes along with the beats per minute of whatever music I’m listening to. Though I’m not sure that’s very “quirky.”

5. Morning, midday, evening: Morning, in order to get the miles in before the temp here in Florida goes from “hot” to “surface of the freaking sun”, but I much prefer late afternoon.

6. I won’t run outside when it’s: Monsooning.  No – make that monsooning with lightning.  Because I’ll totally run in a torrential rain – I’d just prefer not to be electrocuted.  Unless that would speed up my pace…

7. Worst injury—and how I got over it: IT Band Syndrome.  I’m still working on it.

8. I felt most like a badass mother runner when: I took on a mountainside in North Carolina – 300’ elevation climb in less than ½ a mile.  Boo-ya!

9. Next race is: runDisney’s Twilight Zone Tower of Terror 10-Miler, Sept.. 29

10. Potential running goal for 2013: There is no "potential": this IS the goal - runDisney’s Princess Half-Marathon, Feb. 2013 – with the most amazing group of fellow Mother Runners a gal could ask for!