Archive for May, 2009

Early bird caught the worm today (if a worm was a speed session and it was possible to catch).

Today’s fun was 1 x mile@5K pace, 1min rec., 6 x .25 miles @5k-3k pace w/1min rec’s. I didn’t look up what 3k pace was, just figured 5k or a little faster would get the job done right.  The first mile was 6:35 then the 1/4 miles paced at 6:32, 6:24, 6:28, 6:24, 6:36, 6:24.  Avg. pace for the entire speed portion – 6:29.

20:xx, I’m coming for you!

I lied.  I said I was only going to do one quality session/week for the next few months, but I have a 5K next weekend that is set to be my first sub21 (woohoo!), so I figured I might as well milk what I can out of training till then, so I stuck a tempo in on Friday.

It was a 9-mile run with 3 @ tempo targeting 6:52s.  It was 77 and humid and I started the first mile darting around meandering teenagers competing in yet another rowing event (graduate already!) so I ended up averaging 6:58s.  Eh, it was an “extra credit” tempo anyway, so I was happy with it, regardless.

Today’s run needed no excuses though, it was a super swell 12-miler, capping off a 66-mile week.  After a week of humid days in the mid/upper 70s, today’s 61 and cloudy was heaven, reaping me a 8:01 pace with a nice low avg. HR of 68% HRR.  My resting, btw, hit a new low this morning of 43, a welcome contrast to the entire month preceding my Half, when it remained elevated at 48, 49.

Back to movie gab, we saw Spellbound last night, about kids competing in the National Spelling Bee.  Kazz, you were right, it’s great – I laughed, I cried, I totally loved it.  Word Wars (the Scrabble one) is coming soon, though not before Bigger Stronger Faster which looks like huge fun – it’s a documentary about steroid freaks.  I can’t wait!

Movie. Finally saw one that’s been on my list for a few years…Wordplay.  It’s about crossword puzzlers – those who do them and those who make them.  It features Will Shortz of NYT crossword fame and follows a handful of nerdy/lovable hopefuls going for the grand prize at the 2005 Crossword Championship.  Loved it.

Bibs. Before my last race, I opened a conversation on the Women’s BQ thread concerning bib placement.  I’d been thinking about race photos and how I often have a case of radar nips.  While this might be a pleasant sight for a large part of the population, it squicks me out.  I’m not ashamed to admit I’ve photoshopped two or four.

I got to thinking, “what if I just pin my bib higher, so it covers up the area in question?”  Eureka!  But wait, would it look stupid?  So I do an image search on Google for Elite females and see that a majority of them pin their bibs higher, even when not necessitated by a short top.  So that’s what I did at Lehigh and it worked a charm.  No more radar nips – it’s all part of a big underworld lady secret.

Farts. Ever since I posted that Kashi Go Fart post back in December, Google’s been sending me visitors daily searching for “kashi farts” “cereal farting” and other keywords of that nature.   This afternoon, someone linked to it from a foodie site, Chowhound.com because he thought it funny (having found it on his own “kashi fart” quest) so I’ve had tons of folks coming to read it all day.  There’s something satisfying about being recognized for your farts.

Yesterday was gorgeous outside and I was having one of those incredible easy 10-milers where happiness oozes from your pores.  Around mile 5.5, I saw this guy I’ve been passing for over a year; huge black man, really tall and big around too, with a long beard that has a bright red dyed strip down the center of it.   He’s always out there in sweats and a skull cap, walking, and has never smiled or acknowledged me – a pretty imposing figure.

As I got closer, I could see his body had transformed over the winter, he was much smaller!  So I took a chance at rejection and said while passing, “You’ve lost a lot of weight, haven’t you?”  OMG, you’ve never seen someone beam so beautifully, “Yes, I sure did!”   I beamed right back, gave thumbs up and yelled “Great job!” as I ran on.  This little exchange made me feel so good (who doesn’t love a makeover and a sweet smile?) that I was on top of the world.

About a mile later, while on a swath of mud trail parallel to the bike path, lost in my runner’s joy, I tripped and fell flat on my face.   Priorities being what they are, my first instinct was not a full body check, but a scramble on my stomach to retrieve the Garmin that had flown off my wrist with the sole intent of pressing the Stop button because I am not counting this break into my run time.

The Garmin was still working fine – it was just the strap pin that came off, but my body was a little worse for wear with two bloody knees and various light puncture wounds.  I stood up, a bit shaken, and was able to run home at a fine clip, albeit with blood dripping into my new socks (damn).  Of course I had to pass throngs of people in this state because, along with the usual Sunday river strollers, there was a rowing event going on.

The wonderful news is, nothing’s seriously hurt.  My knee was killing me last night so I slept crappily and I have a weird bruise on the palm of one hand along with a misplaced stigmata hole on the other, but knock on wood, this is all surface stuff.  Also, I was able to reattach my Garmin strap by threading some monofilament through the holes, so I don’t have to go to a jewelry store for a replacement pin (jewelry stores weird me out, for some reason).

Today, I have 8 easy w/hill sprints planned but my knee is smarting a bit so I might tone it down.  One excellent thing though, they’re finishing up a major renovation around the Museum and a couple days ago, I discovered some steep ramps they built up to a gazebo.  The grades and lengths are absolutely perfect for hill sprints, so I don’t have to cross busy Kelly Drive to Lemon Hill any more.   Now, if they could just make a half-mile long hill for hill reps, I’d be really appreciative.

I took Monday off, then got back on the road Tues.  Probably should have been recovery pace, but I wasn’t hurting so it wasn’t happening.  I ended up with a 7-miler at 8:12, Wed was 8 at 8:03 then finally yesterday, helped by a killer dewpoint, I was better behaved with an 8.5 @8:49.

Yesterday was also my race hangover.  It was nothing unexpected; that comedown you feel when a big event is over (helped by some PMS, a bit of real life crap and a day of rain) made for one big ball of boohoo.   I also had a brand new set of apres-race dark thoughts that went a little something like this: “how long will I be able to keep this up?” “what if it ends soon?” “I’ll never be as fast as…”  Blah blah blah.

I eventually cheered up last night when I started copying my Marathon schedule from Hudson’s book into my running calendar and after that was done, filled in the blanks for the few months preceding it.   Having some type of schedule was all I needed to start dreaming and planning again.

I had originally thought I’d be doing 70mpw all summer, but some backing off to re-energize will be beneficial, so it looks like I’ll be 60 to 65 from now through June with one quality session a week.  I’ll have some 55 weeks, too, due to the 4 tentative races I have planned: a 5K in 3 weeks and in June there are 3 consecutive race weeks (a 5K, 5-miler then another 5K).  If it’s horribly hot, I’ll skip one or more.  Then July will get me back up to 70 with marathon training beginning the first week of August.

Now, a picture of Kat and I with Bart Yasso, taken at the Expo.

Plus my ugly race photo.  See the racers behind me?  They were in front of me as I turned the curve on the track but I kicked my heart out to pass them.  The annoying thing is I had my photo face on all through that damn kick and figured they’d already snapped the pic by the time I crossed the mat.  I look like an eel.

This was my second “away” race and even though it was only 1.5 hours away from Philly, I elected to get a hotel room so I wouldn’t have to drive on raceday morning. It turned out that Kat, a wonderful girl I met in 2007 at a Runners World FE dinner (FE=forum encounter, where you meet a forumite in the flesh) was also doing the race, so we decided to room together. This ended up being a major highlight of the weekend.

Saturday
We met up at 1pm, had our Expo perusing, went for lunch and as we were walking back to the hotel, found ourselves in the thick of the Saturday kids races. It was adorable, loads of kids divided by age-groups running their hearts out. I got all teary-eyed, comparing my own upbringing (completely devoid of sports) wondering “what if”, then we saw a little blind racing girl being guided to the finish which put us both in tears. Race nerves, hormones and the promise of youth, what a emotional combination.

Next we went to hear Bart Yasso talk about the course which turns out to be more rolling than I’d thought and is also on cinder trails for a few miles, so more potential slowdowns.   C’est la vie.

We go back to the room to rest for a bit before the pasta dinner, then Kat remembers the Kentucky Derby is about to start. Kat’s an avid horsewoman who teaches riding at a boarding school, so it was huge fun to have the kookiness of the Derby explained to me and what a race! The horse that won was a 50-1 longshot bought for $9500 and the jockey looked like a homeless guy.  They came out of nowhere to win by 7 lengths.  Perfect pre-race pump up!

Next was the pasta dinner, which was sadly without any vestige of meat (oh, how I longed for a lone meatball) but the speakers were great.  Amby Burfoot, editor of Runners World was there, which was special since the RW forums have been an integral part of my running from the get-go.  Then Bart Yasso gave an amazing slide presentation of all these insanely exotic races he’s run, from Kenya to India to the Antarctic and more (OMG, Badwater!).  So inspiring.

Meanwhile, our table mates gave us their interpretation of the course we’d be running.  More “oh yeah, there are hills in this race…”  Oh well.

We get to bed at a decent hour though whoever was in the room before us had the alarm set for 12am so it went off at midnight.  Damn.  Back to sleep and hazy dreams until 5:45.  Breakfast, a bus ride, some waiting around and it’s time to line up.

The Race

Kat and I hug and go to our respective start spots.  I line up midway between the 1:30 and 1:40 pacers.

While I’m waiting there, I see Amby Burfoot right in front of me, so I tap him on the shoulder and introduce myself as a RW forum freak.  He was incredibly sweet and friendly and when I tell him of my forum addiction, he pulls over another fellow racer, Mark Remy, the Online Editor of RW.  It was such a pleasure to chat with these guys, explain that I was here rooming with another forumite and what an impact RW online has been for me.  Honestly, it’s because of RW that I’m racing at all, so I am truly grateful.

Gun goes off and it’s a downhill start but my first mile is a slow 7:24 because I wasn’t warmed up (I skipped warmup because I’d gotten a heel bruise 3 days prior I didn’t want to aggravate).

I was wearing my HR monitor and while one half of me knows I shouldn’t have looked at it during the race, the other half thought it’d be useful, and that’s the half that won.  So the next miles were faster than planned because my HR was surprisingly low for the pace (83%). 7:04, 7:02, 7:08.  My goal was to keep the effort level even and flow with the course.  The next miles were  7:16,  7:14.  At the out-and-back, Kat sees me and calls out, looking strong.

Halfway through that last mile came the trails and rollers.  I’m slowing down, it’s feeling tough but my HR is staying steady and lowish still at 83%.  I’m unhappy about the splits but feel like I’m running a difficult effort and can’t afford to push it harder, plus I’m uber-aware of the hills coming up at 9 and 11 and the last evil one to the track for the finale.  7:16, 7:21, 7:32, 7:35, 7:23, 7:29.

Mile 13 I’m back on pace with a 7:13 and as I run up the last hill onto the track, I’m totally wiped.  On the track, however, I see females in front of me: must kill females in front of me.  I dig deep as I can and pull out a fast finish.  Last .13 was a 6:18 pace.  I was heaving for about 10 minutes afterwards and a guy I’d been racing with for the last couple miles complimented me on the kick.  As mentioned yesterday, final time 1:35:42.

It started to rain so I got a spaceblanket and cheered Kat’s finish.  She had a great race, though tinged with a sciatica bout on some of the hilly bits, poor thing.

We get food then look at the results – 14th female, first in my AG…I’m getting a prize!  Turns out to be my first Masters award (2nd place) netting me a statue and a check.  I realized yesterday that they gave me the wrong check though, I got a 3rd place check for $100 and it’s supposed to be $150, so that’s even better (provided it gets squared away).

Kat and I went back to the hotel for a shower (late checkout was 3pm, Holiday Inn rocks) and then to a restaurant for a final farewell drink where we decided we are great roomies and must find another traveling race to do together in the future.

Final Thoughts

About my finish time, I won’t lie, I was somewhat disappointed, fully expecting a sub 1:34.  But then, I expected a flatter course so I really can’t complain.  It’s all gravy at this point and good things will come, I just need to be patient (not my strong suit).

I can’t help but wonder if I was stupid using the HR monitor.  I truly can’t imagine having run a harder effort but it is disconcerting to see I averaged 85% and only peaked at 92% at the very end.  I won’t wear it at the Philly Distance Run in September but I’m glad I have the data.

I carried my small 12oz handheld so I didn’t have to stop at any stops, it also held the gel I ate at mile 8. Twas extremely convenient and I was relieved my crisis of “Do I take the bottle or leave it?” turned out to be a successful decision.

Future Thoughts

As of today, I have 6 months and 19 days before the Philly Marathon.  3:1x, here I come.