Richmond Marathon -- reflections

I’d like to start off this post with a look at my Believe I am training journal from this year. Back in January, I wrote out my running goals for the year in a flow chart:

Although I didn't look back at this page more than once or twice during the whole year, it must have lodged itself into sub-conscious, because most of the stepping stones in this diagram got done. I worked on my form (arguably still bad, but it’s better). I embraced that fact that I have introverted tendencies thanks to the book “Quiet: the power of introverts” by Susan Cain and learned to protect my need for alone time. I got advice on how to improve my sleep habits, which included decreasing screen time before bed, watching my coffee habits, and setting time aside to ‘wind down’ before bed. My iron and vitamin D levels are back to a healthy place, thank you supplements!

What else was key to achieving the goals I wrote in my Believe I am months ago? Well, taking it easy over the summer was important. I knew that marathon training would be taxing, so I just cruised through June-July-August without stressing over long runs or super challenging workouts. Another critical thing was doing consistent core work (planks, mostly) and foam rolling during marathon training. Sometimes I had to practically bribe myself into doing my plank circuit, but ultimately I think it helped. I also threw out any notions about how I ‘should’ eat. I ate more cookies/ice cream/fried food than I care to admit. But ultimately not depriving myself during training also helped me ‘save’ my mental gumption for when it *really* counted (i.e. during workouts). My training group also pulled me along during the runs when I felt exhausted/grouchy/stressed and more miles of this training were shared than any of my other training cycles. Despite the higher mileage, I made sure I went out with friends whenever I could.  When necessary I went to bed at 9pm to get a full night of sleep before a big workout.

Ultimately, the key to it all was listening to my body. I adjusted workouts when I needed to, I adjusted mileage when I needed to, and I ate what I needed to.

And now with a marathon PR of 3:03:43 (details here), I have a clear goal for 2015. Chase that sub-3 hour time and have fun along the way!

Final thoughts before Richmond Marathon

It's finally here after months of training, countless early bedtimes, dozens of gels, and many, many miles. Richmond Marathon is tomorrow morning.

I haven't been secretive about my goals. It's definitely easier to sandbag and tell everyone your "C" goal, while keeping your scary goals private, but I chose not to do that.

I want to run 3:05. 7:03 pace for 26.2 miles. 20 minute PR.

Obviously I will have to have a good day--my stomach will need to cooperate, my legs will need to be strong, and the weather not too crazy.

If everything goes smoothly, I feel that 3:05 is within the capabilities. I've made it through enough tough, solo workouts that I feel confident that I can make it through 20-22 miles without *too* much of a struggle. But as we all know, the real test begins after the 20 mile mark.

Of course I have a series of other goals too.
B goal: 3:10
C goal: PR
D goal: finish

From my last marathon experience, I know that adjusting to your D goal can happen pretty early in the race. Although I didn't talk about it much in that Boston post, I watched several goals slip by as the temperatures increased during the race. It was a good test of mental flexibility. Ironically, tomorrow is supposed to be about 50 degrees cooler than the start of Boston 2012. Is a 40 degree start temp too much to ask for?! ;)

Best of luck to everyone racing out there tomorrow! Go fast, take chances!

Over-trained

I had some lofty (yet attainable, I thought) goals for the Anthem Half Marathon next weekend. Despite some crazy-ass weather during January/February (including but not limited to: freezing rain, multiple snow days, single digit temperatures, rainy + windy days, and 3 track workouts in a row where it was snowing and insanely windy down the home stretch) my training was going well, although the mother nature was certainly testing my motivation/determination.

Photo credit: @ritbeard

I was managing to rock tempo runs and long runs (thank you running buddies for helping me!). I even had a couple stellar track workouts. I was feeling confident that I was progressing towards a nice, big half marathon PR. 

*Cue crash-and-burn sound effects*

Then, fecal matter hit the proverbial fan.  My legs started feeling as though they weren’t recovering, my motivation slowly but surely dwindled (and I'm sure whining commensurately increased), the majority of my runs began feeling like death marches, and holding my normal paces, let alone a tempo pace, triggered a lactic acid deluge. I’m sure the stress in my personal life was not helping.

Struggle. Fest.

Quotes from my BIA training journal over the last couple weeks:

“Legs felt terrible/dead”

“...felt really tough”

“Legs couldn’t ‘get-up-and-go’”

So, I backed off my miles, honored my rest days, and tried to have faith that my body would bounce back and start feeling springy again.  I used an 8k race on March 1^st as an opportunity to investigate whether any energy had returned to my lactic acid-ridden legs. 

The result: ehhh. 

The pace felt hard immediately, while I can usually glide through a couple miles with the help of adrenaline. It didn’t help that the course was HILLY. I felt pretty discouraged, but shouldn’t have. My time tied my 8k PR, it was a solid race, but the effort (both physically and mentally) felt HUGE. 

photo credit: Tir na Nog

What does this all mean? It means I’m re-evaluating my race goals for the half marathon. My body is telling me it’s struggling, so it doesn’t seem wise to press on and try to run my goal time. Instead, this seems like a good opportunity to focus on having a blast with a big group of Oiselle girls, and potentially ditching races plans altogether to just run for fun.

How have you bounced back from over-training? I could use some tips!!

Breaking a barrier and a W

My race this last weekend was all that I could have hoped for, especially as a spontaneous-out-of-the-blue kind of race. There are races that I’ve planned MONTHS for that have been much less rewarding that the “Monster Dash 5k”. Here’s what went down. 

Setting the scene

This was an afternoon race (2:30pm) which had me all out of sorts in the morning. What do I eat? When do I eat it? How close to the race can I snack? How much water do I drink? Blah blah blah. Ended up eating my usual pre-race meal (bagel and nut butter –currently obsessed with sunflower seed butter) as an early lunch and hoped for the best. 

The pre-race mental game

While I warmed up I felt pretty terrible: sluggish legs, tight muscles, laced my left shoe too tight, etc…so I had low expectations for the race despite the fact I’ve been visiting the oval weekly.  I also knew the race had an uphill start which I wasn’t too thrilled about…but it was an out an back course, so there was a downhill finish to look forward to. In the back of mind, I knew this was a good opportunity to PR.  With consistent speed work and a few xc races to strengthen my legs, I figured I had a shot…but I tried not to think about it!

mmm, the oval

When the gun went off, everyone surged up the first hill. Phew! Nothin’ like getting real out of breath immediately! About a half mile in, I passed the lady in first place, and that’s where the real ‘magic’ of this race began. 

The Magic

Volunteers were hollering ‘first place woman!’ as I ran by, and when I passed the turn-around and was running toward the rest of the field, I felt so much support from all my sisters in sport out there. They hooted encouragement like ‘you go girl!’, and ‘you got it girl!’ and ‘go first place woman!’ and ‘beat those boys!’.  I felt so much gratitude for those ladies and a lovely sense of camaraderie.  I have never had that kind of mid-race encouragement before, and it was downright amazing. Got some warm and fuzzy feelings. 

The warm and fuzzies not shown

And then things got more awesome. I sailed down the last hill and squeezed myself under my spring-summer goal of running sub-19 minutes (18:58)! Note: that darn 19 minute 5k goal has been lurking for quite some time and was starting to become a 'barrier' in my mind. It was a 13 second PR and I finally got to experience breaking the tape in a race. I threw my hands in the air with a big grin on my face…I couldn’t help myself! 

Super official tape

  And the final and biggest miracle of all: non-horrifying race photos. Truly a treat!

STOKED

5k pain

As part of my only-run-short-races summer running plan, I finally found what I believe may be the ‘pain-place’…the 5k version. I have definitely experienced a marathon version; imagine 10 miles with your quads feeling like fireballs with each and every step. I’m sure I will have a far more punishing marathon someday. But the 5k pain-place was foreign to me until a couple weeks ago at the West Seattle 5k.

With the goal of breaking 19 minutes this summer, each race is an opportunity to work on some aspect of my 5k strategy. My typical downfalls include: going out too conservatively, getting complacent during mile #2, rarely doing speed work, and never racing hard enough to blow up (which is arguably a good thing to do every once and a while). My strategy for this race was to go out aggressively and then see how the cookie crumbled. 

Mile 1: 6:05

Okay! All is going according to plan!

Mile 2: 6:17

I’m feelin’ it and sucking wind in a serious way. I still have another mile?!?! I am entering the ‘pain-place’.

Mile 3: 6:11

I haven’t keeled over yet, but want to.  I can see the finish off in the distance and it looks at least 3 miles away. Trying to run hard and ignore the pain/discomfort simultaneously, but this is nearly impossible. Ignoring the pain usually leads to minimizing the pain which then results in slowing down. Running hard requires pushing to the edge of your fitness and performing your best on the given day; you’re really looking for more pain.  I was trying to muster some mental toughness by reminding myself how few minutes a 5k lasts…but it felt like foreeevvveeerrr.

In the final stretch of the race! Tried to relax my face when I saw the cameras...haha!

Final time: 19:11 and a new PR!

As I finished, someone associated with the race tried to talk to me. I tried to respond between wiping the spittle off my face and trying to catch my breath while doubled over. Ha. I felt totally humbled by the discomfort associated with a hard, short race effort.

The 5k is definitely uncharted territory, and I like it. 

In need of something lighter

Boy, the post-marathon funk can be a doozy. Especially the post-Boston Marathon funk.  It’s been several weeks now, and yet I haven’t bounced back into a training state that feels fun, or directed, or productive.  I have ‘burnt-out’ written on my forehead. More like ‘ burnt-out without a new PR to show for myself’.



At least I look happy at the finish AND I'm wearing a cape.



I don’t need another big, looming, built-up, emotional goal like Boston (or a marathon in general), but I need a goal to keep me leaping out of bed in the morning.  I need a fun, small, manageable goal that I can tackle without the emotional commitment. Essentially, I need a psychological break from hard training…while still doing hard training. That's possible, right?

The 5k and 10k are going to be my friends for the next few months. They are generally low commitment, in that if you have a bad race you can hop into another a couple weeks later without stressing your body.

Perfect. This is what I need. None of the build-up-for-4-months-and-put-all-your-eggs-in-one-‘race day’-basket.

Of course, coming off of marathon training, I am not in ideal shape for laying down a 5k PR.  I’m hoping I can crack the 19 min mark by continuing a similar type of training (tempos and long hard runs), while throwing in a couple track sessions (cue "track" rundies).  The best part about this shorter training? Reclaiming my Sundays during the summer months! 20 milers really put a damper on the rest of my day (imagine zombie fatigue + eating a lot), and I'd like to hike, bike or rekindle my friendship with the sun instead.

The true, underlying motive to my 5k/10k racing scheme is to run some PRs and redeem myself (in my eyes) after a disappointing finish (time-wise) in Boston.

I'm in need of something lighter. Light-hearted and lightning fast.





Farewell Dear Toenails

Tis the season to make New Year’s resolutions, and I have some fairly straight forward running-related goals for 2012. First, the fun one: do a couple running-related vacations with fellow running friends, new and old. Usually vacation requires sneaking away from family to run or blatantly rejecting invitations to happy hour in order to squeeze in a few miles.  Wonderfully, during running vacations the most complicated decisions are choosing a post-race restaurant or what Oiselle outfit to wear around town.

Now for the ‘serious’ ones. I recently read Brad Hudson’s Run Faster, and it encouraged me to look back through my 2011 training log. It was horrifying.  Crazy mileage jumps and subsequent plunges, poor recovery, overambitious workouts, and injuries all peppered my journal. Not pretty.  But I got away with it (sort of).

Resolution #1:  Stick to a weekly workout schedule that has BUILT IN recovery time.   I know this seems pretty fundamental, but I when I start to see improvements I get too excited and try to train myself into the ground.

Resolution #2: Quit mileage leaping (this goes with Res. #1).  All too often in my 2011 training, I tried upping miles AND workout intensity at the same time. Without fail I turned into zombie version of myself and limped around pathetically.  This was usually accompanied by a craving for brains. So what’s the take home message? Hover at a solid mileage so that when I train for marathons I’m not increasing continually throughout the training cycle.

Resolution #3: As a culminating goal: don’t hurt myself during Boston training! Sounds easy enough, right?

So why am I bidding my toenails adieu? Running solid mileage (continually) through a year means my ‘normal-looking’ toenail rate can drop as low as 20%.