As you know, my running schedule these days is very loosey goosey but I do have a general idea of how I want the week to go.  What’s nice is that since it’s all “just running” I can switch it around to suit the weather or work or how I’m feeling that day.  So the week was planned to be 85 miles.  On Friday I did a 15 miler.  That left me with Saturday and Sunday to get 24 in.

Since today (Sunday) was supposed to be thunderstorms, I went 14 yesterday so I’d only have to do 10 today.  Turns out the thunderstorms were delayed and when I got out there, I felt pretty damn good!  So I just kept going.

I should mention that my paces this week are slower in general but not from the mileage increase.  The heavy-legged days turned out to be the same story as last month…PMS.  But unlike last month, it didn’t linger beyond the expected timeframe, so if iron was the culprit as I suspect it was, the supplementation and beef I’ve been eating have in fact helped.

The other slowdown was a purposeful choice made over the last couple days.  Not that I was denying myself any sub8 runs – I wasn’t feeling that peppy this weekend, but I’m trying to be careful about potential hazards that could come with pushing the mileage envelope (or I should say, the singles envelope because that’s what makes it a bit tricky).  I think there’s a potential for injury from clumping together a 15, 14 and 15 on consecutive days, at least while I’m in this “getting acquainted” stage.  So yesterday and today especially, I was trotting along at such a comfortable rate that even the suck of a dewpoint didn’t bother me one bit.  How things are changing!

The Time It Takes
I had a nice cup o’ joe yesterday with my pal Judy from the Women’s BQ Forum, she was in town and it was fun to catch up.  One thing she asked me was “How long is all this running taking you?” and when I told her 11 hours and change, she thought that was a lot (as I’m sure lots of people will).  FYI: this week, with the extra miles and slower paces, came out to 12:37, but the norm will be closer to 11:30.  Anyway, here’s my take on it…

I remember in my 20s when I went to a gym a few times a week.  I’d travel to the gym, change clothes, do a 1½ hour step class or “cardio” and then the machines, take a shower, get dressed and travel back home.  That had to have taken over 3 hours total.

Now I know a lot of you guys go to a gym in addition to your running or you get massages or spend a lot of time stretching or maybe you cross-train in the pool or cycle, etc.  All I do is run, so comparatively, it’s not really that much time spent.  And of course, I have no people commitments and my work is on my own terms, which makes it easier still.

Back To Beef
I’m on a huge mushroom burger kick now and what makes it particularly satisfying is that, thanks to the amount of running I’m doing, I can shove more food into my pie hole.  Ordinarily, if I was to eat a home-cooked burger, I wouldn’t have a starchy side dish with it because the burger and bread alone would comprise a good amount of calories.  But I was wandering down the frozen foods aisle of Whole Foods a couple weeks ago and on a whim, bought a bag of Alexia Spicy Sweet Potato Fries.

Oh My God!  They are now my favorite side dish in the whole wide world.  They’re frozen fries that bake up crispy in the oven or toaster oven (my weapon of choice) in 20 minutes.  The non-spicy ones are also very tasty, but these are my fave.  Best part is they’re not calorically dense or deep-fried like normal fries and are actually good for you!

Dinner at The Blue Hovel has improved a lot lately; I’m cooking more now.  Gone are the boxed dinners from Trader Joes I was so tethered to during my weight-loss phase last year.  Not that I’ve stopped shopping at Trader Joes…

One of my favorite T.Js items are their bags of 4 chicken breasts; I cook ‘em all at once and then add some to salads, quesadillas (another new addiction), etc. for the next few days.  It’s also handy to have some chicken in the fridge for right after a run when you need a bit of protein for recovery.

But what makes T.J.s bags of chicken so special isn’t the price (which is great) or the chicken itself (which is very tasty), but the packaging.  Gone is the usual styrofoam tray with that stinky diaper pad at the bottom – it’s just a bag.

Because living in a city apartment where they only collect garbage once a week, those chicken diapers start to smell like dead people after a couple days even if you rinse it out thoroughly – which is a disgusting exercise unto itself.  No longer must I walk the city streets in search of a dumpster or municipal trash bin to stealthily dispose of my smelly chicken wrappings.  Quality of life has been restored.

The Week In Running
My toe finally stopped hurting on Monday – I thought that was never gonna end!  And I had a bit of weirdness on Friday’s run when I stopped to adjust my shoe and soon after got a wicked side stitch that had me starting and stopping about 6 times until it finally abated.  Saturday was a nice rainy run and temps for the week were mostly mid-70s.

Monday: 9@8:15
Tuesday: 12@8:18
Wednesday: 14@8:10
Thursday: 11@9:02
Friday: 15@8:30
Saturday: 14@8:20
Sunday: 15@8:20
Total: 90 mi (avg pace 8:25)

My Current State
Even with the exhaustion weirdness, I am loving the way things are going.  My legs have been carrying me with only a few minor and fleeting complaints, nothing lasting more than a day or two.  And while I jot down a loose mileage schedule, more often than not I’ve been getting to the turnaround mark thinking “This feels good, I’ll keep going”.  That’s why the increase has felt so comfortable, it’s been a pretty organic process.

I do, however, have this ridiculous negative mental remnant concerning the size of my runs and my resistance to doubles, that I’m doing something wrong/bad.  But my legs feel strong (haven’t been stretching or foam-rolling) so there’s no reason to think I’m going to get injured, in fact, it seems like this consistency would have the opposite effect.

I guess it’s my good-girl guilt for eschewing training methodology’s “best practices” and letting what I see in my log – a bunch of 12s and 14s – influence me.  I suppose I’ve only to look upon Ed Whitlock’s training (2-3 hours/day of .3 mile loops in a cemetery at a “plodding” pace) or Yoshihisa Hosaka’s quality-filled 20mi/day, every day, to be reminded that people do take different routes to this running thing and that being older does not equal fragile.

Last Week’s Running (featuring a body in the river)
Monday was the sludgiest of the week.  I wore my heart rate strap to see if it my heart was being affected by this weirdness and yep, it was.

Tuesday, I ran a little after 11am and at one point, saw tons of policeman on the other side of the  river.  I also passed a guy with a  long lens camera taking photos and helicopters were flying overhead.  It totally slipped my mind till later that day when my friend Steph texted me to say they’d found a body floating in the Schuylkill.  I guess I was there about an hour after she was discovered.  Here’s the story, extremely tragic circumstances.  So now in my beautiful park, I’ve seen a dead man hanging from a tree and the aftermath of pulling out a decomposed body.  That’s a rather high ratio of death within a half-mile of each other, don’t you think?

Wednesday, I thought I might manage 14mi but when I got to the 6mi mark, reconsidered and turned around.  Wasn’t feeling 100% yet and didn’t want to chance an Ugh.

Thursday was such a tired day from the get-go.  I tried to nap but couldn’t, went to a voiceover job, did errands, was truly exhausted once home so I expected my run to be on par with Monday’s trudgery.  But no!  Once I hit the road (at 4:30, unusually late for me) I got an unexpected energy infusion and ran a handy 14-miler feeling like my old self again.  Whew, finally.

Friday was a planned 10, but with rain and thunder lurking in the forecast for the next couple days I took advantage of the dry sky, extending it to 12.  I wore my HR monitor hoping to see a more normal result and was pleased to find it in the proper ballpark again.

Saturday was an easy 10, what I consider a recovery run.  Even though I don’t have any hard workouts to recover from, I’m mindful of being chill when I need to (like after 2 “feel like my old self” runs preceded by a week of feeling like shit).

Today was a salty 16-miler, 83 degrees out but I held up well.  I started quite stupidly, going out too fast the first 4 miles (8:15-7:37? idiot).  Realizing I would pay for this later, I calmed down a ton, which is good because it was frickin’ hot. I think the energy was due to the previous night’s pigout with Fran.  We had fried calamari, pasta w/pesto cream sauce, pizza, several alcoholic beverages and tons of candy when we got home (which we decided must never happen again…it was Intervention-worthy).  I didn’t eat anything all day and ran at 3pm.  I’m still full.

Monday: 9@8:43 (HRR 65% 146)
Tuesday: 12@8:32
Wednesday: 12@8:20
Thursday: 14@8:06
Friday: 12@8:11 (HRR 68% 149…more like it)
Saturday: 10@8:21
Sunday: 16@ 8:16
Total: 85 mi (avg pace 8:20)

Iron Talk
Whatever ailed me lasted a week.  I’m not sure if it was a slight iron deficiency but suspect it was due to the timing, so I’ve been eating lots of beef and taking iron twice a day (with vitamin C for absorption) plus a multi-vitamin.

The interesting annoying thing about beef, btw, is that a 4oz burger only has about 20% of the RDA…not very much!  Same with spinach; eat a whole bag and it still won’t cover your daily requirement.  So while I plan to eat beef 2-3 times a week from here on in, I’ll also keep taking one Iron cap & Vitamin C before bed because you can’t take it with caffeine or with calcium or… Pain in the ass mineral, is iron.

I should mention that from past ferritin tests (taken when I was doing less mileage), I know I’m not in danger of iron overload.  Iron is something you have to be careful taking unsupervised (you shouldn’t) because it can be toxic so don’t you kids go taking iron willy-nilly.   End of public service announcement.  Though I did enjoy writing “willy-nilly”.

I’m still on fish oil (probably forever) but stopped taking glucosamine and msm about 3 weeks ago with no fallout.  I had a short bout of knee pain from jumping over deep puddles when I should have tromped through, but it went away after a couple days.  Gotta say, the old lady is holding up pretty darn well.

Now, on Wednesday, as expected, I had an incredibly vibrant run but Thursday was rough.  That night I slept 11 hours and then had to take a nap after Friday’s run (which started well, btw, but became exhausting halfway through).  Saturday was better but Sunday was another slogfest – I had expectations of doing a 15-miler but had to turn around at the 5mi mark.

I’m thinking it may be iron-related:  the last time I had red meat was 3 weeks ago and I haven’t taken multi-vitamins or iron in months.  Combined with my period and possibly the higher mileage (increased footstrike hemolysis) makes it plausible.  I also had some weird itching this week which can be another symptom of low iron.  Or maybe it’s just a bug, which is preferable since iron takes time to restore.

Anyway, I ate a ton of beef last night, am doing the same tonight and will make a point to take iron every day.

Monday: 9@8:21 (first 80 degree day of the year, was pleased with it)
Tuesday: 9@8:52 (day before LadyTime, understandable suckage)
Wednesday: 14@7:53 (great HR run! more on this below)
Thursday: 8@8:29 (ugh)
Friday: 11@8:16 (ugh)
Saturday: 10@8:09 (pouring rain but felt ok)
Sunday: 10@ 8:30 (ugh)
Total: 71mi (avg pace 8:19)

The bright spot in the week was my HR run on Wednesday.  The temperature was perfect (mid 50s), just as it was for the previous two HR checks, so a clean comparison.  Check it out.

April 13: 14@7:53, HRR 71% (155)
March 30: 11@8:10, HRR 71% (155)
March 20: 11@8:00, HRR 74% (159)

Major progress!  Shame I felt like crap the rest of the week but it doesn’t worry me, it was just a blip.

Mo’ Mileage
I’ve been thinking a lot about it, reading tons of posts and articles and am thinking that 80mpw is my new 70mpw.  In other words, my revised mileage goal is 80+ for the next few months.  It only adds about 40 extra minutes over 75mpw so it seems silly not to go for it and I’m insanely curious to see what the payoff will be.

This, however, has to be my top limit because I can’t go any higher without doubling.  I also reserve the right to say “nah, this is too much” and dial it back if it stops being fun.  But aside from this week, it’s been hunky-dory so I think it’ll stick.  The idea that there might be a little pot of gold at the end of this rainbow is enough to keep it seriously fun.

Toe Mileage
I mentioned acquiring a “where did that come from?” purple toenail last week.  After removing my nail polish yesterday, I discovered 3 “where did those come from?” lavender toenails, too.  It’s strange that I’m getting them, my shoes feel fine and they’re the same style I’ve been wearing for ages now, plus my route is the same, it’s not like I’ve started doing some massive downhills.  Maybe those stretched out socks were the harbingers of evil (bunched up fabric).  Oh well, thank god for new socks and nail polish.

In the meantime, I had a speed session today, same as last week (8 x .25mi w/1mi recoveries) which was by design, since last week’s paces were all over the place and I wanted a basis for comparison.  Plus, it takes me a week or two to get used to faster running and this workout is a “no big deal” way to do that.

My splits, while not perfectly consistent, were eons better than last time:
1:37,1:35,1:39,1:35,1:37,1:38,1:38,1:38 (avg pace 6:28)

Three things helped:

1. The temperature was a lovely 60 degrees.  Interesting factoid: when it’s warm (last week was 75) my heart rate caps out low though the effort feels much harder.  Weird that, since you’d think the HR would be higher.

2. I did strides beforehand.  I know I should do this before every quality session, it gets your HR up and your body prepared for running faster. I will from now on, it really made a difference.

3. Confidence.  Last week, for all the crappy pacing and even though it was only 400s, that last fast one gave me an inkling that speed is indeed returning.  I needed that like nectar to a hummingbird.

Next two weeks I’ll do 6 x 800 w/ 90sec rec’s. and then my Half cycle begins!  Nice to be priming the pump before the heavy-duty work starts.  Though I must say, I’m pretty much doing what I’d do in a regular cycle anyway but it seems so casual and fun now, almost vacation-like.  Maybe it’s the weather.

Pill Popping
I’m not a huge pill-popper by nature, though I’ve been taking glucosamine and MSM since the IT band crap last summer.  This week I cut my glucosamine by half, so one pill instead of two.  So far, I’m not noticing anything different.  As for my MSM capsule, I’ll continue to take that daily but am open to seeing what’s what without these things.

I don’t think I mentioned that I started taking an Iron supplement a couple months ago.  I had my ferritin levels checked back in August which came out normal, but my mileage hadn’t reached the level it’s at now.  Also, I was still living with Nick at the time and ate red meat quite often.  I love red meat, so don’t think I’ve gone all veggie on you, but I’ve probably had it 3 times in the last 6 months.  I do eat a lot of fresh spinach but surprisingly, if you eat a whole bag of the stuff, it’s still only 30% of your daily requirement.  So anyway, I take an 18mg capsule daily.

Calcium is my other supplement – Viactiv chews, twice daily.  I wrote a whole blog piece two years ago on the different types of calcium and how this type (calcium carbonate) used to stop me up.  But now I eat so much more fiber and drink more liquids, I’m a great pooper.

Core Work Continued
I was doing those Runners World exercises for a couple weeks which are great, but I’ve started switching it up with one of my favorite exercise DVDs: Mari Winsor’s 20-minute Slimming Pilates.  It’s basically a fast-paced core workout that I love because she doesn’t chatter on, it goes boom boom boom, from one exercise to the next.

Group Thoughts
Today was a slow day on my running path, I only waved to about 7 people I knew.  Seriously.  I love my park because there are probably 35-40 regulars with whom I wave and exchange a couple words.  When we see each other in races or on the street, it’s a fun shot of recognition.

I was thinking about the whole “running with others” thing and while I enjoyed the outing, I’ll always be a lone runner at heart.  I’ll try to make the hill workout this Thursday because I like the idea of sharing a hard workout, but I guess I wanted to explain that while I’m out there on my own day-to-day, I’m surrounded by camaraderie every time I run.  So we’ll see how much running club action I get.  Maybe I need to work on my bar-hopping skills instead.