I’m Blaming the Phone

It’s been a tough week. Naturally, since it’s week one.

As I mentioned, our car went out on Tuesday, and then the air died too, to keep it company. On Wednesday we stuck around to wait for estimates from several companies, so were in the sweltering heat all day.

I skipped my run Tuesday and ran with Little G Wednesday. I meant to run Thursday, my scheduled 8, but when the alarm went off, I did not. I must have turned the alarm off instead, because I woke up around the time I’m usually heading back in the house post-run.

It’s like my biorhythms–a word I would normally not even use–are all off. During normal days, even during the offseason, my body wakes up almost on its own, right around 5 o’clock. I noticed today that when the alarm went off, I hit snooze. And when I woke again, I was actually dreaming. Not only had I gone back to sleep, I’d gone right back into REM. See what I mean about my rhythms being off? This is more than just going to bed late–I’m all off.

Now, I got my new Runner’s World late yesterday afternoon and naturally I’m about 70% done with it (draw your own conclusions regarding reading speed v. content), and something mentioned in the article about Tera Moody’s insomnia caught my eye–that you should avoid using your Blackberry 30 minutes before bed because white screens can impair your ability to go to sleep.

Hmmmm. Bear with me here because this story gets long and convoluted–big surprise.

I love my podiatrist. ‘Member when he saved my toenail after it got kicked off? Yeah. Great guy. Lousy staff. They neglected to type up his oral notes once. They also forgot to call to tell me he was in emergency surgery, so that I showed up for an appointment once when he was in his other office–one hour away. Well, last month I completely forgot an appointment–not surprisingly, since it had been scheduled six months earlier. Hey, how’s about a reminder phone call? After also very nearly forgetting a birthday party for one of the Lamb’s friends, I told my husband the paper-and-pencil calendar wasn’t cutting it anymore and we were going to have to try harder to restore my old PDA. Well, he’d seen the commercial for the new, cheaper (key word) iPhone. His work picked up the contract on his cell, so he surprised me and bought me my very own iPhone.

Delightful. I’ve spent the last week putting my life on the thing–including helpful alerts that will CALL ME when I have an appointment coming up. Thank you, external brain.

Unfortunately, I’ve been doing this, apparently, too close to bed. Sometimes IN bed. Apparently this should stop.

In addition, the kids have been enrolled in swimming lessons for the last two weeks*, from 9 to 9:30 every day. They’re in the water. Mom’s outside, sweating. And I don’t think I’m drinking enough–maybe not even eating enough, something Lindsay made me think about when I read the latest post of Chasing the Kenyans my new RSS feeder downloaded**. My weight’s gone from 112 to 108 in the last 10 days. I’m not taking donations yet, but it’s something to keep an eye on.

All this served to make a tough run today. Tough to get up, tough to get out of the house, and even tougher to muscle through the eight miles. And trust me, it was one of those runs–have you had them?–where you literally MUSCLE THROUGH. Ugh. Some runs are fantastic, you sing with the heavens every minute . . . not this one. I felt every stride, could almost tell you every echo of thought that it took to occupy my mind as I ran.

I thought of my thirst for a PR at this half . . . that it’s going to take these tough runs, too, to get me to that finish; and that if running were easy, everyone would do it.

Tomorrow, long run day–still planning to do it though it’ll have to be pushed to the evening. I tell you, I thought life would get less complicated with the kids getting older but it’s going the opposite way. Having the iPhone was supposed to help, and I’ve put my training schedule on it. Now if the thing could just push me out the door . . .

*Don’t ask. The Monkey is progressing well and seems to have little fear of the water; sometimes absolutely none at all. The Lamb, meanwhile, is terrified of everything. Oh, for the ability to take the sum of their fear and divide by two! Her next memory verse will definitely be Joshua 1:9: Be strong and courageous . . . In the next cycle of lessons, the Monkey will remain in the group setting, but the Lamb will move to private lessons. Their not learning to swim is not an option.

**Something else on the new phone. I’m withholding reviews until later.

About my Extended Absence

No, I have not quit running. No, I am not injured, and no, I have not lost my compulsion to write about my training.

Only, in the last few weeks, did I lose any time to tell you about my training, and I apologize to the few of you who actually were checking to see what I was up to; I find it disappointing to check the blogs I follow to find no new updates. How dare they not keep me up-to-date?

So, I apologize for that.

Training season for my upcoming half marathon started this week, on Sunday. Predictably, the week before that, I caught the Lamb’s cold. Also predictably, since stubbornness is both my best and worst attribute as a runner, I chose to run through it (hey, I never had a fever) (okay, I never checked). I logged close to 40 miles that week in spite of it, though I did take off Thursday, my most congested day. Instead, I ran Friday, my regular off day, then ran long Saturday with Little G, and did 14 miles. Ran again Sunday, my new embedded-circuit training 4-miler. Ran another 4 Monday, the day my car broke down (don’t want to talk about it) and the a/c at the house stopped working. After sleeping in 90-degree heat, I decided to shirk the run Tuesday. I’d run 27 miles on 4 consecutive days and decided adding another 19 or so in the next 3 wasn’t going to add anything, or get me off on the right foot for the first week of training. It was supposed to be speedwork day, an admittedly important part of my training for my half, but here was my logic:

1. Little G and I ran our 14 on Saturday–in July–in 2:11. That’s including one mile on the sand at a 10:30 pace. So I’m pretty sure I could still sub-2 a half this weekend, pretty much, if I chose.
2. It’s the beginning of training, not the end of it. I’m not burning myself out right now just for training’s sake.
3. I doubt if on race day, sixteen weeks out, I’ll cross the line in 1:55 or anywhere else short of my goal, look back, and think, “You know what, it’s that one day of mile repeats that I missed that did me in.” Yes, I shirked it. No, I’m not sorry.

And that’s the story of my first week of training. Today I did another 8½ with Little G. Both of us felt pretty wiped when we started, but we finished in about 1:10, giving us hope of a good training season.

Okay, again, I apologize for my silence; I intend to be better about being accountable.

The Time Has Come

A few changes have been made to my racing calendar for the rest of the year. I’ve decided to scrap the fall marathon, mostly because I realized we promised my parents we’d visit them for Christmas this year, which will make it difficult to be racing anytime in late December.

My commitments, therefore, are starting to crystallize: I have some friends who are contemplating running the Women’s Half Marathon, being sponsored by Women’s Running Magazine. It’s an inaugural event, and it’s close enough, just a few hours away. The course promises to be fast and flat, and we all hope to come close to setting personal bests. Following that, our plans vary a bit: Little G still wants a fall marathon to prepare for Boston, then intends to run another half at Tallahassee. I want to give my legs enough time to recover following the Women’s Half at the end of November, then run another marathon in the spring. It’ll be the first marathon I really race from the gun, and I don’t want any regrets when I cross the line.

The last time I raced a half marathon, I took twelve minutes off my time. That was partly because, being only my second time at the distance, it was the first time I really raced the 13.1 miles from the gun (sensing a trend?). But it was also at least partly due to the fact that I put in a long, hard season of training. Though many training plans for the half marathon call for ten weeks of training, I started training for my November half in late July.

Therefore, since I hope to set another personal record at this, my third time at the distance, I realized it was time to stop goofing off and come up with an appropriately tough training schedule–it’s already July, and the Women’s Half is a week earlier than the 13.1 Fort Lauderdale, last year’s race.

So, I did it. I sat down with several training plans culled from different sources. I did what Glover suggests in the Competitive Runner’s Handbook: I set about deciding what I wanted my mileage to be, what I wanted my long runs to be, where and what kind of speedwork I wanted to do, and then I filled in the rest of my days. I created a plan designed to get me to the finish line of the Women’s Half on November 22 in under 1:50, and one to get me to the finish line of the A1A Marathon on February 21, 2010 in under 4:15.

The result is two hodgepodge plans, but they suit me. They’re filled with a few low-mileage, easy days for recovery. The half training plan has plenty of speed built into it–long intervals that build up in speed, and toward the end, two days of speed each week: one of intervals and one day dedicated to a short tempo run at or near goal pace. The long runs on that plan are well past half marathon distance, both because I discovered it helped me relax on race day to have run so far past the 13-mile mark and because, like last year, I’ll be gearing up for a 26.2.

The marathon training plan eases up on the speedwork a little. I’ll still take turns between long intervals and tempo runs at half marathon pace, but I’ll only dedicate one day to speed, and I’ll always tackle the intervals on the weeks I don’t have 20-milers scheduled. I’ve penciled in four of those–I intend one to go past the 20-mile distance. Though I’ve penciled in the pace at which those runs should go, I’m really not paying attention to pace on those long, long runs.

Neither plan has hill work scheduled, and that’s because hills are tough to find in southeastern Florida, especially in my situation; I run before dawn and must be home to care for my preschool child during the day. However, I intend to run two or four passes over our neareast intracoastal bridge at the beginning of my long runs–though I’ll probably lay off it on 20-milers to save the legs.

I think I’ve reasoned through most of my logic. The plans are available for your perusal, and you can keep me accountable starting July 26. Until then, it’s nice to think I’m still in the off-season. But I’m not fooled, and I’m trying not to shirk too badly so I won’t have a lot of work to catch up on. I shirked my run today, blaming a feeling of an oncoming cold. I won’t get a long run this week because of a long-overdue garage sale*, and I won’t get one next week either because I’ll be doing a 5K. My log, therefore, continues to look terribly inconsistent**. I’d have preferred to have more 40-mile weeks stacked up before we got into the meat of training, but it is what it is.

*Though our youngest, the Monkey, is 3½, this garage sale prominently features a high chair, an Exersaucer, two booster seats, two pack-and-plays, a swing, and two jogging strollers. Like I said, long overdue.

**My weekly mileage for the last ten weeks, starting with the week of May 15: 25, 39, 20, 16, 29, 39, 31, 25, 15, 40. Like I said, inconsistent.

Who Makes Me Do These Things?

After running at a pretty fast pace with Little G on Wednesday and going to bed way too late that night, I made the decision to skip running on Thursday, moving my rest day, which I usually take on Friday. I do run sometimes on Friday, the day before the long run, but never longer than four miles.

Instead, this week, I ran six. They were run very easy, though I was not so tired as to shirk off the extra quarter-mile when Garmie beeped and I was still a block from home.

The alarm seemed to go off extra early the next day, as indeed, it did–I had decided on my last long run that I couldn’t keep starting anywhere close to six, as any run close to two hours ends way past sunrise and after then temperatures have risen way too high. And, between vacation and the last 5K, I hadn’t done a long run in a month, either–since June 6. So it was tough indeed to rise at 4:45, about the same time as weekdays, to don my running gear, get down some peanut butter toast, and head out the door.

I was headed south on A1A by about 5:30, setting out at about a 10-minute pace. I got to the first water stop at 2 miles and then turned to head north. I intended to put in 14 miles, but ugh, what a lonely, miserable long run. Don’t get me wrong–I usually put in my long runs alone, and I don’t generally mind the solitude. But it was hot out there, and humid. At every water stop (even miles), runners were turning around sooner than planned, which made it harder to keep heading out. I ran into my friend M at about the 6 mile mark. She was on the way south; I was still headed north. I told her I intended to put in 14, but it wasn’t long after that I knew 14 just wasn’t in the cards, especially if I wanted to get back on my normal training schedule this week, which begins on Sunday.

Instead, I made the decision to turn around at the 8-mile mark, which would bring me back to my car at 12 miles total. At that water stop, I also downed a Gu, finding it much less refreshing having been up against my overheated body for over an hour. I turned around to head back to my car and tried to convince myself I could run four miles in my sleep.

Ran into M again, who was headed back to her car with Little G, whom she’d picked up on the way. They told me they were hitting the beach when they were finished with the run, and that, at least, put a spring in my step. I put in the last miles in 9:20, 9:13, 8:33.

Okay, one confession: when I stopped at a water stop and had a little wait while other runners hydrated, I started looking at my weekly mileage totals and realized that I was almost at 40 miles on the week. To get there, I’d have to finish off 13 miles instead of 12. Come on, wouldn’t you put in that extra mile?

After the run I joined M and Little G at the beach, where the water was deliciously cold and wonderfully refreshing, reminding me that the place I live, though tough on training, has its advantages too.

But my challenge was far from over: Sunday, the Lord’s day, and the alarm was set for 4:45–a later time as a nod to the shorter mileage planned–just 4 miles on the day, though I had planned to add embedded cross training again.

It was hard to believe how tired my legs were, though easy to attribute to three days of pounding. I’d gone from always taking off the days before and after the long run to sometimes running either the day before or the day after to running both the day before and the day after–what did I expect?

In spite of this, my miles did get progressively faster.

Mile 1: 10:30
XT: 40 reverse crunches
Mile 2: 9:58
XT: 50 push-ups; 20 reverse adductors
Mile 3: 9:44
XT: 15 holds (plank/up dog); 150 crunches
Mile 4: 9:08

I took the day off today. My muscles are somewhat sore, but I’m happy to have proven to myself that I have the willpower to overcome tiredness. I don’t think I was risking injury–nothing hurt sharply or weirdly, just sore-ly.

Tomorrow, I’m back on track. I’ve just got to remember to get to bed early!

Half-Mile Intervals at (Snort) 5K Pace

That was the goal. My PR 5K pace is 7:34. But that was set back in December, in decidedly better atmospheric conditions. So the goal was to run 5 reps of a half mile, with quarter-mile recoveries, at about 7:45 pace, which is what I’d love to run my next 5K at.

Set out with a mile’s warm-up. I generally run mile repeats at 5K pace, so I figured half-miles would feel easy.

Ha! It was 78 degrees when I set out, with 93% humidity. The first half was appropriately tough, and I ran it at 7:57–far from goal pace. I walked for almost the full recovery and when Garmie told me it was time to bear down again I focused on controlling my stride and quickening my pace for another half mile–a long half mile. Better this time: 7:38. Another quarter-mile walk and then repeat the torture. I managed to lower my pace again, by four seconds: 7:34.

This time, as I’m walking my recovery, I’m feeling incredibly tired. Not only am I sweaty and feeling the run, but my legs are tired. I can feel how I’m really using my upper legs to lift and drive my stride, and they’re feeling the work. But Garmie’s beeping again, and it’s go time for the next repeat. Down the straightaway I go, thinking control: it’s not a sprint, but a half-mile race, so it must be run at a pace I can hold for that distance, and at this point, 7:30 doesn’t feel like a pace I can hold that long.

Running this, I remember an article in my last Runner’s World, about an older runner who was trying to improve his 5K times by running with some high school track teams. In conversation, they discussed how the hardest interval isn’t the last, but the next-to-last. In the last interval, you can cut loose and run your fastest: you know you can be dead for your cooldown. But in that penultimate interval, you have to hold back some energy for the last one. I knew intimately what they meant on that fourth half-mile repeat. I was exhausted and spent, and I knew I had enough in me for one last 7:25 or so. But I didn’t know if I had enough in me for two 7:40s. It’s not quite the same thing, and I’m not sure if that makes sense.

Fourth interval came in at 7:32, and when it was over, I dragged myself over to the coolest water fountains in our neighborhood and had two long drags before starting to jog again. Last interval starting soon: now there was no need to save energy.

However, it was the longest half-mile I’d ever known. For this repeat I checked neither distance nor pace, but just ran as controlled as I could until Garmie beeped. In spite of this, I was tired, and barely hanging on when Garmie began his slow beep, beep, beep . . . telling me it was almost time to stop. Time for that last rep: 7:30.

So, things I’m pleased about: that the reps were run progressively faster, and that I didn’t quit, even in the face of my dogged tiredness, and the unbelievably unfriendly conditions. I’m discouraged by what the workout proves, which is that I’m so far behind from where I was six months ago. I couldn’t run a 23:28 5K today even on the flattest, straightest course–and the race in two weeks is on a decidedly un-flat, un-straight course.

There will be no PR at the Dreher Park Run.

As for the rest of my racing calendar this year, it’s shaping up to be busy, as long as the finances are available: I may run the Women’s Half Marathon in St. Petersburg, and then the most convenient Florida marathon in December, either Palm Beach on December 6 or Jacksonville on December 20. In February, I’d like to run the Tallahassee Half and the Sunrise to Sunset Relay in March. Though it seems like a faraway dream, it is still a fantasy of mine to one March complete the Bud Lite Challenge at Gasparilla by running the 5K and 15K Saturday and the Half Marathon on Sunday.

All these winter and spring races make it unlikely that I will get a winter 5 or 10K to PR in, unless I can find a way to get faster in 90º, 90% humidity. It’s too bad, because I think my legs are still a sprinter’s legs at heart.

*The advantage of the Palm Beach race is that it’s local and flat, but it’s not a very scenic course and tends to be hot, and, of course, it’s only two weeks post-half; the Jacksonville race, meanwhile, would require a hotel stay, but it gives me more recovery time post-half.