A bonus was that they surreptitiously parked a video camera at the 5k mat, so for the first time I have a candid glimpse of what I look like racing.  It was definitely jarring, like when you hear your voice on tape for the first time.  I’m not the fluid gazelle I imagine myself to be but I’m also not horrified or embarrassed.  That’s progress!

The last cool thing is just a fun, completely useless ego massage. Within the race I got an unofficial 10-mile PR (no biggie since I’ve only raced one back in 2008) but it turns out the time I hit, 1:10:19 according to the race results, comes out to an age-grade score of 80.04%.  It’s raining National Class!   Of course, that one doesn’t count but it’s great motivation to do shorter races.

Last Couple Days
I won’t go into detail but I’ve had a mystery leg thing that started a couple weeks before the race.  At first it was in my quad then shifted to my lower leg. No pain running or sitting but I can feel it walking or when I roll over in bed, kinda like a pinched nerve right at the top of the tibialis anterior.  Because I couldn’t pinpoint or poke it, I was Googling stress fractures and thinking the worst. At the start line, I hopped up and down on it a few times just to reassure myself that it wasn’t one and thankfully, I didn’t feel a thing during the race.  It was quite a downer in those preceding days though (and still is a weird worry).

With this in mind, I took the last 2 days off from running.  This morning, I still had some pinchyness but went on an easy run anyway to test it…no problems!  8 miles and it felt fine.  So I don’t know what’s up with it but I can only assume that since running is fine (I won’t be doing anything fast this week), it’ll eventually work itself out.

Race Week In Review
Since I didn’t post this on Sunday…

Monday: 10@8:31
Tuesday: 8.25@7:47 (3xmi @6:55) w/2min rests)
Wednesday: 6@8:30
Thursday: 5@8:19 (4 strides)
Friday: Off
Saturday: 4@7:58 (4 strides)
Sunday: 14.15@(race and 1mi warmup)
Total: 47.4 mi

What’s Ahead
Here’s one thing I’m thinking: “Oh no, now what am I going to do to get faster?  I’m doomed!” because I’m a fatalistic idiot from time to time.  But this is just momentary.  Sane Flo thinks it’s time to get her race hat on and go wild.  As in, do a race almost every week for the next 4 or 6 weeks, whatever I can find locally.  I think it’d be a fun alternative to quality work and I know it’d improve my racing chops.  I did this in my Spring Of Improvement back in 2009 and that might have had something to do with said improvement (cart or horse…who knows?).

This would start in 2 weeks when there’s a sweet 5K I really like, though it was short last year and I’ve emailed the director to see if they’re remeasuring.  At first I was thinking I don’t want to race anything that requires an asterisk after it, but then I started thinking more sensibly: last year at that race I won a $70 certificate for Zipcars and a gift certificate for Whole Foods, both of whom are sponsoring again, so it’d be worth it.  And also, if I do multiple races, an asterisk race doesn’t really matter, I just won’t call it a PR.  Because any race is more than the result, it’s an unparalleled workout that I could never replicate on my own and that’s the mindset I want to have.  This will get me over Athlinks self-consciousness and the preciousness that racing rarely creates.

So that’s it for now.  Later, my loves.

It’s 7:13 pm on Tuesday.  I’m sitting with a huge glass of wine and will get very drunk tonight.  I can now see exactly what happened on Sunday, or at least, the finish line portion.  There was a preamble preceding that part of the horror show that I will conveniently get to forget because nobody was taking photos.  But there is the afterwards: a fake smile on a twisted body.

It’s 7:22 pm on Tuesday.  I’m thinking about the nice man who helped me across the finish line and whose own finish photos are completely ruined and will be in the Lost and Found section since you can’t see his number.  He’s too busy helping that stranger get to and across the finish line.  A very nice man.

It’s 7:28 pm on Tuesday.  I want to find a hole and sink into it for a long, long time.  Who is this person?  It’s me

Earlier that day…
First off, I seriously cannot thank you blog readers, Facebook friends and 3:20 buddies enough for all the kind and insightful comments you’ve left.  After reading through the responses, particularly those coming from doctors (so handy to have 3 online Dr. friends posing as normal people) I’m convinced that it is indeed something in my body not working properly.  So I made an appointment with my doctor for Thursday evening and will let you guys know what’s up on Friday’s post.

Witnesses
I could not believe that in that sea of race humanity, 3 people who know me saw me stumbling to the finish.  And I’d only ever met one of them!

Jenn, my local friend who was volunteering saw me at the finish line, saying in the last post’s comment “I was really scared for you when I saw you starting to sag, stumble and almost go down 15 feet from the finish. Thank goodness that guy was there to bolster you.”

Then Peggy, a Facebook friend and new gal to Philly whom I only just met today (though in a strange turn of fate, she also saw me that day I had fallen after seeing the dead fox) was there to see me stumble in mile 13.

And lastly, Cathleen who reads this blog (who should have introduced herself to me at the Expo!) ;-) emailed, “I just read your race report … I’ve been waiting for it because I unfortunately saw you go down right after mile 13.  What I saw happen out there today looked like someone fighting with their body & their body was winning.”

Thank you ladies for adding onto my impressions of what I felt and saw.  There’s something comforting in the thought that I wasn’t all alone in the midst of that.

Noake’s “Central Governor”
Julie brought up a great point in a comment, that of Noake’s “Central Governor”.  He contends that our brain knows when we’re going into redline mode and automatically adjusts to protect our organs from failure.  I mentioned that it seems like I’m missing the “red danger signal” , but when I spent real time going over how this happens and what happens beforehand, I realize I’m not missing this at all, I react the same way everyone else does: I slow down.

That’s the Central Governor at work, the mechanism Noake’s speaks of that naturally protects us from overload.  That would make the loss of leg control and collapsing a separate issue since, if my body was like everyone else’s, my paces would simply fall further and I’d continue at the lowered speed.  What’s more, if it was a matter of stubborn determination causing these “spells”, I’d have lots of company stumbling along with me, since I’m positively not the most determined runner out there.

So What Could It Be?
It’s good that dehydration and excessive heat are not part of the picture this time as it removes those variables.  Btw, I don’t believe 70 degrees was excessive for me, I’ve been running hard all summer in much hotter weather than that.  Also, I looked up blue lips and it’s not tied to dehydration or heat sickness.

I’ve had a couple comments and an excellent private message from sufferers of exercise-induced asthma – the symptoms seem to fit well: labored breathing, excessive sweating, even blue lips for some.  This makes sense to me because the way my breathing sounds is like someone about to bonk, though I can keep going for miles like that.  The only thing that doesn’t compute for asthma is then why doesn’t this happen during workouts?  It seems as though I’d experience it at least occasionally during a hard workout.

My 3:20 doctor buddy Dan says the lips and sweat point to an inability to control temperature and he and Melissa (yet another doctor pal) are insistent on a treadmill test.  I will definitely ask for one, though I’m not convinced it’ll find anything, only because A) this happens after some time and I’m not sure they’d keep me on there that long and B) When my ex, Nick, got a stress test, they didn’t find some truly serious heart blockages that only days later required an operation to have 3 stents put in.   But I’m game for it and will insist when I speak to my doctor.

What It Isn’t
I got a private message from a well-meaning Facebook friend saying this was all in my head.  I realize that our online world is a strange place, none of us really knows one another, though the one thing I think is clear from my writing is that I’m about as pragmatic and self-investigative a person as you are likely to find.  I consider every angle including the ones that don’t leave me in the best light and this includes psychological components.

No way in hell was this is in my head or, as he suggested, a vestige of post traumatic stress from June’s 5K.   It’s a physical matter of blood or oxygen not getting to where it’s supposed to. I am sure of it.  The question is, why?

What Happened At Yesterday’s Race
My finish time was an entire minute slower than expected.  Now esplain me this, Lucy:  just 10 days before the race, I did a 3mi tempo run in 21:06 in 75 degree temps.  That’s a pace of 7:02 compared to yesterday’s 6:59 -  just three seconds slower, same conditions.  I don’t run my tempos at 5K pace, so WTF happened yesterday?  Part of it was this:

These are 1/4 mile splits.  My first 1/4 mile was 6:25 but only because I looked at my Garmin, saw 6:16, freaked and put the brakes on.  As you can see, I kept those brakes on for the next mile!  It wasn’t uphill or anything, I was simply unsure of myself and that did me in.  I didn’t even look at my watch after that first mile, I thought I was going as hard as I could sustain.

So I tend to think it was my brain and lack of race practice that were the real culprits here.

Thus, I spent yesterday afternoon searching out summer races and came up with 6 races from June-Aug: five 5Ks and a 5-miler.  Frankly, I dread each and every one of them – I hate racing in hot weather and these ain’t gonna be cool, but the only way to get over the dread is to face it, or to quote that overused acronym, HTFU.

A final thing worth noting (apologies to my male readers): Last year, a couple weeks after my 5K PR, I raced another 5K and much to my dismay, came in a full minute slower.  That race was 6 days before my period.   Guess what?  I’m expecting my period in 6 days.  So perhaps this was also a possible contributor to the suckage.  Hormones are so confoundedly mysterious.

Saucony Kinvaras!
I’m really not good with shoe reviews, I don’t have smart things to say like “the cushioning felt resistant yet firm while the feedback from arch to blah blah gave a smooth ride and handled blah blah…”  I’m not that observant.  But I’ll say this: I LOVE these shoes!!  Rovatti, you had it right!

Few things: I always wear 1/2 size larger in running shoes, but not in these, they’re size 9s and they feel fantastic.  I have wide-ish feet but they feel very comfortable with enough wiggle room in the toes.  And so incredibly light at 7 oz!  That’s only 1/2 oz. heavier than my racing flats, yet I think they can handle being my regular training shoes from here on in.

I didn’t notice the heel drop per se, though there’s a lot of cushioning on the forefoot and it seemed natural to be running the “new” way in them.  I took ‘em for 7 miles and could have kept going but didn’t want to go too far after a race day.

Design-wise, they have an unusual sheer fabric over the main upper mesh…it’s like running shoe lingerie.  They’re also horribly pink but that’s all the store had.

My Running Gait Video
Memorial Day means nobody was around on the street this morning,  so after my run I took some video to see how my gait’s coming along.  It’s coming along!  Not perfect by any means, but the overstriding is getting under control.  Very pleased.  Btw, I didn’t think much about gait during the race so if I get a photo worth posting, expect to see me overstriding.

This video shows 2 views, 3 speeds for each view.
Edit: for my opinion of what I need to work on from seeing this video, read the comment I made to Jim.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9ox7zQOqAc

Moving on, a few things I wasn’t able to fit in my Boston report because it was so long already.  Apologies to Facebook friends, you’ve seen these photos, but for those non-socially connected, here are a few more tidbits from the race.

Athletes Village before the race with my arm warmers shoved on for some reason.  Nervous disordered dressing, I guess.  That’s Jim (blogging pal) in the yellow hat, plus a bit of Steve showing in the corner (he ran a 2:50, so when I say the sub 3:20 crew isn’t about 3:20, that’s what I mean).

Happy me.

This one cracks me up the most, as I mentioned on FB, it’s right at the finish but what I love is the Up With People guy on the left.  He looks like he’s in the chorus of Hello Dolly! whereas I look like dead meat.  But as was pointed out on FB, his bib# says he was sandbaggin’ (and that I moved up a hell of a lot, hee).  I am jealous of his straight back though, something I really need to work on…

Finis!

Dinner after the race.  In the middle is fellow blogger and constant commenter Jim (what a joy to finally meet him, he’s as funny and charming as I expected) and at the edge, my other fellow blogging sweetie pal who orchestrated the whole social she-bang, Stevi.  Thanks again for doing that, girl – you and Chris are adorable!!

There are over 50 more photos to be seen including some fun with a peanut butter jar intended for emergency peeing (that happily went unused).  So if you’re on Facebook, just go to my page, you don’t even have to be my “friend” to see them.  You know me…all public all of the time.

The Train
On the way back to Philly, I sat by a tiny, sweet girl who it turns out came in a minute before me, with a 3:27.  When the train started, we heard the conductor say, “if anyone came in at 3:11 or faster at the marathon, come up to the refreshment car”.  This totally had us curious about what those lucky people were getting.

So later, when the conductor came by, I asked him what they got but he was all evasive and gave me a look.   OK, be that way.

A couple hours later, he came by again and me and my new traveling buddy asked him one more time (we really needed to know!) and he said “water”.  My companion thought he was lying, but then a couple minutes later, he came by with 2 water bottles that had the word “Congratulations” written on an Amtrack stub and attached with a rubber band.  Aw, we were winners after all.

The cool thing about the girl sitting next to me was
1. She’s done some freelance writing for Runners World, so small world, but also
2. She lives in Arizona and her (free) community running club is coached by 2 guys, one of them…Dr. Jack Daniels.   The Jack Daniels!  My eyes popped out of my head when she said that and jealousy streamed out of my pores.  Can you imagine?  So cool.

Back On The Road
I had a good week of recovery, took two days off and then went 4,6,7,7 giving me 50mi for the week.  My left quad is a little tight but other than that, I feel amazing and had to consciously slow myself down today from 8:10s (knowing the quad would not thank me if I kept it up).

It was a cool rainy run and I wore my Boston shirt, which got me a couple approving looks and one guy even said something nice to me about it as he passed.  I get the point now of why people buy the jacket, lol.

What’s Ahead?
I’m feeling super excited to get going again.  My goal race for the fall is in September, so I’ll start training specifically for that around June 1, but in the meantime, there’s a 5K at the end of May it’d be fun to target.  That’ll give me something to work on this next month so instead of just fartleking around, I’ll have some 400′s fun and short tempos.

I can’t wait for some speed to return – I know it’s there waiting for me but it might take a little while to pop, so be patient with me.  I’m not expecting anything major at the 5K but am hoping to end up in the vicinity of my PR.  I haven’t done one since June, so I’ve got some catching up to do.  In the meantime, I’m just so happy to be a runner.

Seriously, this morning as I ran through the park in a drizzle, sporting my Boston shirt with my commemorative chip still attached to my shoe, I laughed out loud.  Look at me, I am a runner.  Who’d of ever thought?

The whole digging deep deal is something I’ve decided that, in the end, there was nothing I could have done mentally that would have kept me running without the walk breaks, my body was just not going to do it for longer than a minute, every time I started up, it genuinely hurt, I felt like I was pushing a 250lb weight.  And today, I am in classic marathon pain.  My quads and calves are killing me, but I like it, it proves to me that it wasn’t my brain saying “I don’t like this, let’s walk” but my body saying “I can’t do this, let’s walk”.

So I think my Giver Upper thoughts were misplaced, it would have been more accurate to berate myself at the time for attaching to the pace group around mile 11.5 when I had no business doing that at all.  I wonder what I’d have finished in if I hadn’t made that terrible tactical move.  Maybe 3:25?  That was a huge error and I was so driven by ego (can’t let 3:20 go!!!) that I totally messed it up.  Of course it sucks, but at least I can use this as valuable information for the future.

Nutrition and Hydration: I ate 3 gels, forgot about the last one, but I had a cup of gatorade so I was ok in that department. Since the race was already stupid, I decided to practice drinking straight from the cups a couple times since I suck at that.  It just confirmed that my bottle is worth carrying for 26+ miles.  I can refill it pretty high with 3-4 cups running through one stop.

Shoes:  Mizuno Elixirs (which I’d tested out on long runs) were ok in that I had no toenail problems or blisters, but I was very aware of my foot slapping the pavement starting at mile 15ish and I don’t think that did me any favors, my feet were hurting, so next time I’ll wear my Inspires.

The other thing I’ve been thinking about is this: I had an amazing Spring, that’s when my times dropped faster than I’d ever imagined they would, so most of my races came out better or right on the money with the goals I’d attached to them.  Now things are normalized again, so if I make goals that are on the outside edge of what I can do, there’s a lot bigger chance for a crash and burn.  I need to be a little more modest (aka realistic) in my goals from here on in.

Next marathon is Boston and I’m going to transfer the sub3:20 goal to that.  No chasing a sub 3:17, just plain old difficult enough 3:19:59.  Incidentally, one good thing out of yesterday’s PR is that I’m at least in the first wave at Boston, if only by the skin of my teeth.

So I’m taking it easy through December, haven’t decided on mileage but I’m thinking something around 50-60 with a weekly day off sounds good.  I’ll play it by ear.  No pressure, that’s the ticket.

Some race observations:

I’m at the start, standing by these two women, when I overhear them talking about the weather so I butt in and ask how it will change their race.  One of them (who won #1 in my AG with a 19:43) tells me to expect 30sec. to 1-min slowdown.   Then I asked do you start with that in mind or does your body tell you what to do, they said, “oh, your body will set the pace.”  I already expected a slowdown but hearing it could be 1 whole minute freaked me out some.   At that point, I had no idea what to expect but knew I was going to start about 10 seconds slower than originally planned.

At about 1.5 miles in, I end up by some guy who says, “Mind if I hang off you?”  I said “sure”, but then in 3 more steps I was already ahead of him and gone.  That’s when I realized I was passing people en masse.

Looking at my splits, I see my 2nd mile was 10 seconds slower but for no real reason, there weren’t any hills to speak of.  I think that was a mixture of me being afraid of pushing in case I died a premature hot death and what’s turning into my usual 2nd mile silliness where I tend to lose attention and get whiney.

But the kicker was my HR (I wore the strap but had the info hidden so I had no idea what it was through the race).  It was low. Lower than the 3mile tempo I’d done the week before at 10k pace.  I averaged 86%HRR, maxed at 92.  This is mildly disturbing to me, because if anything, it should have averaged in the 90s, either because of the heat or the 5K effort, not to mention both.  A RW forumite, Amuse, whose opinions I respect completely, thinks it’s because heat and humidity don’t allow you to get up to optimal racing intensity, which sounds sensible, though the previous week’s tempo does leave a question mark.

I’m finally understanding that HR info is almost ethereal in that there’s no tried and trueness to it.  I still find it incredibly useful, but realize there is no magic key that will tell me when A happens, B will result.  I can live with that.

Nick gets laid:

Nick said something later that afternoon that was so hot, I had to do him.  He said, “Your gait, or whatever you call it, has changed a lot since the last time I saw you race.  You’re not hunched over like you used to be.”  YES, YES, YEEEESSSS!!  As someone who’s had crappy posture forever, running or otherwise, all the pushups and chinups these past months have made quick work of straightening me up.  The last time he saw me race was December, so this was music to my ears.

My form in general has changed a lot without me realizing it (though the heelstrike looks here to stay).  I used to wonder why some runners barely move their arms, it looks weird to me, but apparently I am one of them now.  In looking at the photos he took, I see my arms don’t have much of a swing, which is fine and dandy – as long as I’m getting faster, I don’t care what they do.  One thing I did notice on today’s run though, is that they are definitely driving from the elbows which is what the books and coaches say to do, but that I could never manage to integrate purposely.  It’s cool to find this happens naturally now.

Beyond the race:

Yesterday was a lovely 9-miler, then today was a not-so-lovely 11.3.  I started out planning to run 9 but it was cool and beautiful (light rain) so I made my turnaround at 6 to make it 12.  With 4 miles to go I got this weird pain in my leg which I ran through, but eventually had to stretch.  Finally, I ended up walking the last .75.  I’ve walked home maybe 4 times ever.  It feels fine now though, so hopefully it was just a ghost.  My shoes are at 340 miles, so maybe that didn’t help, either.

My business dilemma/hell:

And now, the real pain in my ass, which I haven’t mentioned on here though it’s been a dark cloud for over a month.  Cafepress, the company I use to make and send my t-shirts, is changing something in their business model which screws all us shopkeepers out of $ starting June 1st.  I’ve been paralyzed to do anything about it because it takes forever to create products, which I’ll have to do all over again with another fulfillment company.

So I’ve been freaking out how to handle it, where to start, whether the running shirts or music shirts or scuba, etc.  After going back and forth about the best way to proceed, I finally started recreating some products last week, but I hate it, I can’t stand redoing old projects and this is sheer drudgery that’ll take weeks to complete.

On the other hand, I’ve been terrible with business this whole year, spending my every thought on running and letting all my websites languish – so in a way, this has blessing properties, as it’s making a return to creativity very inviting, at least as an alternative to this shit work.  I might just leave a lot of designs on Cafepress and concentrate on new stuff, but it’s just a mess since pricing structures will be different for each company.  Aargh!  There’s really no good answer to it at all.

If there is a silver lining, it’s that the new company offers wicking shirts, so I can finally sell running shirts that runners can actually run in.  Woohoo, what a concept.

And that concludes this epic post.  I need peanut butter.