Today was my final workout, the standard mini one you do for raceweek. It went quite well, though because it’s a shorty I don’t draw any conclusions from it but it was a nice capper, to be sure.

The run was 8.24mi w/ 3x mile @Half pace w/ ¼ mile recoveries (which ended up being 2min each). The mile reps were a tad faster than Half pace: 6:58, 6:54, 6:53 and the whole run averaged 7:47.  What bodes well about this is that it was 74 degrees with 64 dewpoint but a cold-front is moving in and Sunday morning looks to be around 57 with no humidity.  Huge difference from any of my tempos this summer.

So now all there is to do is taper.  The next few days go 6, 5 w/strides, rest day, 4 w/strides, race.  Gulp.

Race Goals
I’m not going to go into it too much but I’m nervous as hell.  I’ve had some strong running this season but please don’t think for a second that I’m sure of myself or think this weekend is a lock for anything, I’ve had too much weirdness in my racing to ever know what to expect.  Loopy mental state aside, here’s what I’m looking at for goals…

A Goal: sub 1:32
B Goal: sub 1:33
C Goal: PR (under 1:33:51)

I’ve been training with 7:00 as my goal pace, so that’d be 1:31:42 – I would love that.  While you might think “Dang girl, you ran all those miles and all you think you can do is sub 1:32?  Hardly seems worth it.” But to me it’s much more than that.  Remember, my PR is from 2009 and last year the best I could do was 1:34:40, so this is now a 2-year catch-up game.

I want to say this about whatever happens: whether I fuck it up or run a great race, those miles were important.  Not only did they make me a much better runner (I’m not commenting on how good a racer I am, the jury’s out on that) but beyond aerobic conditioning, increased efficiency and breaking an interminable plateau, I’ve enjoyed the experience thoroughly.  Even the few runs that sucked, and there were so few, were necessary to the experience.  I’ll hark back to my 99% post because that is what this season was for me (and the percentage has even gone up due to the increased mileage, lol).

Age-Grading Update
While playing around with the Age Grade calculator, I’ve noticed that the numbers are different from what they used to be.  The percentages I mentioned a couple posts ago that apply to my goals are correct but my old AGs scattered around this blog in various old posts are now obsolete. Not a big deal since they’re only good for the year in which you run the race anyway and I’m about to get me some fresh results, but anyway…

I noticed the Half percentages in particular seemed quite a bit tougher and after some investigation, discovered that in 2010 there was an update for women’s Age-grading factors (this takes you to part of a much larger page so if you scroll, you can see info for men as well).

As a general note, be aware that when you do use an AG calculator some still use older factors so they’ll seem more generous percentage-wise.  I like the one from Runnersworld but this one is also good (it’s the source one actually, but has an uglier interface).

My Latest Goofy Purchases
What I’m about to discuss will seem ridiculous to people with houses or washers/dryers in their apartment, but I’ve a feeling my fellow city apartment dwellers will understand…

All summer I’ve come home (as most as you have) with sopping wet running clothes.  In the Blue Hovel, I’d wring them out in the sink, then hang them till dry enough to throw in the hamper the next morning.  In my new apartment however, they take longer to dry especially when it’s rainy and damp stuff can turn into smelly stuff.  Summer maybe be over but my running clothes are sweaty year-round so it’s not just a seasonal situation.

So I started checking out portable spin dryers and found a dandy little countertop spin-dryer.  My original idea was just to dry my sweaty clothes so I could put them in the hamper immediately.  According to the reviews, this mini dryer gets nylon-based clothes completely dry whereas cotton ends up mostly dry (dryer than a regular washer’s spin cycle but still slightly damp).  Btw, while you never want to put your running clothes in a dryer because heat will mess with wicking fabric and make your stretchy stuff crispy, this thing works with centrifugal force, like a big salad spinner, thus no harm to the fabric.

After I decided to purchase the thing, I started thinking about washing clothes as well because trekking down to the basement to throw a bunch of quarters in somebody else’s washer/dryer has never been my idea of fun, so if I can lessen that need, all the better.

Thus, I began to investigate mini washing machines, of which there are two popular types.  One is electric, the Wonder Washer, while the other has a hand-crank and, hilariously enough, is called Wonderwash.  I didn’t know that washing clothes could be so filled with Wonder, but apparently it is.  I can only imagine the lawsuits that went down between those two.

Anyway, I watched a bunch of YouTube videos on both, even a newscast review of the hand-cranking one, plus read a ton of reviews and comments.  Ultimately, I decided against either of them for a few little reasons but also because they don’t rinse your clothes, you have to fill the receptacles again and repeat the process to rinse. Seemed too much of a production if I’m to retain my lazy-ass status.

However, in those reviews I read about an alternative low-tech item, the Breathing Mobile Washer.  It’s incorrectly named Rapid Washer at Amazon.com(the Rapid Washer is metal and rusts but I’m linking to it so you can read the reviews if you’re a review reader like me).  It’s basically a souped-up plunger that seems easier to deal with than the two mini washing machines and supposedly gets clothes cleaner, too.  Also, you can use it in the bathtub, sink or bucket…whatever size vessel you want for the job.

Together, it should totally lessen my need for the basement washer/dryer downstairs, appealing to my lazy self while saving money and keeping damp duds from laying about as well.  I’ll post a review on them next week after I’ve used them a couple times.  Supposed to get them tomorrow…I’m so excited!

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