Posts Tagged ‘taper’

You know how I usually write about a few subjects in each post and that the post title is generally the one subject or feeling that stands out for me.  Yesterday, when I started this post, I titled it “Last Tempo, Worst Tempo” because yesterday I had the worst workout this entire cycle.  But today, it’s just something that happened that doesn’t mean a thing (which I knew yesterday but you know, it was still a bummer).  Besides, I was due a crappy workout after that long string of successful ones.  Of course, it would have been nice had it not happened the week before the race, but such is life.

The workout was 1 hour easy, then 40min@Half Pace (which I translated into 6mi@HP).  My myriad of excuses consist of:
1) 75 degrees with 70 dewpoint
2) leftover fatigue from unpacking/assembling furniture/putting my new abode together
3) due to major river flooding this week, there were a couple mud bogs on the path which, until I finally got it together to run on the road, required slow, slippery tiptoeing through one and running up a set of stairs to detour the other one.

Whatever, it sucked and I wanted it to stop after the 3rd tempo mile.

The hour easy was uneventful.  After the initial mile, I was around 8:15ish and my heartrate was real comfy@145 (65%HRR).  Still, I wasn’t feeling confident about the upcoming tempo portion so I tried to pump myself up with a pep-talk but my innate cynicism makes pep-talks difficult since I’m always too aware of the I’m-faking-this underlayer required to do the job.  I probably should work on that.

Edit: in exquisite timing, after I wrote this I stumbled on an article about just that subject and while I won’t be talking to myself in front of the mirror anytime soon (that is just weird to me), there is some good stuff that you and I can use, so give it a read.

Anyway, first tempo miles were ok though behind goal @7:05s…and then the unraveling began.  Splits for the last 4 miles went 7:17, 7:15, 7:14, 7:14 – I just couldn’t go any faster.  My heartrate was low too, averaging 167 (79%HRR), so more like Marathon effort than Half.

On a brighter note, despite my abject misery, I ended up being quite the social butterfly during those tempo miles.  I usually say hi or smile to a ton of people anyway but yesterday was way more words and sentences than usual.

First off, I saw my friends Lindsay and Jo out there (separate sightings) so we exchanged “Hey Girl!”s.  Then Older Asian Lady rode by yelling out “I miss you!” and I yelled back I missed her too.  Then when I came upon the muddy/waterlogged area that sent me up the stairs, I think I said “shit”, “fuck” and “damn” in succession then realized there was some runner dude there, so I apologized for the cussing which luckily, made him laugh.

Then there was this one jogging lady who tried to ask me a question as I ran by and I’m thinking “ask someone who doesn’t look like they’re going through hell right now!” but actually said “I can’t talk to you now”, then felt bad and added, “I’m doing a workout”, then she said “What?” and I had to say it all over again.  Lastly, there is a regular gal that I like a lot and we passed each other 4 times yesterday, so there was a shared chuckle and a couple words over that.  All this just during the tempo!

But back to the crap part: I was spitting a lot and some of my exhalations actually whistled.  In fact, I thought I was in perfect sync with a bird’s singing till I realized the sound was coming from my throat.

All told, the tempo portion averaged 7:11 and the whole 13.7mi run averaged 7:53.  When I got home I was so wiped out, I slept for 1½ hours.

Today, I was kind of nervous about getting out there again even though it was just for an easy 9.  Because of course, you have one crap run and there’s a totally unfounded fear of “Uh oh, did I flip some switch that means I will now suck forever and ever, hereafter?”  As these things go, it turned out to be a really great run with a string of comfortable sub8s.  And please know that I don’t compensate for a crap run by pushing myself faster the next day to prove I “still have it”, I’m not that insecure. Today was me looking down at the Garmin thinking it was giving me bogus readings but which turned out to be correct.

The rest of the week’s runs
Thank goodness it was a cutback week, I don’t think I’d have been very happy dealing with a full mileage load, moving into a new pad and sidestepping a flood.

The flooding left behind a mess of ripped asphalt on the highly-traveled road parallel to the bikepath.  That, along with portions of it still submerged forced them to close off the road for two days.  I was shocked by what the water had done to a healthily-paved road, those large gashes and holes were a sad sight, but a surreal army of repair trucks on the morning of Day Two made it drivable by Day Three.

The silver lining was that it prompted me to cross the closed-off street at a spot I’d always wondered about.  Turned out to be a nice area that circles Laurel Hill Cemetery.  Aside from the initial stoplight, there are no cars to worry about for 2 uninterrupted miles, plus it has a nice long hill in it.  Good find.

Lastly, you’ll notice my run distances are wacky this week due to flood detours but my new location doesn’t help either.  I have to remember to add an extra ¼ mile then keep going another .13mi to even it out.  Today I almost did it correctly but ended up with an extra ½ mi because I wasn’t paying attention.  But dang, while it’s not neat and tidy being .62 from the first mile marker, I’m only ¼ mile from the park now!  Talk about spoiled – I love it.

Cutback & New Apartment Week In Review
Monday: 9@8:22 (drills and strides)
Tuesday: 8.94@7:36 (9x 3min on/1min off)
Wednesday: 10.35@8:20
Thursday: 8.97@8:32
Friday: 11.65@8:22
Saturday: 13.7@7:53 (7mi easy, 6@7:11 <–grrr)
Sunday: 9.5@8:08
Total: 72.11 mi

The Taper Ahead and Some Things I’ve Learned
Coach Adam/A muse asked me what I respond to as far as tapering and I had to admit, I have no clue.  I’ve never received enough of a real message when it comes to “taper vs. race result” to know what works best for me.  I know a lot of higher mileage people don’t do a huge taper so there’s that plus it’s a Half, so doesn’t require the same sort of time-out.  So Adam suggested a Hudson-type taper, running normally the next few days with 3-4 mile reps at 10k-Half pace on Tuesday, then a steep 4-day taper.  Sounds good to me.

While I’m not sure about the best taper for me, I did learn a lot about myself this cycle and one of them is the length of time to be in workout-mode; this one turned out just right.  If I had to extend it a couple more weeks, I think I’d have started to reach ThisIsNotFunAnymore stage. So 7-8 weeks of concentrated workouts are what I’ll plan on from here on in, 12-16 weeks can go suck it.

Another thing I learned from this cycle is that cutback weeks are beautiful things and I run better the week after one.  So I’m feeling good about this upcoming easy week on the heels of the past week’s cutback (which was only a cutback in mileage, not workouts).   I think my legs will be real happy come Sunday.

Life
My apartment is beautiful, glorious, wonderful, a dream.   We’ve had some rainy days this week so on Friday, when I walked by the bedroom, I was convinced I’d left the light on.  This happened twice.  Apparently there’s this thing called “sunlight” which I’ve not seen in full indoor splendor for quite some time.  Shocking.

And the fan above the stove is actually attached to a vent, unlike the fake-out one in the Blue Hovel.  My beautiful fridge has so much more room, I didn’t realize quite how stunted the Hovel one was.  And the neighborhood is so great, even my 20-minute walk downtown to the recording studio is so much prettier – amazing what a difference just a few blocks make.

Meanwhile, I’ve been on a huge shopping spree, now that I have places to put things and room to own stuff.  Not just for furniture-type items but for silly stuff a grown woman deserves to have.  Like, instead of storing my meager jewelry in two cheap-ass plastic containers from Dollar Store as I always have, I bought an honest-to-goodness swanky jewelry box.  I also got one of those sit-up-in-bed pillows that look like something your grandma would use but is so great for laptop perusing in bed.  Lots of little unnecessary but lovely comfort-oriented things that in my mind, signifies leaving transient “make do” mode and approaches “settling down” land.  Don’t know if I’ll ever feel truly settled anywhere, but this is the closest I’ve ever come to the idea of it.

Cute Video
I’ll leave you with this video posted on Runblogger from the owner of Natural Running Store.  It shows you the effect of shoes on balance.  Not sure I buy the theory completely but the video is entertaining and made me laugh.

Two weeks to Carlsbad and there’s some major changing of the schedule.  It initially started due to weather considerations but morphed into a purposefully steeper, more traditional taper.  For the Philadelphia Half, I only took a one-week taper.  This time, I’m going for a 2-week cut with approx. 25% less mileage this week:

Mon: off
Tues: 10
Wed: off
Thurs: 10 w/ strides
Fri: 5
Sat: 15 tempo sandwich (1wu, 3tempo, 7easy, 3 tempo, 1cd)
Sun: off or 5, not sure
Total: 40 or 45 depending on Sun.

I’m glad to be trying a different approach and think that in this case, Less = More.

Treadmill?
After my 2-week break, I’m considering joining a gym (for a month or two at a time) so in the midst of the worst seasons, I can do the workouts I need to without worrying about it.  I posted something about this on FB yesterday and got a couple expected puffed-chest “man-up” replies but those guys missed the point entirely; it’s nothing to do with weather wussiness.

If you do a weekly tempo and interval session plus a LR, there are only so many days you can switch, you need those recovery days between.  I’m really tired of having to switch or dumb-down important workouts due to bad wind (which we have all.the.time, especially since I run at the river), slippery snow or 90 degree days with suck% dewpoint (which we also had all.the.time. last summer).

When I look at the forecast and see that the week will require some major finagling to get the workouts in, maybe cutting long intervals to short or skipping something entirely…it makes me tense.  I don’t like added difficulty, I’m a laid back type of chick.  Not to mention it could be useful for long hill reps without having to run 4.5 miles to Smile Hill and back when I’d done.

Now, this is all in  my head right now because the few times I’ve been on a treadmill have been truly tortuous but I only did easy runs (no workout changes to break up the monotony) and they were just me and the treadmill in unpopulated locales.  Since I’m a huge people-watcher, I’m thinking a busy gym might also provide some stellar entertainment value.  If not, and it turns out to be as hellish as ever, then forget about it, I’ll keep on keeping on outside.

Any treadmill thoughts from you guys?  If so…share.  Like, did you learn to like it better the more you used it?

My sweet Forerunner 305 has accompanied me through my entire running adventure thus far, bought in March 2007 before I was even finished with my “learn to run” plan because I just knew – knew running was going to be for me and that the Garmin was everything a gadget girl like me could love and adore.

In that time, we’ve been through two extremely hard falls and it’s lost a couple bits, but I haven’t let that interfere with the sacred love we have for each other.  Instead, I’ve McGyvered it to keep on ticking as long as it’ll have me.

The first fix came after the 1st hard fall.  The pin that holds one of the straps on popped off upon impact, never to be seen again.  Instead of calling Garmin for a new strap (because I’m lazy like that) I took some fishing lure I had on hand for jewelry beading and strung it through.  It’s been holding fine every since.

The second fix happened a few weeks ago when my Power button fell off and refused to reattach.  I fashioned a new button from a Viactiv calcium chew wrapper, which worked sans tape for a week or so, but finally needed the full packing tape accoutrement to remain attached.  It works a charm.
The third fix was necessitated this week when, while taking the Garmin off, the silver buckle tore straight through the strap’s attachment point.   I thought about calling Garmin or even going to Target for a replacement strap, but a few selective layers of packing tape put it right as rain in no time.

While it lacks in glamour, it’s still a beautiful accessory to me.

Tapering Week #1
I’m loving it!  Feeling stronger with each passing day, my resting HR is down to a rarely seen 46, my running HR is lower than usual, and my legs and ankles are pleased with this temporary new arrangement.  The big toe drama lasted too long, I was shoving a needle under both nails for 4 days but they finally dried up and now all is well.

Tomorrow’s my last double-digit run, a 13, which’ll bring this week to 44 miles.  Next week, a meager 32, then it’s time to Do This Thang!  I’m excited,  happy and looking forward to the whole 3-day adventure.  Woohoo!! 

It’s official: I’m pooped and so ready to dial back.  I was asked a couple posts back about my taper plans so I linked to a graphic of my penciled-in schedule, it has since changed considerably.  Mostly because after last Saturday’s MP run and then Sunday’s 20, the next few days had my calf complaining to me, so I had to baby it which meant lowering the mileage at the beginning of the week and going slower throughout.  I did get a pretty good tempo run done but that was it as far as quality.  The schedule went like this:

Mon: 7 recovery (8:56)
Tues: 9 pouring rain, windy and hurting calf (8:58)
Wed:  13 slow again because of the calf (9:01)
Thurs: Off (enough of the calf, heal already)
Fri: 8 w/4tempo (calf was good, tempo was a bit slower than HP though @ 7:21s)
Sat: 6 recovery (8:51)
Sun: 17 (9:05s, slowest LR this cycle)

Today’s 17 was quite a tough one, it’s warm now so I ended up taking my shirt off on the way back, but the bottom line was I felt tired in legs, body and mind.  I had planned to do 4MP but I knew that was not going to happen. I did 1, lol, but it was 70 degrees by that time and my big toes were really unhappy (they’re both bruised now and I had to stick a needle under the nails to drain them before the run…nice, huh?) so I wasn’t sad about cutting the MP miles, more like I’m happy to know I’ve reached the topping point and that I will most assuredly benefit from two weeks of tapering.

As for my big toes, it’s insanely irritating to have this nail bruising/blistering happening now, but I guess in one way it’s good, hopefully the blisters will harden the toes up within the next couple weeks.  I attribute it to all my LRs being done in the trails, more footwork and ups and downs than any other cycle, so again, it was for the good, I just wish it didn’t hurt.

Hey to Steph (or was it Linds? they’re identical twins), it was cool to see you out there today, you looked good!  Funny about the orange Philly Distance Run shirt, I must have seen 50 people wearing one this morning.

Interactions this week
Ignore this if you read my Facebook updates, but I had a couple entertaining bouts of human contact this week.  On Monday’s recovery, there were 4 college rowers in the river who burst into an acapella rendition of Sheena Easton’s “Morning Train” then waved at me and wished me a good run.

Not two minutes later, I heard a double boom from what I call “Dead Man’s Curve”, a curve in the road near the bike path, but hidden by a fence, and every time it rains, I seem to see the tail end of a wreck.  So this was a double wreck caused by a line of cars sitting behind a wreck that had already happened. Triple wreck!  Hoping everyone was ok.

Then the next day, it was pouring rain and windy and I was feeling pretty crappy but as I neared home, a man under an umbrella yelled out “Dedication!” to me.  What an unexpected present that was.  Suddenly, everything was made right.

I want to spread that word to you all, too, because every single one of you who read this blog sweat, work hard and go the extra mile in some form or another and it’s too easy to take ourselves for granted.  It makes no difference how fast you are, if you win awards or not, be proud of yourselves for having dedication to do something that most people never dare to do…get up off their asses.

And with that, I’m going to sit on mine for the next two weeks.  In my mind, anyway.

Thanks to fellow blogger Joe who kindly alerted me to a thread on LetsRun, it appears that the finish for the Philadelphia marathon is going to be an honest to goodness clusterfuck.  Here’s the image the original poster supplied.
Green – half marathon,  Red – marathon at half way,  Blue – marathon finish

As you can see, it appears that the marathon finishers will be forced to actually cross through the slower marathoners reaching their halfway point!  I can’t. believe. this.  But then, it’s Philly, so yes I can.

I’m hanging in there, though not without a quadruple dose of taper angst.  My run today was 7 w/2x(10min@HP, 2min rec) and my HR was just too damned high at 90 and 92% max on the Half pace portions.  I’m hoping it’s just overall anxiety, which I truly have in excess now, but it’s really putting a fear into me that I wish I didn’t have.

The rest of the week is 6 tomorrow, rest day, 5 and 4, then race.  The weather looks good at this point, so that’s a wonderful bonus.

Beyond my worried mood, I am so excited for this weekend because I’m finally going to meet several of the ladies I’ve been “talking to” for over a year in the Women’s BQ thread.  A bunch of gals are coming in for the race, both the Full and Half, as well as cheering section, and to actually meet these gals in the flesh (we know so much about each other by now) is going to be incredible.

Plus, Audra and Kat (I ran Steamtown with Audra and the Lehigh Half with Kat) are going to be staying with me, not racing but will be cheer support so I’ll have my own personal pit crew the night before.  Pre-race pillow fights!! Woohoo!!  So there’s a lot to be excited about, if I can just take my mind off my stupid heart for a while.

Thanks everyone for such cool comments to my little mishap on Sunday.  You guys and gals are stupendously great.  One good thing I got out of that run was that it was my gel dress rehearsal because my most favorite shorts only have a key pocket (Race Ready shorts are dumpy on me, so no one even suggest that, please).

My original plan was to do the pinning thing (for the uninformed, you pin the gels to the outer waistband of your shorts then tuck them inside your shorts so they don’t bounce, then you rip them off when you need one)  but because I’ll have a bottle in one hand, that makes ripping the gels off too difficult.  Then I remembered I had that detachable pocket I bought for Steamtown and didn’t end up using.  It works a treat!! Weighs an ounce, you can put it where you want and it’s very easy to take a gel out while on the run.  I put 3 in there and 2 in my handheld and didn’t even notice it was there.  Though maybe that’s because I was in pain from my weeping open wound.

Anyway, that’s one less thing on my mind.  Now if I could only unload the other 2 tons of mental garbage…

4:30 into my last 12 mile run before the marathon.  I wiped out on the sidewalk.  Opened the exact same spot on my leg from May’s fall with the added bonus of a swollen shin and punctured hands.  I even matched the top of my left knee to that previous fall, as well.

A second after it happened, I sat up and began bawling like a baby, tried to blot the blood with leaves and considered my options.  I could go home and try again later or just go home and crawl into bed.  Or I could finish the run.  I ran.