Archive for November, 2010

Speedwork today.  6x.5 miles w/2min rec’s, chosen because it’d been 4 months since I’d done a 5k pace workout and I was really curious to see where I stood.  Fully prepared for a rusty one, I was hopeful that my speedier paces of late might account for something.  That, they did.

Splits were 3:16, 3:17, 3:15, 3:17, 3:13, 3:16, avg pace 6:30.  The fastest set of those I’ve ever done.  Total for the run with wu/cd was 7.5 mi @ 7:48.

So, what does this mean? It means I am officially back on the PR prowl again.  Finally.

My Goal For Carlsbad
I’m going to go ahead and say it now, because it’s the magic number for the next few weeks…7:05 pace, which comes out to 1:32:47.  Now, I need to also say that if it’s a warm day (because it is California and it could happen) then I’ll have to dumb it down on race day, but all my quality for the next couple months will have that race pace in mind.

I actually picked the goal a couple days after the Philly Half, thanks those final 7:05s feeling like they did.  But I still need to grow more – the course is supposedly more rolling than Philly and I want to keep the effort dial on 9.5, not go anywhere near 11, so I think that with 8 weeks of steady work, I’ll be in a good position to do it.

Owning New Paces
OK, I find the whole “owning” terminology a little psychobabbely, New Agey, but it’s really the best way I can think of to describe accepting new paces as mine and that I deserve to run them.

I’ve talked about this before, that I envision paces and pace ranges as hands on a clock face, which is pretty funny considering I haven’t owned anything but digital clocks for years. But anyway, I can “understand” the paces I personally come in contact with but anything faster, it’s like that great New Yorker cover, only instead of empty geography, time is the blank.  Anything faster than 6:30, I could not, or would not bother to comprehend.  Why would I?  My clock’s been stuck for so long.

That’s not to say I haven’t touched the 5:xx’s a few times, I have, but that was in strides and Billats.  And I’m not talking about 30 seconds of fast, I’m talking about intervals with some meat on them and 5K race paces that land in the 2nd quadrant of 6 o’clock.  I’ve held off on going there in my mind because what if I never got to have it?  That would suck.

But now I can see some movement ahead.  Like the excitement I felt when I was in the 7:xx’s peering at 6:xx’s till they became real and normal, it’s not ridiculous for me to start envisioning paces between 6:15 and 6:30 – a new area of the clock I can call home, that I can possibly get to own.  It blows my mind.

I’ve been doing the zippier pace thing now for a little over a month.  In that time, I’ve often averaged faster than McMillan’s suggested range, but since heart rate is my alternate pace policeman, I’ve still remained in the “legal” zone for general aerobic runs. (as refresher, I’ve been shooting for 150-160, which comes out to 76-81% MHR or 68-75% HRR)

I haven’t worn it all the time since I know my effort level now and this week I eschewed the monitor completely, preferring to run freely without any excess numbers or “shoulds”.  I just wanted a fun week of whatever felt good.

Then today comes and it’s beautiful out, little wind, I was going 11 miles, so an excellent day to check heart rate.  I was really curious to see what it’d show since the whole week had felt so comfortable.

Result:  Fastest pace/lowest HR combo I’ve ever had.  Ever had.  Not some whiny “since last year” or “compared to when I was faster”.  Ever.  Hah!  I averaged 7:51 @ 157 avg. (73% HRR).

What does this mean?  The plateau is officially, 100%, don’t let the door hit you on the way out, over.  Here’s the week as it went:

M – 6@8:57 (race recovery)
T – 8@8:10
W – 8@7:54
T – 9@8:09 (low 40s and it snowed!  Later, a scrumptous Tday feast at Lara and Jeff’s)
F – 9@8:14
S – 6@8:33 (30+mph  gusts of wind, I did not enjoy this one)
S – 11@7:51 (157 HR…sweet)
Total: 57mi

I’ll end this section admitting that, silly as it is, I still feel guilt for running sub-8s on my GA runs though according to my heart rate, I have every right to own that pace.  Note to self: Will you please, please stop comparing yourself to others? And remember to buy peanut butter.

Why I hate these photos
When I first saw my race photos from Sunday’s Half, I had a minor major freakout.  What is this horrible overstriding I’m seeing?  I spent months working on my gait and thought I had it under control!  How depressing to think I’d deluded myself this whole time.  Then there’s my funny little hand, looking like I’m carrying an imaginary flag…

But after a bit of contemplation, I realized a couple things:

1. All the photos they took of me are at the end of the race at mile 13 and the finish line.

2. I checked out photos of the reigning local master phenom, Doreen McCoubrie (also 49 years old, who finished this race in 1:23) and at that same spot she’s doing the same thing, though from the rest of her photos, that’s not her usual stride.

If that woman, a World Class athlete who competed in the Olympic Trials in 2008 can reach her leg forward at the end of a race, then I’m not going to let it worry me.  Besides, I’m not touching down with that straight leg, I’m still in flight – if I was really a “braker”, then the heels of my shoes would have way more wear on them than they do.

It might be my leadup to hop over the mat or it could be that I extended my stride because the finish line was so close.  Whatever.  I’m sure that’s not how I ran the bulk of the race so I’m giving myself a pass.

Why I love these photos
This is the home stretch, the last .1 of the race!  I don’t look pretty, in fact I’m totally sneering in the second one thanks to the sun in my eyes, but damn, do you see me heaving?  Do you see me fighting for air or looking like I’m struggling for anything?  No, ladies and gents, you do not!  And with my last 5k averaging 7:05s?  Headroom, babies!  I had real headroom on this one.

2 steps from the 13 mile mark

The 13 mile mark

Finished!

About the imaginary flag, I decided it’d look cooler if I make shadow puppets when I race.  So far I’m rockin’ the bunny and swan but will spend the next 8 weeks perfecting Abe Lincoln.  This form stuff is so hard.

It’s no secret, my favorite running shoes are the Kinvaras by Saucony.  I’ve been asked a few times what kind of wear I get from them – a few people have said they seem to wear out faster than their other shoes.  Not so for me.  While my Mizuno Inspires and Elixirs got crispier in the forefoot as they neared 400mi, the Kinvaras continue to feel good and show very little wear & tear on the outside.  That said, I’m a petite woman, so a 170lb. guy will likely have a different experience.

The pink pair has 430 miles on them and the blue pair conveniently has half of that, 222 miles, which makes for a handy comparison.

Click ‘em for detail.

Heel

Midsole

Forefoot. Please excuse the green goose shit stain.

Because Jeremy asked...Operation Toe Freedom continues to work wonderfully - right pinky toe is happy. For the record, there is nothing weird with my little toe, but for this particular shoe I wear a smaller size than usual and my right little toe was rubbing against the trim strip, thus the surgery.

Talk about a fast recovery.  Monday I had 6@8:57 and that was all I needed.  Yesterday, my legs were back to normal – 8mi @ 8:10.  Surprised at how comfortable it felt, I was downright effervescent by the time I got home.

It’s a nice break, this week, not having any quality on the menu, just easy running, though mileage will be pretty good: mid to upper 50s.  Then next week I’m back to work for the Carlsbad Half Marathon in January, giving me another of these cute 8 week “cyclettes”.  They’ve worked out great -  long enough to make a dent but not so long that your focus gets hazy or you lose momentum.

Winter to Spring
I realized yesterday that I hadn’t even begun to think of plans beyond Carlsbad.  While I could do another Half, that’d be 4 in a row with the same type of training and I’m a lover of variety, so that wasn’t thrilling me.  Then it hit me that one thing I’ve never done and that would fit beautifully with my recent post on Top End Speed, is to spend a full cycle working on even shorter races than Halfs.

So this is the plan: starting in February I’m going to specifically train for a couple of my favorite 5Ks, which’ll include racing a 5-miler and 10k.  The cycle will culminate with Philly’s famous 10-mile race, the Broad St. Run on May 2nd.   So I’ll start by focusing on the faster end, then stretch it out for Broad St.

This works out really well since

1. I get a change of pace (yuck yuck).  I’ll keep up the mileage since I really love the amount I do (around 60mpw) but this’ll mean shorter/faster interval distances and tempos.
2. I get to zero in on that untapped top end which is good because I wasn’t sure how I was going to fit those zippier workouts in this next Half cyclette – now I’ll just wait to focus it after January.
3. A real concentration on shorter/faster is bound to give my running a dramatic boost for the rest of the year (if only I could make summer go away…sigh).

And that’s the plan, man!   It’s exciting to have something new ahead and one where endurance isn’t the main focus for a change.

I’m back.

Here’s the dirt, corrected since my Facebook post:
1:34:40
277/8404 OA
60/5369 F
5/387 AG (awards go 5-deep so apparently I won something)

Today was major, major.  No PR (you all know I wasn’t shooting for one) but the way it played out couldn’t have been better.

Saturday
was a day for my 2 favorite race roomies to arrive at the Blue Hovel: Audra and Kat.  We went to the Expo, had a huge dinner of my new favorite pre-race meal: mushroom cheeseburger and sweet potato fries.  Kat and I kept worrying about what to wear since the weather was going to be 33 windchill (turned out to be a perfect 42 degrees).  I ended up in a light longsleeve, capris and throwaway gloves.

The race plan
was to not have a plan.  7:12s.  That was all I was thinking.  I knew there were 3 hills in this race and that I’d run up ‘em slower, but I’m finally recognizing that I’m good at downhills, so as long as what goes up goes down, I figured I’d be ok.

I didn’t even work out a single split in advance to write on my hand, no “where I should be at 5K, 10K, etc”.  I am where I am when I get there.

The Corral Crazy
I park myself in the back of the first corral and while waiting, get into a strange conversation with a super skinny girl who is shivering uncontrollably, though dressed in 2 shirts, tights, hat and gloves.  I rub her arm exclaiming “You’re freezing!” which starts her talking non-stop, eventually getting to this:

“I should probably be farther back because I’m going slower than when I signed up”
Me: “what are you aiming for?”
Her: “was going for a 1:35 but am going for 1:45 now”
Me: “yeah, you should move back”
Her: something I can’t understand and “…I have a stress fracture in my foot right now but…” more wacky talk I can’t understand
Me: [finally realizing girl is a nut-job, surreptitiously finds another place to stand]

Salvation In Balloons
My first mile is slow, around 7:31 but I’m cool with it, I want to remain calm and collected today.  In that mile, I can see the 3:10 pace group ahead of me and while it hadn’t occurred to me to go with a pacer, I recognize the leader is PacerChris from the Runners World forums.  Cool.  Since I’m going for 1:34:xx, I realize I can stick with the group and then at the end make a break for it, since Half of 3:10 would be 1:35 and I figure he’s going to be close to that at the Half.

This turns out to be a smart decision.  The Garmin is unreliable downtown so I tend to worry about pace in the initial miles and having a group to focus on was brilliant for keeping my thoughts neutral. Additionally, 3:10 was almost all men going for their BQ, so having marathoners around doing their more comfortable pace helped me stay comfortable as well.  And did I mention it was almost all men? ;-)

I was so focused on sticking with those guys, I didn’t even pay attention to any mile markers till I eventually left the group.  (I noticed my first mile marker at mile 10, lol).  Also, the uphills that really bothered me last year were suddenly not so heinous, maybe it’s the group mentality but it was a major confidence boost.

The downside of the group was that it was quite large and I didn’t do well on tangents because I was more intent on staying as close to the guys as possible, which required more weaving than I’d have done on my own.  Also, when I did the water stops (which went quite well today, my second time going bottle-less) it was a little anxiety-driven of “must not let them get ahead” but at the same time “must drink properly”.

On My Own Again
Around mile 8.5 or so, I saw that sweet downhill just waiting for me, so I decided to make a break for it.  My thought was that the pace group would probably catch back up to me on the last uphill but I hoped they wouldn’t.  And they didn’t!  It was also lovely having all that space suddenly around me instead of all those heels and legs so close.

Now that I was on my own and reveling in the fact that everything was working so well, I had no idea how fast I was going since I hadn’t been paying attention to the markers, but when I finally synced it back up at mile 10, lovely low 7s showed up.  This was wonderful!

On top of this and even more happy-making was that my breath was unusually good for the whole race.  No labored or embarrassing loudness (which is my usual M.O. even when not on the verge of collapse).  I felt more in control and strong than I’ve ever done in a Half.

I make it up the last and worst hill and as I wend my way around on the flat, can’t wait to cruise the final downhill to fly out onto the last 2.5 mile stretch.  From that point to the end, my thoughts are “hold on, just keep feeling this way, you don’t have to go faster, just hold on.” Amazingly, as the distance dissolved, instead of my usual “how much longer, am I almost done yet?!” it was “wow, it’s almost over already!”  Sure, I was ready to be done, but I wasn’t dying to be done.

Gels & Water Stops
I brought 2 gels, and had one at mile 6ish but when it came time for the 2nd, I opted for a few sips of Gatorade instead because I didn’t want to deal with the packet.  I used 3 water stops total, the first one I walked a few steps to make sure I drank the entire cup (because I’d just had that gel) but the next two were less thorough.

Finish
The coolest part of the finish was that a friend of mine, Kev, a local runner dude who puts on races around here and is an all-round sweet guy, was the volunteer who put the finisher’s medal around my neck!  That was extra special.

Final Thoughts
I went for 7:12′s and got 7:13′s.  Since I hit the lap button at mile 10, I know for a fact (assuming that marker was placed correctly) that I finished the final 3.1 in 21:58…that’s 7:05′s!  This is huge for a gal whose Indian name should be Girl Who Dies At End Of Races.

Add to this that today’s course was harder than the PR race yet I ran it more comfortably, indicates that I am indeed back in PR shape!  Not to say “I could’ve PRd if only…”  I needed that pace group today, I needed to feel what a racing body should feel like at the right effort. I needed the way this day went.  It was perfect.

I still don’t think I’m the greatest racer and if left completely to my own devices, I’d have had some anxious moments and very likely been slower during those first few miles, but I can learn and improve.  The main thing is that the fitness is there and I’m on the upswing.  The shit 14 months are over.  I’m back.

Grrrr
Someone made $900 of bogus online purchases on my debit card this week, entailing long phone holds to get it squared away, lack of a working card for a few days, and the general freakout that money leaving your account creates.

My veggie burger toe looks like it ran a marathon, nice purple nail.  Hurts a bit normally but not bad running, though I could feel it with my strides yesterday.  I’m not worried about it for the race though, it’ll be fine.

Life/Love thoughts have been messing with me this week, brought on by the hormonal wonderland that is Lady Time, I’m sure.  I think it probably falls under Lust Angst more than Life/Love Angst though, so nothing serious, just…angst.

Some stupid flashback of last Fall’s evil neighbor drama happened the night before last (though nothing even approaching the misery of that story, thank god).  The idiot girl who lives above me – not directly above but the one next to her – so named “The Idiot” because she kept putting her trash out after the trash people came (they only come once a week) so other people had to clean up her messes…anyway, she was up to something the other night, going up and down the stairs for a couple hours, making a lot of noise past midnight. I didn’t say anything about it except for a muttered “shut the fuck up” while lying in bed.

The next morning I wake up to a note under my door telling me I was rude to make so much noise tromping up and down the stairs.  Even though the author (the girl below me) had the offending party wrong, it really bugged me that I was being called out for it.   I wrote a nice note saying it wasn’t me and that it was the idiot above.

About an hour later, The Idiot makes a couple more up and downs and I open my door to say the neighbor below left me a note “just so you know”, and the girl got this deer in the headlights look, like she’d stolen something and said “My friend was here from Michigan and I brought her suitcase up”.  WTF?  I have decided that either she was moving someone in (though I didn’t hear another voice) or that her 20-year-old self looked in the mirror and thought she was fat, so she went up and down the stairs for 2 hours.  I’m leaning toward the latter.

Purrrr
My gal-pals Audra and (hopefully) Kat will be here on Saturday, staying with me to spectate and/or race.  Kat’s deal is up in the air, thanks to an unexpected case of shingles, of all things, but I’m hoping she gets here at least.

After the race is a gathering of RWOL and FB folks at a local bar, only a couple whom I’ve met in the flesh before, so I’m looking forward to it.  Hope to see my local cuties, the Knast twins and Peggy there, too – it’d be cool to get to talk to you gals longer than a millisecond.

I’m calm about the race, just taking it for what it ends up being, which will if nothing else, supersede the memory of the collapsing Half.  That alone will be worth its weight in gold.  The weather looks stellar, btw.  NOAA says 40 degrees and 3mph wind.

I got a new iPod Shuffle, my 3rd one, having fried the first two with sweat.  I have a Creative Nano for my fallback mp3 player when I’m between Shuffles.  Because it sits a bit off the waistband, it doesn’t have the frying problem, but it’s a bit trickier to use thanks to a minuscule wheel that doubles as a button.  Plus you have to change the format of iTunes songs to mp3s to play them on it.  Not that I take music out all the time, probably on 1/4 of my runs, but I do love the simplicity of the Shuffle.

Been getting some great voiceover jobs recently and have been told by several different people at the company that does the medical learning modules that I’m the company favorite and “No wonder everyone loves working with you”, which is oh so flattering.  And I just now got a call for a long non-medical job next month with a new (big) client.  Between that and all my other little streams of income, I’m making more moolah now so hopefully, I will leave the Blue Hovel without a look back when my lease expires next Fall.