Time for a Check-Up

Runner’s Lounge Take It and Run Thursday theme is Look Back, Look Ahead. In celebration of the mid-year date, running bloggers everywhere are taking stock of their goals and asking, How’m I doin’?

So, How’m I doin’?

Well, at the beginning of the year, my goals were to finish my first half marathon, to improve my 5- and 10k times, and to become a stronger runner. Simple goals, really. I’ve achieved the easy ones: I completed my first half, in a time much better than I expected. Though I’ve run a handful of 5ks, I have yet to improve upon my first time, and I haven’t run another 10k yet, though I regularly outrun 6.2 on my daily easy runs. Yes, I think I am a stronger runner.

What is going well? I’ve figured some things out. Though at the beginning of summer it was tough to run through the heat and humidity, and some early summer races and long runs even ended in migraines, I think I’ve mostly worked those issues out. I’m starting to get better about listening to my legs and knees and knowing when to scratch a run or cut it short.

What do I need to do better at in the sunset half of the year? I need to go easier on myself. I am a rookie runner. I don’t need to go all out. I don’t need to run my first marathon for time. Every training run is not a race or a bragging story. I need to believe in the long-term benefits of training more than the short-term benefits of a good, tough run. I need to get more sleep and make better eating choices. I need to believe that I’m not doomed to have my PR be my first race at every distance. That sub-2 half is in the bag.

Isn’t it?

July 31: 6 miles easy

Varied my route yet again and ended up on yet another lovely street in my town without street lights. Thought I’d do as many as eight depending on how the legs felt and knew fairly early on that the legs were way too tired for eight. Settled for six easy ones. Funny that my pace was an even ten-minute miles.

Great realization about my tempo run yesterday–it finally proves to me, concretely, that I can blow my horrible 10k PR out of the water the next time I run one of those. That race is still a horrible memory to me, and I can’t wait to post a better time.

Lovely SRD tomorrow.

July 30: 8 mile Tempo Run

Finally did what I know is the safe thing and varied my route some. Parked in a different spot (for more on why I don’t run in my neighborhood, read this post) and discovered at 5:45, it’s pretty dark if the roads don’t have street lights. No frog- or sidewalk- related accidents, though we had some close calls.

After a warm-up mile at 10:41 pace, I set out for six miles at my half-marathon goal pace–the training plan called for 9:09. You can see the splits in the training log–it was closer to even nine-minute miles. At times it felt like a really effortless rhythm–bum, bum, bum–loved that. Other times I’d look down to check and find that I’d either have moved up to closer to 5k pace (8:20 or so) or fallen off to 9:30. I guess on race day I won’t be as concerned about it mile by mile–I’ll be more concerned about pacing at miles 3, 6, and 9.

I will confess that my legs were tired at mile 6 and I was thankful to be able to back off that 9-minute mile pace. Even so, that last mile averaged a 9:26 pace, so the tired legs must have thought the 9-minute mile pace was sustainable. At first I was worried about the legs being so tired after just six 9-minute miles, but I’m trying to remind myself that:

1. This is my first tempo run of the training season. For all purposes, it’s August, and my race is in mid-November. I don’t need my legs to run thirteen nine-minute miles today. I need them to run them in November. (Then we’ll start talking about maybe running twenty-six ten-minute miles in February.)
2. Race day is not training day. Adrenaline, volunteers, carbo loading and hydration give a lot to tired legs. I didn’t prepare for a long run today, nor should I have. Of course my legs were tired. I had a hard workout. I wasn’t prepared to ask my legs to give a half marathon effort, and they weren’t prepared to give it.
3. Like I said, the pace felt fairly sustainable and rhythmic. After the initial speed-up, the pace felt . . . not frantic. I didn’t feel like I was in a 5k. I was breathing hard, and I could tell I was working hard, but I didn’t want to die, and I went the distance I’d set in my mind. Feels good to work hard.

One concern–I wish I was better at even pacing. I was shocked that in my first half my splits were so even. I didn’t look at Garmie very much during the race, however. I ran by feel, knowing the 2-hour pacer had passed me and the 2:10 pacer was still behind me. Maybe that was a good strategy. If my pace varied from stride to stride, I didn’t know to freak out about it. At the end of the race, looking at my mile-by-mile splits, I look like a master of even pacing: all but one of my middle 8 miles are one or two minutes off a 9:20 pace. Maybe I’ll play around with Garmie displaying an average pace for the lap instead of current pace. I don’t mind running negative splits, but I can control that myself. If I have energy left for a kick, I can let it out at the 10mi marker, like I did at the A1A. But I don’t want to do on race day what I did today–surge back and forth when I look down and realize–oh, I’m at 8:20, oh, I’m at 9:30. That’s just insane for 13 miles.

Any input?

July 28: 8 miles easy

Lost some training days last week to a slight muscle pull in my lower calf. The general idea is to run 8-6-8-6 during the week, with long runs on the weekend, while still following the speed guidelines from the training schedule generated for me by Runner’s World. I thought this would give me enough base mileage to support 15-mile long runs. However, after the way the calf felt last week, I decided to play it safe and bag Tuesday’s run. Also mostly bagged Wednesday’s, though I did go out with G and the double jogger for a slow 2.7-miler. Did run my 8 on Thursday, which felt good. Mused over maybe running on Friday but decided against it. Raced the 5k Saturday and took my normally scheduled rest day Sunday.

Today, calf feels good, as it has since Thursday’s run. Still Icy-Hotted it before setting out, just in case. Got decked out, drove out to my starting point. Made myself walk a bit to warm up, pointed Garmie at the sky, and set out. My prescribed easy pace is 10:40, which I’m no good at keeping–I usually aim for 10:30 or 10:20. I thought I was doing fairly well today, but maybe not. Got back to log my run and saw that only the first two miles were actually at that pace. The others were decidedly faster. My splits: 10:28, 10:29, 10:06, 10:05, 10:09, 9:53, 9:45, 9:31.

Tomorrow, a necessary rest day as G has to go into work crazy early. Shouldn’t be too much of a problem since I substituted a race for a long run this week and my last long run was only 10.5 miles. If I do a 12-miler this week on a 24-mile base week, it’s not going to hurt anything.

Dreher Park Dash 5k

I had this race on my calendar at the beginning of the summer, but hadn’t thought about it in a long time, since I had to miss an earlier 5k due to the patellar tendinitis issue. It had slipped under my radar. Earlier in the week, a friend called to ask if I was running it and wanted to carpool. Why not?

Arrived with plenty of time to register, but planned things badly and ended up spending too much time in line for the bathrooms and not enough time warming up. It’s okay. Temps were probably in the high 80s, this being July in South Florida, and I trotted around the park for a while and felt really disgustingly sweaty and hot. I’m not sure how much I ran–the Garmin was already beeping at me that batteries were low I didn’t even turn it on for my warm up.

Immediately after my truncated warm-up people were lining up for the start. Standing there, bunched up, I could feel the sweat dripping down my back. I had thought about taking off my hat, but even with the 7pm start time the sun was blazing and I knew I’d be thankful for any additional shade and sweat absorption.

Final race instructions were delivered and we were off. It was hard to gauge where the start line was because, though the race was chip-timed, there was no start mat, so immediately after the pack began to spread out, I got into what I felt was my 5k pace–about an 8:30 pace. It made me huff and puff from the get go and I cursed myself for not doing more speedwork lately. Why, oh why, have I been ignoring my intervals and tempos? Too late to worry about it during race time–must keep huffing along. I didn’t worry too much about it; I thought that I could probably keep the pace for three miles and just die at the finish line.

I remembered an article in Running Times magazine about mental strategies to use during racing, and I thought of one that I’ve actually used before. I picked out a runner in front of me and visualized her pulling me along. Many times, the distance between us gradually got shorter, and eventually I passed her. I got to work lots on my pass strategy during this race.

I did have one weird experience, and I actually didn’t realize what was going on until it happened a half-dozen times: I had another runner cut me off to prevent me from passing. It was a strange experience because most runners are competitive, but not to that degree, and will let you by when, in a given moment in a race, you are going faster than them. But this woman would not give me any room. The race was run on a very narrow trail, with many turns, so it was difficult to pass when she insisted on cutting me off on every turn.

I missed setting a PR by eight seconds. It’s a little frustrating, especially considering I may have lost those eight seconds trying to get by a selfish runner. However, I’m encouraged. I think I strategized this race well, finally realizing that the way to run a 5k is to really run at a pace that feels a little uncomfortable for the entire time. I ran hard, but I didn’t throw up, and though my end kick was available for the last quarter-mile, I was spent at the end. Though my middle mile was a little slower, I think that was due to water stops and turns, and that I would otherwise have run negative splits. This was also a curvy, packed-dirt course, and an evening race, characteristics not well-suited to setting a PR.

My time, 26:26, was good for 169 of 412 runners, 47 of 192 women, and 4 of 14 in my age group.

My six-word race report: Evening race, tight turns, no PR.

The Joy of the Run

Last Saturday, I ran fifteen miles for the first time. I would have finished the run, no matter what, because the distance was not too much of a stretch. I had run fourteen miles before, so I was only stretching the distance out by one mile. And I was feeling pretty good on that run. I’d fueled before the run, I had water on the course, and even good old Sport Beans for added help along the way. But at mile 12, as I shared before, I ran into another runner, and it was nice to have his company on the last three miles, so that instead of counting the steps on that last stretch, I was distracted and able to run easy.

This Saturday was the first day of marathon training for our local marathon, which will be run on December 7 this year, so things are heating up for the local long-distance running community. I, of course am not training for a marathon, just for a November half, but I was excited for the many beginning the journey toward 26.2. At my first water stop on my long run, another fiftteen-miler, I ran into another runner, and as we set back out, it was obvious that we would run at pretty close to the same pace. We began to run together, and she shared that this was her first long run in a long time, the beginning of her training season for her second marathon. She was unsure if she’d be able to make her goal distance of 10 miles. As the early miles passed, we talked about running, our training, and our families. We got to the turnaround in good spirits, though it was obvious soon after that her spirits were flagging. By mile 7 conversation was unilateral. By mile 8 she’d begun to identify the point of the run at which she’d begin to walk. But at mile 9 those points began to shift farther along the run. And then every time we hit one of those previously-identified marking spots, she’d refuse to stop, instead finding new reserves of energy and picking up the pace. “I’m not a quitter,” she’d say. No, indeed she’s not; she’s a marathoner.

When we got back to our local running store, where water, Gatorade, and her husband awaited us, she was thankful. She said I got her through the run. I was of two minds about it. First of all, I thought she had done me a favor: I had been setting about a 9:40 pace when I ran into her. Early in the long run, this can only be trouble, as I tend to get faster as I run and I’m supposed to run my long runs easy, at a 10:40 pace. So in a very real sense, she got me through my run, not the other way around.

On the other hand, I can identify with the gratitude she feels, because I felt it last week. It is immensely helpful, when feeling out a long distance, to go at it with someone next to you, so that instead of thinking, There’s how many miles left? you can be directed to think about the funny dog, the long surfboard, whatever. The miles don’t pass easy sometimes. And it still is true: Running is always enjoyable. Sometimes, however, the joy doesn’t come until the end of the run.

Thanks, Kim, wherever you are, for sharing with me the joy of the run.

The Local Running Scene

So I’ve told you before about my daily runs: how I don’t run in my neighborhood but in the much fancier, better-lit, dogless neighborhood near us. I run for an hour most days there, between 6 and 8 miles. During the winter, when I was training for my first half marathon, I mapped and ran my long runs in this neighborhood as well, generally stopping at the halfway mark at my car for drinks of water. It became obvious around March and April that this plan would not be viable in the hotter months, as water would be necessary much more frequently. New plan.

My friend Sarah and I had occasionally run at a local county park that has a running loop. While there, we’d also ventured onto the beachfront road, A1A, and noticed joyfully that this road has water fountains every mile or less. When Sarah returned to pool running as her way to beat the heat, I committed to A1A as my long run route. It took a few weeks to get all the details figured out, but I finally have it down . . .

Our local running goods store starts an organized run at 6 o’clock every Saturday morning. Some runners start out earlier and then come back to see who else shows up. Everybody runs at his own pace and everybody runs his own distance. From the store to the local inlet and back is about ten miles, and the store puts out three water and Gatorade stations along the way, so if you go the distance, you actually hit them six times.

There’s some unspoken rules about running on A1A: it is fairly dark before 6 on that road, because loggerhead turtles get disoriented by bright lights and therefore no lights are allowed on the beach or street. After 6, when the sun begins to come up, runners and bikers share the bike lane, and we do so extremely well. We leave the sidewalk to the beachgoers, fishermen, surfers, and dogwalkers, who are many. Runners run facing traffic; bikers ride with traffic. When necessary, though it’s not often, we go single file. Since many triathletes train on A1A on Saturday mornings, we find them incredibly friendly and helpful about sharing the road. They train in groups but rarely large packs. When large packs do form, they are inclined to call out, “Runner up!” and form a single file to allow the runner to pass.

I usually run alone. A few weeks ago I met a girl who is my age and runs about my pace, so no matter what time I get to the store, I usually go back at about 5:50 to see if she’s there and we try to run together. (Actually, she’ll be in training now for an upcoming triatholon, so she’s unlikely to be doing long runs again until after that event. Good luck, Natalie!) I usually run over the bridge a couple of times–each pass over it is one mile–and then do my longer runs to the inlet and back. Though I don’t typically run with a partner, like some people do, I have of late been greeted by some familiar faces. Recently someone called out “There you are!” and at a water station someone asked, “Starting late today?” and I actually had to explain that I had done four miles on the bridge before hitting A1A. Seems wearing the same hat all the time is making me readily identifiable. A trio of runners even identified me from my daily runs, saying, “We see you in running during the week. We’re those crazy girls you see running during the week.” It’s funny. I don’t pay too much attention to what other runners are doing, but when I tell people I’m training for a half they say things like, “You’ll do great with all the miles you’re putting in.” Hmmm. You getting a look at my log on RunningAHEAD? Must be they’re just watching my little white hat out there on A1A.

So that’s the local running scene in my corner of the woods.

New Long Run Distance

I ran 15 miles today. For the first time. Went to bed late after a fantastic fourth, figured I’d make this a cutback week and do eight, then realized, hello, you had a cutback week two weeks ago, lazybones. I ran thirteen last week, so I should do twelve this week at least. Then I thought I’d been hankering to get my long runs up to at least fifteen–why not today? Wasn’t sure this was a great week for it. Like I said, I was up too late. I didn’t hydrate like I should have because we were at someone else’s house all day yesterday. But I had a banana before heading out and I had a bag of sport beans with me for added fuel, so I figured if I felt really bad I’d make the turn early.

Actually, I felt pretty good. I ran one mile on A1A early–and boy it was dark–to see if my friend Natalie showed up. When she didn’t, I did another four on the bridge for strength work. And boy, did I feel those four. Bridge work is a doozy. So by the time I hit A1A I had 5.5 miles on the old Forerunner and I knew my turnaround would be 9mi for the short 13 or 10mi if I was feeling strong. Well, I felt great–pretty fast, in fact, as I was keeping an under-10 min pace most of the time. I cracked open the beans at the turnaround and even though I thought about slowing down so I could finish, my legs just didn’t want to. I probably would have finished with a sub-10 average pace if I hadn’t run into another running bud from Saturday mornings on A1A. He’s probably my dad’s age, so we ran about an 11:30 pace together the last few miles. Without those, my only 10-minute pace miles would have been my bridge miles. It was nice to have a strong run on a week when my daily runs have been so weak.

So, new long run distance feels good. I’ll tell you, though, first time I’ve felt it on my legs all day. Doesn’t hurt, exactly. I’ve just really felt the legs all day. Feels good, though. Hey, rule #8: distance running is like cod liver oil: first it makes you feel awful, then it makes you feel better. Eighteen-miler just a few weeks away!