Archive for August, 2008

I just completed my first Marathon Paced run, ever. I’d been both dreading and looking forward to it all week. This would be my first reading of where I stand in the midst of my training, so it was important for me to give myself the best possible scenario as far as sleeping and eating beforehand.

Which makes you wonder why I’d accept a last-minute invitation to my friend Yvonne’s for dinner where I was self-forced to drink 3 glasses of wine plus a touch of Sambuca before joyfully (drunkly) plopping into bed. I did manage to be asleep by midnight, so the sleeping part was a success, but I could have done without the boozy carb-load.

I was also psyched about the forecast (woo! supposed to be 67 degrees at 7am, can’t wait!!) That turned out to be bogus. When I left the house at 6:30 it was 77 w/heat index so any extra weather induced speed wasn’t happening in my neighborhood. Pooh.

I got my handheld, filled my gel-flask with a couple gels and a bit of water, slapped a visor on my head and left for my MP adventure.

During the 3 warmup miles, I took the occasion to finally use, for the very first time, a porta-potty in the park. It was all I imagined and less. Seriously, I have never seen one filled so precariously high. Disgusting.

As you can imagine from the prelude, I was whining for most of the run, thinking woulda, shoulda, coulda and “damn, this is harder than I thought it’d be”. It was pretty disconcerting, to be honest. At one point, I told myself, “there’s no whining in Marathon Training” which shut my addled brain up for about a mile, but then it was back to it’s bitching and moaning and numerous decisions to downgrade my goal.

When I got tired of that, I made silent remarks to the many overflowing packs of Team In Training people who haven’t figured out that we all SHARE the bike path, bikers and runners, so staying on the right side like the signs tell you to (and as would common sense if a person had a clue), is the right thing to do. I was this close to plunging my elbow into one of those charitable white t-shirts.

I really shouldn’t have had that wine last night.

Despite all the grouchy inner chatter, I managed to complete the stupid run at the correct pace, 8:22 (I needed 8:23) and that included stopping to refill my bottle once and stopping to pick up some car keys a runner in front of me dropped, and then getting them back to her.

Now that I’m back home and looking at my logs and thinking about it more, I’m not ready to switch my goal just yet. My friend Joe, who is speedy as hell (3:09 marathon) and who did Pfitzinger too, said it wasn’t till the VO2max work came into play that his pace felt more doable, so I’m going to resist comparing myself to a couple speedy gal-pals in my Women’s BQ thread who report their MP runs are “comfortable” – their paces are more aggressive than mine to begin with. Besides, whenever I read about someone doing an MP run in the Marathon Training forum, “comfortable” is not a common adjective, so I’m not downgrading yet.

On an all-together different bummer note, I initially chose Steamtown because a couple RW forum friends were doing it, then I kind of talked my other forum buddies, Matt and Joye into doing it, too. The first two girls have already dropped out due to injury and now Matt has a strained calf that the doc says he has to stay off of until he can manage stairs comfortably (which I’m hoping with all hope will only be a week or so, at the most). If that’s not enough, Joye is having physical troubles as well. So here’s to Matt and Joye, please be healthy and get there with me, I’m rooting for us to get this thing done together and celebrate our first marathon with all the excitement and wonder we’ll have left in us. Be well, both of you!

Hey folks, just a quickie since it was a bland day running-wise. Did 6 recovery this morning. I wore my heart-rate monitor for the first time in months and had the lowest average HR I’ve ever recorded on a run, which almost made up for everybody passing me (recovery runs can be embarrassing that way). I do wonder, though, how people who do heartrate training as a long-term method can stand to wear those plastic straps for every summer run, much less 20-milers. Ich.

Tomorrow is a day off from running and a much needed trip to the beach with Nick and our friends Lara and Jeff, where I will show off my runner’s farmer’s tan, which couldn’t be more ridiculous. I’ve got a permanent sports bra on top, shorts on the bottom and those goofy white feet. Last year I cared. I even bought some self-tanner to attempt to fill in the holes, but this year I really don’t give a shit. What a relief.

Looks like the next few days are calming down as far as temperature, so that’ll be fabulous to deal with for the weekend runs. Can you believe we’re touching the end of summer already? Anyway, have great runs tomorrow for those of you on the move, otherwise, savor the day off and be a lazy bum, like me! It’s good for you, you know. Cheers, m’dears.

Tip for the day: If you wear a water belt or carry a handheld and you find the nipple is sticking, just rub a little vegetable oil on it or give it a squirt of Pam and work it up and down a few times. Works like a charm.

Today was a 15. The plan called for 14 but I’ve been adding a couple miles to my long runs and since this weekend is my first MP run and I’ll be damned if I’m going to make that any tougher, I figured I’d leave that as is and just add one measly mile today. No biggie, just stating this so if you’re doing Pfitz, you don’t wonder why my schedule looks a little weird.

I left at 6:30 and a few minutes after, it started pouring rain which lasted for maybe 15-20 minutes. It was wonderfully refreshing but I wasn’t thrilled, considering I had a long way to go in wet socks and shoes. But when the unexpected happens, you just have to chalk it up to something that could happen during the race, and deal with it. The wet socks didn’t bug me till mile 13, but once I got home, me and my pruney little toes were delighted to get those shoes off. Avg. pace for the run 9:22.

Do people ask you the same questions when they find you’re a runner? I always get “What about your knees? How are they doing?” which I find charming, as if that’s the only thing that can go wrong with a person’s legs, and “What do you think about when you’re running?”. This last question always leaves me stymied. I think about everything and nothing. I’m always “thinking hard” whether I’m sitting quietly or running, so it’s just more of what I’m always doing.

Today, one of the things I was thinking about is failure. I have this want: a want to BQ, to finish the marathon strong, and all I can do is train as well as I can and hope the weather and my body allow that to happen. But it’s true for a lot of people that, when looking at their training, are set for a successful marathon when something unforeseen happens that dashes that hope to the ground. At least for that day.

So I’m working on being prepared for failure, at the same time I’m working at succeeding. I want to cover all my bases and be circumspect if this time, it doesn’t go my way. I italicize “this time” because I really like italics, but mostly because when I signed up for Steamtown, I thought of this first one as a test to see if marathons are even for me. Now that I find myself thoroughly enjoying the training and the long runs and, well, everything about it…I know this is the start of a long love affair with the marathon.

But it spooks me to hear the constant warnings given to new marathoners, “don’t make a goal your first time, just enjoy it, blah blah blah”. It’s almost as if you’re expected to fail. Which doesn’t make sense to me if you’ve trained correctly (ie. using a proper training plan and fulfilling all the required workouts and paces). What is it about a first time marathon that makes a well-prepared runner blow-up? I know it happens and could happen to me as much as anyone.

Which brings me back to what I was thinking about on my run today, preparing for failure. It’s probably not a smart thing to do in that it could mess with my head too negatively, but I’ve been imagining what it will feel like to not get my goal. In a way, this takes a pressure off, because my thinking self can relax and just know that blow-ups happen and the next marathon will, hopefully, be a chance to redeem myself.

Can you believe I’m already imagining the funeral for my goal? Yet all my paces are perfectly on track, no problems with any of the runs so far, but still…learning to give myself a break just in case.

No, I didn’t actually get any new ink, but check out my lower back from Sunday’s 21.

How ironic, I make a design about chafing in places you’ve never heard of and I end up doing just that to my own body.  I mean, who chafes on their lower back?  Is nothing sacred?  Shitty shorts, is what it was.   They were soaking wet the whole time and they have a pocket in the back that I had a couple gels in, which probably didn’t help, but I think the main offender was some poofiness of fabric surrounding the waistband elastic.  Anyway, it’s two days later and the tramp stamp is still there.  I’m a branded runner.

Moving along, last week my total mileage was 55, this week Pfitzinger takes it down a notch mileage-wise with a total of 48. Today was an easy-shmeasy, 6 recovery miles, tomorrow is a mid-long 15, then a couple more 6-mile recovery runs (Saturday’s with strides), then come Sunday…my first Marathon Pace run!  I’m looking forward to it, actually.  It’s also 15 but with 12 MP in the middle.  My MP at this point is 8:23 (for a 3:40 marathon), so we’ll see how it goes.

Today’s most fabulous song for recovery was Wild Sweet Orange’s “Ten Dead Dogs” It makes me really sad, but in that beautiful bittersweet way only a good breakup ballad can do.

21 for me today, woohoo, yay and all that jazz.

My original plan was to do exactly what I did last week, an easy 20 around my usual loop, but yesterday I realized that there was a huge Tri called SheRox happening on that route and would have meant I’d be circumventing huge clusters of people, so I went to Plan B, the trail.

The trail is 5.5 miles from my house, so half my trip was on road, half on the trail, the trail being a lot more challenging due to the gravel/rocky floor and constant ups and downs. Also, I realized on my 19 there a couple weeks ago that even though there’s a fountain at around my 9.5 mile mark, I’d still need to take two handhelds because while I can get there on one bottle, I end up drinking twice as much on the way back, and the next fountain is 7 miles away. It worked out fine though, I was grumbling a bit at the beginning for having to cart both, but stopped noticing them early on.

I was still planning on making it a 20 and in mile 9, I actually said to myself, “Flo…keep it at 20, you have nothing to prove, the fact that you’re doing this on the trail and keeping pace is enough”. But then I was on this new part of trail that I’d never been and there were all these other runners, so it was fun to explore and besides, then I could come home and type that I’d just run 21. You can’t see, but my head’s all puffed up now and it isn’t from salt supplements, just ego.

My avg for the run was 9:28, but once I was out of the trail and back on the sidewalk, my final splits were 8:50, 8:41, 8:47, 8:36 and 9:00 for my uphill mile home. I drank about 110 oz. total, stopping the clock for refills because I figure I deserved to since I was carrying that extra weight. Btw, today’s temps were pretty nice: 77-79, but less humid than usual.

Had 3 gels, tried Clif Shots for the first time, Apple flavor. Um, they’re kind of gross, much thicker than any other, but on the other hand, that lets it go down in two gulps, so that’s a positive. I also tried a Fruit Punch Hammer Gel which was downright disgusting, no positives about that. Ended with Carboom double espresso which I don’t care for too much either, but the big hit of caffeine was useful.

Carried music but left it off again as I have for my last few long runs. I’m coming to realize that in the quiet of the morning, I prefer silence and then as the run progresses, the idea of anything extra attached to my sweaty skin, like earbuds, becomes completely unappealing, so I think it’s time to start leaving it at home for the long ones.

Once I got home, I was going to take an ice bath, but at the last minute favored “active recovery” because Nick’s coming home from his week-long bike adventure today, so I just vacuumed the apartment.

I’ve gotta go out now and do an emergency shopping to right the wrong I did to my hair yesterday. I got a box of dye because it’s getting a little too red and light with the sun, so I thought I’d put a little brown back in. But I didn’t really look too carefully at the boxes when I was at the drugstore, just thought, hmmm…Clairol Natural Instincts, I’ve never tried that one before and Hazelnut looks like a pretty shade.

So imagine my surprise when, after I’ve got it on my head, I scan the directions for the first time to find that, instead of keeping it in your hair for 30-35 minutes, it’s very adamant about not doing it longer than 20. Weird, I think.

So while I’m waiting for the time to be up, I log onto my favorite beauty product review site, MakeupAlley.com to read what other women have to say about it and I notice people referring to having put it on damp hair. Huh? Not having read the directions, I didn’t do that. And in all those reviews, the women are saying to count time from the moment you start applying it because it comes out much darker than the box. So I run to the bathroom and rinse it out…too late, my hair looks like an 80 year-old man with his first box of Just For Men. Shoe black.

It turns out this dye is actually semi-permanent, not my usual permanent, thus all the different application directions. OK, semi is good, it means it’ll fade eventually, but I was freaking out yesterday thinking that if it’s semi-permanent, does that mean I’ll have black sweat streaks of dye pouring from my head on today’s run?

So I washed it like a madwoman a few times yesterday and today wore a black visor on the run, to hopefully catch any dark trickles, and luckily everything stayed on the hair. But now I have to go buy some Prell because it’s supposedly like detergent, the better to wash out some of this old-man goth hair I now have. What a dodo I am.

But before I go, I want to give a shout out to one of my resident readers/commenters, Jim E., who is at this very moment, running the San Francisco Marathon and as of the Half, is producing negative splits!! Yay, Jim, I’m so proud of you with such a hilly course, I’m rooting for you. Go, Jim, go. Woohoo, cowbells clang clang clang…

Another night of 4.5 hours sleep to get up early enough to beat the heat, or the illusion of beating it – in these temps, taming it is the best you can do. Like every night before a challenging run, I get a little excited of what the morning will bring and today with 11 miles and a 6 mile tempo thrown in the middle, was no exception.

I left the house at a really easy 10:18 which is funny in itself, since last year when I finally got into the 9s, I wouldn’t dare do 10 anything from that point on. Seriously, it wasn’t till this training cycle, when I’m trying to follow the correct way to T, that I’m finally going slower so I can go faster and by golly, the shit’s working!

I would have liked to have to started the tempo at 2 miles in, but because there are few fountains in the park and I didn’t want to interrupt the tempo portion if I could, I started at mile 3 so I could get my last sip at the fountain before the doing the deed. As usual, with these long Pfitz tempos, when I’m finishing that last warmup mile, I ask myself how in hell am I going to be able to do this, it’s almost 2 minutes faster that what I’m doing now and I’m not walking. Waaaahhhh.

Internal tantrums aside, I kicked it! Yuh-huh! My tempo avg was 8:02, splits were 8:05, 8:03, 8:02, 7:57, 8:04, 8:05. On an 80 degree morning with a thimble of sleep…I’ll take it!

One thing that helped is, you know I’d been leaving my music turned off recently? Last night I made a playlist especially for today’s run. I’ve been downloading a lot of fun stuff anyway, so I put 4 of the slower songs at the top, then a transition song, then the good stuff took me through the tempo. Favorite songs from this round are Idlewild’s “You Held The World In Your Arms” (not a great video, but the song is infuckingcredible) and Carolina Liar’s “Show Me What I’m Looking For”
(talk about an anthem! who wouldn’t want to run to those chimes, that choir…ah!).

Other than that, most of you probably know about the drama thread at RW since that’s where the bulk of you guys come from anyway and that thing sent over a ton of people yesterday. Anyway, just an amusing note about it all, a do-gooder poster let me know that he reported the thread yesterday to the admins because he thought the OP was a little unstable. I understood, but wanted the truth to be out, so didn’t really want the thread removed.

As it happens, the only fallout from the admins was a PM for me today, admonishing me for cussing in a thread with one of my oh-so-clever workarounds (in this case “fuc-king”, and if you see it in context, it’s completely justified). Actually I was pretty proud of that one (looks better than schit which I write for shit), but that’s cool. I understand their point. Happily, I have no such rules on this blog, so I want to say this (and I mean it in only the nicest possible way)…have a fucking fabulous Friday, each and every one of you. Later, babies.