Ms. News Goat

As I was running the marathon, a lady running alongside me asked, “How can you stand to carry all that stuff? I’m just running the half, and I strip down to as little as possible.” I didn’t tell her that wasn’t even everything—I’d ditched a bunch of stuff before the race!

That wasn’t the first time I’d been questioned by a fellow runner. Almost every training run, someone would ask about one of my running gadgets or another. One time some ladies remarked, “Well, aren’t you prepared for everything!”

And I suppose I pretty much am. My ForeRunner lets me run anywhere without pre-measuring distances. My ShoeID and pepper spray give me a little peace of mind. The HydroBowl makes sure my dog doesn’t get too hot and thirsty. And my CamelBak—well, I just couldn’t live without it. Not only does it keep me from getting dehydrated, but its pocket gives me a handy place to stash small things like keys and Gu. Its straps also serve as handy holders—that’s what the pepper spray and HydroBowl hook onto, along with a cell phone or MP3 player if I’m taking one of those. And since the Camelback has various adjustable straps, it fits snugly to my back. It’s comfortable, and it doesn’t bounce.

Granted, all this stuff means I can’t just just walk out the door and start running. It usually takes me a good 10 minutes to fill the water pack and get all my junk together.

But if all this stuff makes me safer and keeps me from dehydration, it’s more than worth it. In fact, just one race with poorly-organized water stops was enough to teach me that the CamelBak is a good safety net for races too.

So, yes I am carrying a lot of stuff. But being good & prepared makes running more enjoyable for me. And besides… what fun is a hobby that doesn’t involve lots of gadgets? :-)

The Wal-Mart Effect: How the World’s Most Powerful Company Really Works—and How It’s Transforming the American Economy, by Charles Fishman

Back when I got on the library’s waiting list for The Wal-Mart Effect, my husband and I were still just toying with the idea of boycotting Wal-Mart. Boycotting is too strong a word, really. More of an experiment in living without Wal-Mart for a month, just to see what difference it made in our lives and our pocketbooks. I reserved the book, hoping it might provide answers to some of the questions we were asking ourselves. Like, is Wal-Mart really cheaper? Is shopping there bad? Does “boycotting” it do any good? (more…)

When I started training for the marathon, I wasn’t sure if it was truly a good healthy thing to do. After all, running is a high-impact sport and can be tough on the body. And watching the finish line of any marathon—people collapsing and having to be wheeled to a medical tent—is enough to convince you it’s hard on a person. Add to that friends and family calling you crazy… and you start to wonder why exactly you’re doing this.

I had two main reasons in mind for running the marathon. (more…)

Ms. Kitty likes to carry small things around in her mouth, bellowing. Usually it’s some crumpled up piece of paper (receipts are her favorite), though she also likes the occasional small stuffed toy.

Friday before the marathon, she found the race bib from my last race. I’d put it in a pile of things in our computer room (not a place she normally steals things from). She dragged the bib into the hallway, meowing loudly, and left it there for us to find the next time we went upstairs.

Sometimes it just seems like she knows everything that’s going on. I think this was her way of telling me she was cheering for me…

I ran the Oklahoma City Memorial Marathon yesterday, and it was great!

After I ran the half-marathon last year, I decided I wanted to try the full marathon. I was very unsure about the whole idea—whether I could do it, whether it was even a healthy thing to do… But I knew if I was going to run a marathon, I wanted it to be the one in Oklahoma City.

The OKC marathon is a very well-coordinated, well-run race. I personally think it’s one of the best things Oklahoma City does, and I’m proud of it. One of the neatest things is that the whole thing is coordinated by volunteers—there are no paid positions. When you’ve got somewhere in the vicinity of 11,000 runners registering for a race, that’s really amazing. I’ve heard the marathon founders speak a couple of times, and they’re very inspiring. They have good hearts and they’re doing it for the right reasons. I think even if I weren’t going to be running the race, I would want to be involved in some way—whether as one of the volunteers or just cheering on the side of the road.

But this year was my year to run the marathon. (more…)

I trained with Jack and Sherri Rector’s Marathon Training Group in preparation for the race, and I want to say how wonderful they have been. Their yearly training group is free for all participants and includes not only the weekly long training runs (for which they provide on-course water stops) but also wonderfully-encouraging weekly emails. And although I was almost always doing my shorter/recovery run the week they were doing their longer run, or vice-versa (I had already started my own schedule before I found out about the group), it didn’t matter. The group was very flexible—run as short or long as you want, at whatever pace feels comfortable to you. And there was nothing better than seeing the group coordinators’ friendly faces at the end of each run.

One of the nice aspects of the group was running with others. While I’m not generally an overly-outgoing person, struggling through hours and hours of running is slightly less challenging when you know 100 other people are experiencing those same miles with that same sun beating down. Besides, most everybody had an MP3 player and headphones, so there was no pressure to chat unless you just wanted to. And since my dog couldn’t go with me on the longer runs (he topped out at about 8 miles), the safety aspect of the group was nice too.

If you’re in the Oklahoma City area and plan to train for next year’s marathon, be sure to join up with the training group. For more information, check out the marathon’s Runners Connect page or the Landrunners OKC Running Club. The marathon training is sponsored by Landrunners, a group which I recently joined because I found the training runs so enjoyable.

So a big thanks to Jack & Sherrie—their hard work is deeply appreciated by many. Their support really gave me a lot of confidence going into the marathon.