Race Autopsy

Yes, time to do it again–because it won’t be long before I’m officially in training mode again.

What went well in this training cycle?
Hmmm . . . Let me check my log, because from my perspective right now, the answer is Not much. I’ve considered myself in training since mid-July, a long season of training for a half marathon. But the first four weeks of that I still considered myself in base-building mode, getting my mileage back closer to 40 mpw before starting to hammer the tougher workouts and longer long runs. Overall, the mileage was decent, averaging about 36 over the course of the toughest training weeks. I also did well at logging the long runs. The goal was to keep my base at 10 to 14 miles over the summer, and I did that, running at least one 14-miler in each of the sweltering months of June, July, and August. Come September, I started pushing the distance, four long runs past 16 miles. The other thing I did this summer that I hadn’t done before was race shorter distances–even a 10k as late as September.

How was this training different from training for my last half?
It surprises me to say this, but I put in more miles this time around, and at a faster average pace. My average training pace last year was 9:42; this year it was 9:27. Last year, between July 1 and race day, I ran 609 miles; this year, from July to race day, I ran 697. I did try to run six days a week this year, which I hadn’t done before, but mostly so that I could run shorter mileage the rest of the days as my mornings filled up with commitments that made it difficult for me to put in the 9-milers I used to. My weekly mileage didn’t seem to be much superior to last year’s, though I know I hit three high-mileage weeks (47, 48, 49 miles) instead of last year, when I just had one week at 48 miles.

What will I do again?
The over-distance runs, for me, are invaluable. Last year I’d pushed to 16 miles. This year I did two more to 18, and though I did them slow, the endurance of just knowing I’d gone that far was fantastic. Knowing as I stepped to the line, not sure of my speed but absolutely certain that 13 miles was a distance I could run, literally, any given Sunday, was priceless.

I’d probably run this race again, too. Though there are no pacers or separate corrals, I love the course. I love the organization, and the time of year is just right for me.

What did I do wrong?

• Again, there were so many things I screwed up! First of all, I shirked on the tempo runs at race pace, and really, that’s just a rookie mistake. I think it was mostly because there were so many intervals I wanted to try out, and I kept substituting my regularly-scheduled tempo runs with new interval workouts. But so help me if I don’t remember this: there is no substitute for practicing your race pace! I think I was also avoiding practicing my race pace because it felt so tough, and I kept thinking it was a function of the heat and I’d feel so comfortable when winter came. Well, guess what? Winter never came, at least not before race day. I should have been practicing my pace, no matter how brutally difficult it was.
• This is kind of a derivation of the last item, but I didn’t stick to the schedule very well. Part of that was wisdom–if I am feeling particularly tired, I do need to take a day off or at least run easy–but part of it was just inattention. I should have nailed my workouts. Instead, it took me all of August to get into a rhythm, figuring out which weekdays worked for speed workouts, how to do my long run and still make it to the Lamb’s soccer games, etc. It was a learning year, I suppose.
• Because of the scheduling snafus, I didn’t do very well at recovery, especially after the long runs. No ice baths after the 18s made me cranky and tired and achy. Gotta hit the ice after the 20s, for sure.
• I carried only the number of gels I thought I would need on the course, no more. I had one at the start, one at mile 5, and one at mile 10. But you know, once on the course, I kind of wished I’d had the option of having another. Just because. And then I realized, what if one of the gels had “malfunctioned,” as mine have in the past, where the top just doesn’t come off? I’d have been in deep trouble, because in this race, I absolutely needed my gels.
• Visiting the porta-potties so close to gun time made for a nerve-racking start.

What new discoveries did I make about gear/tools/tricks?

• That running with Little G once a week is fantastic! It gives us both something to look forward to. We have our own training schedules, so we do our speed workouts, but try to get together for long runs when we can too. And that being a good running partner means being flexible–letting the other person go if you’re feeling sluggish; putting on extra miles if you’re doing more miles than she is.
• That gear check can be done well. At this race, we turned in our bags into two school buses; at the finish, bags were organized by number onto different rows, which could then be accessed by appropriately-labeled windows. Fantastic!
• That a post-race massage feels fantastic! Yes, it was my first.
• That I can push through pain and discomfort on race day that I thought unendurable on training day. I must have run two-thirds of the race with a sharp pain in my upper thigh / butt. I did not want to think the word “piriformis” out loud to myself. I just kept running. Boy, was I in pain when the race was over!*
• I seem to be developing a pattern where a migraine rears its ugly head every time I run hard or long without my morning coffee. This would mean every Saturday when there’s a long run and I forget to get coffee on my way to meet my family somewhere or, exactly like this week, after a race. I am beginning to consider the possibility of getting up even earlier on Saturdays to experiment with downing some coffee before setting out. I’m just at a loss for what else to do.
• Honestly, I just don’t think I was as hungry for this one as I was last year. And that’s okay. As Little G said, maybe my focus this year has been on the marathon–maybe that’s why I’ve been running the weirdo intervals and the longer long runs, even though I haven’t thought it “out loud,” this is where my training is pulling me.
• Hey, it’s okay to train slow! I need to worry a lot less about my training pace on easy days and develop confidence through my speed workouts and endurance development on long-run days. Nobody writes down in small print “yeah, but her average training pace was only 10:17″. The only thing that matters on race day is how fast you run from the gun to the tape. That is all.
• That traveling with Little G for this race was seamless and comfy, like old jammies. We could definitely do a destination marathon together. And racing together works for us, too–no expectations other than seeing each other at the end.

What’s next?

Again, hopefully a PR in the 5k. This is a tough one, because my current personal best is a really hard time: 23:28, or a 7:34 pace. But I’d love to push and make that even faster. As for a 10k PR, I’m just not sure how that’s going to fit into our travel schedule–as of earlier this week, my family and I are traveling overseas for the Christmas holidays, which will impact both training and racing . . . in fact, I’m thinking of picking out a new 26.2.

I need to work on my form before the marathon, concentrating on strengthening my abs and back to provide a strong framework for miles 22 and onward.

*The fact that the race ended at a beach party was, at first, horrible for me. Walking on sand was excruciatingly painful, though, as Little G said, probably actually good for my piriformis and other aching muscles. But really, every time we wandered away from the sidewalk and back on the sand, I would wince just walking. Surprisingly, though I had a little bit of DOMS (maybe even worse than after the marathon), the piriformis itself no longer hurts at all. My first post-race run was very slow–like G said, we were both “trotting”–run at an average 10-minute pace, but doable. I took another rest day today, but intend to go out again for a few slow, easy miles.

In Disbelief

2009 13.1 Fort Lauderdale
Bib Number:446
Overall Placement: 330 / 2030 (16.3%)
Age Group Placement: 18 / 218 (8.3%)
Gender Placement: 63 / 1048 (6%)
Chip Time: 1:48:56

Really, that’s how I feel about my finish at this race. I didn’t feel prepared for it. I felt like my training had been lackluster–I’ll talk more about how and why in my race autopsy in the next couple of days–and instead of peaking in the last couple of weeks I felt overtired, overstressed, overtrained, and unprepared. My runs felt stale; my legs felt tired. In the last week before my race I began to get more and more nervous as the race approached and I knew my target pace was unendurable for even 4 miles in cool temperatures. I surrendered my dream of a personal best and started praying for a decent race–I just wanted to avoid the humiliation of coming in over two hours and logging a personal worst at the distance.

I’d trained at least once a week with Little G, whose own personal record at the distance was 1:54. Our goal was the same: 1:50 or thereabouts. But as we approached race day, clouds of doubt filled both our minds. As we drove down to Fort Lauderdale, we agreed to run this race like all other races we’ve run together. We’d stand at the start together and run our own race from there, agreeing to find each other at the end. Though we mostly run the same pace, we didn’t want the responsibility of keeping the other one’s pace. It’s very freeing to run a race with that understanding.

We’d found a hotel with a full kitchen, so Little G had made us some baked ziti, bread, and salad. It was fabulous not to have to hunt down a decent dinner once we’d arrived in the city. We just heated up that pasta, sat down, and ate. When dinner was down we both did a little of our Bible study and then turned in.

We woke early for the race and had our bananas, then walked two blocks or so to the start. It was in the mid-60s; Little G had found a couple of fleeces for us to wear and discard at the start. We went to the porta-potties and turned in our gear bags, then sat down for a few minutes. With about thirty minutes til the gun, we decided to go potty again. The lines were ridiculously long, but the bank of porta-potties was huge and we figured the lines would move quickly. When we were going back to the one mass corral, G asked me what time it was and I casually replied it was 6:10. “6:10?” she asked–gun time was 6:13. We ran back to the corrals and joined a mass of people trying to find a way in or over. We found an entrance near the nine-minute milers and got to work trying to down our Hammer gels, get a sip of water, and discard our fleeces. We had just enough time to pray and get ready–thank goodness we’d adjusted the display on our Garmins and silenced the distance alarm earlier. The gun went off and we were racing.

I left Little G almost immediately, trying to get into my rhythm without paying too much attention to my pace according to Garmie, though I thought maybe I was going too fast–mile 1 came in at 8:35. I was trying to pace off people that looked like they were running a smart race–not surging or breathing hard, but able to talk, maintaining an even, easy rhythm. Mile 2, still in the city, came in at a better 8:45.

At mile 3 in this race you go through a tunnel, and I always love that. You go downhill first, and doing that affords you a view of the sea of people going uphill in front of you, a mass of runners moving up and down in a wave of running steps, everyone moving together yet separately. A steel drum band plays here, their notes echoing off the tile of the tunnel, and it gives me a surge of energy even as I swear to run this part of the race with my head, ignoring the people who surge past me on the downhill and think, see ya on the uphilll, sucker. I trusted my bridge training for the work on the way up; as soon as I hit the bottom curve I tucked my head under and started working–attack the hill–and looked down to make sure I wasn’t working too hard. Well, the tunnel tricked me and I lost my signal. I had no idea what my pace was. But I felt strong, and I went with it, picking people off as they slowed to the uphill. Joke was on me; as I came out of the tunnel and into the curve at Broward Boulevard, my legs felt absolutely done. No wonder–I’d run mile 3 at an exhausting 7:48 pace, my fastest of the race. Inexcusable, even with a dead GPS.

Revived, Garmie resumed his job of pacing me as we headed onto Las Olas, past beautiful yachts that did a lousy job of distracting me from my aching legs. But race day isn’t training day, and I kept pushing for an 8:20 mile 4. Little G came up behind me just as we approached the bridge toward A1A, and I was thankful to hear her voice and see her Brooks skirt. We hit the beachfront road together, and started Indian-filing our way through the crowd, threading the needle for each other as we found a spot to hit our pace without having to jostle for position. We found a place where we thought we could hang out and cruise at our pace for the northbound miles. We thought the turnaround was at mile 7½, so we figured we had a couple miles to go. Mile 5 came in at 8:12. I’d intended to take my gel at mile 6, like I did last year, but I knew my body needed the push earlier, so both G and I downed our Hammer gels earlier, at the mile 5 water station, and continued the push north. Happy middle- and high-school cheerleading squads and bands were out cheering for us and I was thankful for every scrap of encouragement.

Mile 6 came in at 8:30, mile 7 at 8:18, and I started looking for the turnaround that seemed to never come. By mile 8 it seemed to take forever for me to recover from my walks at water stops–I had started to run not next to Little G, but just behind her, just pacing off her by watching her pink Brooks skirt and refusing to lose her. Mile 8 came in at 8:24 and finally, a half-mile later, there it was, the turnaround. This was an emotional push–I knew I was on the home straightaway and all I had to do was bear down and push for home. But it was also a reality check: my time stood at 1:07 and I still had a long 5 miles to go. I could get my PR, but not without the hardest of work. And yet I knew it was too early to bear down. Mile 9 came in at 8:14.

At this point, it became a mile-by-mile race. There was sand on some portions of the course, and on A1A it was windy, requiring us to put up our arms, put our heads down, and run smart. My sunglasses were on, and I was trying to focus on nothing but my running. I was trying to do math as I ran–always a tough proposition for me–so I’d have no regrets later. Mile 10 came in at 8:24–slower than I needed it to be–and now the clock stood at 1:24. So this was it: I figured could get my PR if I didn’t clock anything above an 8-minute mile for the rest of the race*.

Without telling Little G, I consciously picked up my pace and left her. It was a decision made instantly, but not necessarily out loud. I just had to go. I was trying to keep my pace above 8:00 by Garmin-hawking, but also trying to pass people, knowing that in these later miles people are slowing down and that it’s deceptive to pace off of them. I downed my last gel at mile 10; at mile 12 I threw water over my head. I could feel my piriformis staring to ache; my right toes felt about to break off–I kept pushing. I had no idea where Little G was but I thought she was still behind me. I remembered people I had lost earlier in the race, unable to keep up with them, and pushed myself to reel them in, to push past them, to keep them from catching me.

At each mile marker, I checked my time–I only had twenty seconds off the clock versus my chip time, and I knew it was going to be really close. With a quarter mile to go I tried to dial it in and realized my right calf was about to seize. I was afraid I’d lose it completely within sight of the finish line and had to pull back just a little–but kept running as hard as my leg would let me. I ran under the clock reading 1:49–yes, a personal best–and could barely bend over to receive my finisher’s medal without upchucking on the sweet, smiling volunteer who said, “Well done, Karina! What a good run!”

Little G finished about a minute behind me. We missed each other in the chute completely but caught up at our pre-arranged meeting spot. We had post-race massages, found our gear bags and changed into dry shirts and flip-flops, and ate pancakes. Following that, we went to check our official finish times, but lost our heads completely when we found G had placed in her age group. Therefore, it wasn’t until I was home several hours later that I found out that my chip time was one minute, forty seconds off my previous personal best at the distance, recorded exactly one year earlier at this same race.

Whew! I have lots more to say about this race and my training leading up to it, but will leave that for another day. For today, my gratitude, for on this race day my God must have been smiling on me. Everything went right, and I’m happy with my new personal best. On to the next challenge: 26.2.

*I did not, in fact, manage to run those last three miles at sub-8 pace. My last splits: 8:25, 7:57, 8:23.

Weak Summary

No, that’s not a typo from the English teacher. It really was weak.

Did my 9 miles of intervals on Monday and was really tired for my 6 on Tuesday. Didn’t run on Wednesday because I was still feeling so tired–and having a sick kid at home didn’t help, either. On Thursday I decided to try to make up the missed miles from Wednesday, but the weather was uncooperative in the early-morning hours and I didn’t get out until close to 10. Though it was windy, the heat was palpable and the 10 miles felt interminably long. On Friday I ran 5 with Little G, thankful for every step of her company.

That left me with a long run Saturday–I had 14 miles on the schedule. But I knew, even running those 5 on Friday, that my legs were way too tired for someone who was 8 days out from her target half marathon–her one chance during the year to set a personal best.

So I slept in Saturday, and logged no miles this weekend. It was a calculated decision, based on all the information I have. Rest cannot hurt me now. More running might.

Last year, a mini-taper the week before the race seemed to work, so I’ll be doing it again this year. The plan: 4 miles today, off tomorrow, 4 miles Wednesday, 6 tempo miles Thursday, off Friday and Saturday, race Sunday. I picked up my race packet Saturday and started getting that great pre-race excitement. I’m hoping I get to the place where I can enjoy the race, even if it starts unraveling right from the beginning. I’m already thinking if I miss my PR I can fit in another try at the Marathon of the Palm Beaches in early December.

Weekly Summary:
Sunday: SRD
Monday: I 9 mi in 1:30–8x½mi @ 8:00, 7:45, 7:30, 7:15 and back; 1½ warm-up and cool-down.
Tuesday: E 6 in 56:36 (9:27)
Wednesday: URD
Thursday: E 10 in 1:35 (9:34)
Friday: E 5 in 47:12 (9:12)
Saturday: URD
MPW: 30

Full Disclosure

I probably won’t knock 12 minutes off my time at the half this time around.

Last year, I was racing the distance for the first time, really, since I always run my first race at a distance with the firm first goal of finishing well. But, that second time around, I was hungry for a personal best, and I knocked a lot of time off–almost a minute per mile. It didn’t hurt that the weather was perfect on race day, either, or that I’d had a long, injury-free training season, full of high-quality mileage, with lots of speedwork and longer long runs than ever before.

This time around? Not so much. Since July, when I started ramping up my mileage with an eye toward the Women’s Half in November, I’ve had some good-quality weeks, but I’ve had lots of mixed results in there too, weeks where my knee was sore, or I didn’t follow the schedule, or I just plain wasn’t feeling the run. As a result, I’m woefully undertrained, supposed to be targeting 8:10 for my tempo runs but knowing full well that even last year’s pace of 8:25 is a stretch.

I’m confident in my own sense of racing and pushing. I run 12 and 14 miles often enough that I know the distance well, and feel like I can strategize at it, run it well enough to come in under two hours, even if the race were held next week. But under 1:50? That might be hard to come by.

The race is not, of course, next week. It’s on November 22, and I still have a few weeks of tempo and long runs to salvage some fitness.

What is next week is the Worldwide Festival of Races. I’m planning to run the 13.1 on Saturday; the race comes at a great time for me to gauge my speed and endurance. When I ran the race last year my time was 1:55, so I knew I was on track to finish sub-2, and it was a real confidence boost. We’ll see what happens this year.

Hey, if it fits into your plans, why not join the Festival of Races? Check out the site, log on and register for one of the races–5k, 10k, or half marathon–and then run it on your own course. Come back when you’re done and upload your time and a brief race report. It’s uplifting to run a virtual race like this one–to know that all over the world, in some 40 countries, close to 1000 other people are doing just what you’re doing. Think global, run local!

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.

Summertime 5K

Garmin Time: 25:43
Field Placement: Uh, no idea.

This race was organized by a local town as one of the events surrounding the celebration of their 50th anniversary. My friend M and I drove down from where we live, about 30 minutes north, to run in it. We parked near the start, and arrived in plenty of time to grab our bibs and stand around talking for some time. We observed other runners stretching and warming up, but in such a warm weather event, I didn’t want to get any warmer than I already would during the running of the race itself, and neither did M.

We got in the crowd as the RD started giving instructions–it was almost impossible to hear as a sherriff’s deputy chose that moment to try to start a cranky golf cart. We did hear her say we should run on the sidewalks as much as possible, and then it was “Ready, Set, Go!” and off we were. I had a few runners (and walkers) to try to navigate through to get into my first-mile rhythm.

It was a warm day in southeast Florida today, folks. Of course every other runner had to contend with those conditions, too. Instead of an 8-minute pace I contented myself with an 8:30 pace at the start–even at that, my breathing felt labored, but I reminded myself that I run between 6 and 8 miles in higher humidity every day. I wanted to give myself time to find my rhythm before assuming that my breathing indicated a problem. Sure enough, by the end of the first mile my breathing was back to normal–well, not normal for an easy run, but race-normal.

The race had no mile markers, so many runners were racing blind; I wondered whether some had gone out too fast or miscalculated the distance. Certainly many seemed to be walking by the first mile. Like many of them, I’m sure, I was looking for a water station near the end of the first mile; it was actually closer to the 1.5 mark. I’d been slowly sneaking up on a friend from our church, gaining on her but not able to pass. Though several runners ran through the water stop, my friend and I both stopped to walk–I guess we both figured every ounce of water in those half-filled cups was too precious to waste. I took two big gulps and poured the rest over my head. Starting to run again, I patted my friend on the arm, setting out again and trying consciously not just not to fall back into my 8:30 pace but to pick it up.

I had spotted a woman in the field who looked like she was my age, and I’d thought I’d keep her in my sights, but when she started off at that 8-minute pace I had to let her go. Now, she began to come into my sights again, though distantly. Mile 2 came in at 8:25. I knew the longest, toughest mile was ahead, but I also remembered how breaking 24 minutes in December had required emptying myself. A mile and one-tenth to go. No PR, but we might as well get some practice in.

By now, the crowd I was running in was very sparse. We were all very tired, and very hot. We could thank our volunteers only with gestures,  but I was determinedly picking off runners and still had that blue tank in my sights. I was concentrating on my form, trying to run easy and relaxed though my breathing was labored and I was working hard. I tried to remember that lengthening my stride does nothing for me except expose me to injury–instead, I must increase my turnover.

Where is the finish? I look down and we’re at 2.8 miles–then 3. Volunteers ahead are telling us the finish is just ahead, but as I look down at Garmie it’s flashing 3.1, and yet I’m still seeing a smiling volunteer waving his arm for me to turn into the park. I stopped Garmie, not glancing at the time*, and dialed it in–I’m still beating that blue tank if I can. Mile 3 came in at–finally–7:55.

I didn’t beat the blue tank, though I may have passed a runner or two in the final 400 meters. My clock time for the 3.25 may have been 26:something, but Garmie has me at far less than that for the 5K distance.

In the end, I’m calling this a good practice race. Though I only got 30 miles in this week instead of 40, I’m thankful for the hot weather training, M’s company**, and, as always, the experience of racing, of pushing yourself right up to the limit without losing control.

*For me, it was far more instructive to know how I did this time at the 5K distance, so I can compare my performance to the Pineapple run three weeks ago and the 5K I plan to run six weeks from now, than to know what the race organizers clocked me at.

**Post-race, M and I went out for coffee and good conversation. Christian runners are the best source of wisdom on all sorts of subjects (but make no mistake, we stink just as much as the next guy–so my apologies to the staff at that Starbucks).

Yep, I’m Doing It Again

Signed up for another hot-weather race: am running a 5K on Saturday. Race doesn’t start until 7:30, so I expect that temperatures will be well in the 90s as we’re running. I don’t have high expectations of setting a PR, though I’d love to do better than I did at the Pineapple race.

Though Little G cannot run the race because of her work schedule, Mel will be there; we’re planning to drive out together. I’m so thankful for my running buds!

In other news, I’m not sure if I mentioned it, but the last pair of Nike Structure Triax 11+ I bought were not 9.5 wides, which I usually wear, but 9 wides instead. I’ve been wearing them for about a month, but this week I finally realized that I wa going to have to change something. I can’t take the shoes back or stop wearing them–or maybe I should say I won’t. I generally wear Thorlo socks, big giant heavy things that I’m sure add a lot of thickness inside my shoes. So I went down to my running store yesterday and found thinner socks. I bought one pair of thin Nike socks and one pair of Feetures socks. The Nikes are very thin; the Feetures slightly thicker, but still much thinner than the Thorlos.

This morning I set out in the Nike socks, actually carrying the Feetures  socks. Since I plan on racing Saturday in the Nike shoes, I wanted to know which socks would give me the best fit, and today’s was the last planned run before the race. So, yes, at mile 3, I changed socks.

The Nike socks felt good–but very thin. I had to lace my shoes more tightly, even using the top eyelet, to keep my foot in securely. But overall, I felt comfortable. But then I switched to the Feetures socks–what a difference! My feet instantly felt so much more at home in the shoes–not tight, but just right. So, yes, these will be my racing socks and shoes.

Let’s go racing!

Run for the Pineapple 5k

Bib Number: 420
Overall Placement: 146/381 (39%)
Age Group Placement: 6/25 (24%)
Gender Placement: 45/210 (21%)
Chip Time: 25:59

Ran with Little G on Friday morning, a quick, hot, and humid six miles that left us both tired and spent. In fact, when our Garmins trilled the end of the six miles at the top of my street, we both agreed to walk the two blocks home–we just couldn’t bear the thought of another running step.

As per my own previously-designed running schedule for the week, I was supposed to be running easy Tuesday and Thursday and running long Saturday, so the unscheduled tempo run Friday was completely out of the program. I threw the long run out the window and decided to rest until Monday’s race.

On my way to meet with my group of high school girls at church on Sunday, I decided to call my friend M and ask her if she’d be interested in running the race with me. She was! I was thrilled to have company, not only because the race was thirty minutes and one county north but because I love M and look forward to any time in her company.

We arrived at the race with just enough time to register, grab our shirts, return them to the car, and line up well at the back of the rather large pack of race participants. I noticed right away that, though the fact that the race was being chip-timed for the first time ever had raced the entry fee by $10 ($30 for a 5k? Outrageous, right?), the crowd seemed much larger than last year.

M and I agreed to meet at the end of the race. Though I knew I wasn’t going to set any PRs at this race, I was hoping to at least hold an 8:30 pace, while M has been running only sporadically and was treating the race more as a fun run.

When the “gun”* went off, I found myself zig zagging through quite a pack of steady but slower runners for the first half-mile. As I progressed, I finally found myself hitting the hoped-for 8:30 pace and trying to hold it through the heat, what we Floridians have the nerve to call hills, and my own less-than-adequate speed training.

This race always seems to me to be the longest 5k of my life. It’s loopy, run on a course that resembles a letter B, and when you finally reach that final straightaway for the last mile, it feels, at least for me, like eternity until you finally catch sight of the finish line. Though in the end Garmie proved that I was picking up my pace steadily even in that last mile, it took every ounce of energy I had to do it.

I crossed the line racing against everybody around me, knowing I was far from a PR but, true to form, racing anyway. I am absolutely incapable of running a race any other way, and to every runner out there who takes offense at my hard-charging manner, my apologies if I’ve passed you fifty yards from the chute and you thought I held back in the first mile just to hot dog it in front of my sweetheart, I promise I do not. As in most cases, in this race I could not bend over to retrieve my own chip, as I had in fact spent all my energy over that last mile and into the race finish.

It broke my heart to know how poorly I had finished: my chip time (can’t even blame it on the clock) is more than two minutes worse than my PR at the distance. However, I know that I am unlikely to ever PR at this race. It’s held in May, when I’m always trying to acclimatize to the heat, and I’m always in the middle of my offseason, having peaked in my training in February or March, so I don’t come to the line speed-ready.

I finished feeling spent, at least, knowing that I’d left it all on the course. I got water and went back to cheer for M. Together we got Gatorade and pizza, knowing our $30 had been well-spent on a post-race food-fest and plenty of fluids for a May sweat-a-thon.

I don’t care how poorly I perform at this race every year; I plan to keep it on my calendar. It’s scenic, loopy, hilly, and fun, and I intend to finally tell its organizers what a great event it is. Keep that pineapple rolling!

Oh, and did I mention, all finishers got a medal? Yee-haw!

*The gun, in this case, was the voice of the RD, completely inaudible to those of us at the back of the pack, saying “Ready, Set, Go!” It’s priceless, indeed.

Eaten on the Run

So, I set out today for speedwork. The goal was to run six reps of a half-mile at 5k pace, which at my PR is 7:30 or so, with ¼-mile recoveries. I knew running them consistently at anything close to 7:30 was going to be impossible right now, so I was shooting for anything close to 7:45.

On the recoveries, I had to stop and rub my legs–something was eating me during the run! I don’t know what–I never saw mosquitos. But my legs were certainly wet through with sweat, so maybe that was an attractor. Yuck!

My interval paces: 7:59, 7:48, 7:40, 7:27, 7:38, and 7:17–a 7:39 average. I’m disappointed about that next-to-last one since I prefer to run them progressively but on the course I ran them on, that one lap ends up with some really tight turns. It was actually very instructive, how running such tight turns really messes with your pace when you’re running at those speeds, at least for me.

Ran with my 10-ounce Fuel Belt Sprint bottle again, and it was dry by the halfway point–it was 75°, 75% humidity. Thankfully at that point I was running past the water fountains so I got a refill. Between the heat and the speed, I was very thirsty.

I didn’t get up and run yesterday. The small group of high school girls that I lead for our church has started to meet later–we don’t end now until 8, and since we live about a forty-five minute drive from church, I got to bed late. But I refused to give up the run, so after the Monkey went down for his afternoon nap, I got on the treadmill and put in a miserable five miles. I figured since this was my first dreadmill run of the season and I was probably not going to get in very many miles that I should make them worthwhile, so I set the incline as far as I could and got some hill training in.

This was probably a few hours before my evening yoga session, at which our instructor decided to work on opening up our hips and stretching and strengthening our legs–so yes, I’ve had some tough workouts stacked on my legs.

I haven’t shared about my Saturday long run. I started out with one mile going south, toward Natalie’s place, just in case she was out, but she wasn’t. Sad indeed. Turned toward the north, intending to put in five before turning for home, for a total of twelve on the day. I was very methodically stopping for water every other mile–it was a warm day, and the air was still. For the first time in about a month, there were boats on the water–more than I could count. At mile six, I didn’t see Natalie, but I did see my favorite Brooks skirt–Little G!

She agreed to keep me company for another mile and a half before we turned around, then returned me to my car. We went into Dunkin’ Donuts and had coffee and talked for about twenty minutes; then I gave her a ride back to her car. My pace went from 10:15 to 9:35 to 8:54. That girl flies!

My next race, the Memorial Day Run for the Pineapple 5K, is coming up. Dare I hope that my legs will have some speed in them by then?

Kara’s Boston Run

Did you happen to see any of the coverage of Monday’s Boston Marathon?

I did. I was following a few friends and acquaintances running the 113th running of the nation’s oldest marathon, and of course, like most American runners, I was waiting with bated breath to see if Ryan Hall and Kara Goucher could be the first Americans in decades to get olive wreaths on Boylston Street.

It didn’t look so good for Ryan on the Newton Hills, but he pulled it out, reeled some runners in, and finished a highly respectable 3rd. No, he didn’t win it, but he did earn a spot on the podium by, as he said in his post-race press conference, just running his own race and keeping the leaders in his sights. He also expressed that, at 26, he thinks he’s “still young” (ya think?)and that he feels he still has a lot to learn. Though he’s run five marathons (London in 07 and 08, the Olympic Trials and Beijing, and now Boston), he said he felt like he had plenty to learn about racing 26.2, and he can’t wait to get back to work and keep improving. He’s an interesting interview–I keep remembering how a Runner’s World article once referred to his accent as a “California patois” and it’s a good description. I’ll come back to his post-race reactions in a minute.

The women’s race developed painfully slowly for the first 19 miles. It was Kara who decided, at that point, that there were too many people in the lead pack–eight, by her estimation. She took it upon herself to “shake things up” and leave only “the true contenders” in the lead pack. She looked good, but with only 800 meters to go Kenyan Salina Kosgei and Ethiopian Dire Tune started a sprint race that Kara could not respond to. Kosgei won by a one-second margin over Tune; Kara was nine seconds behind.

Failing to break the tape crushed Kara, and she was distraught as the media surrounded her and well-meaning fans shouted encouragement. At her post-race press conference her voice broke when the question was asked, “In retrospect, do you think you should have taken the lead at the 20-mile mark?” With a noticeable quiver in her voice, Kara answered, “Well, I think I’ll be thinking about that one for a long time.”

In this more informal interview with Flotrack Kara appears more relaxed and at peace with her amazing third-place finish. She mentions trying to convince her coach Alberto Salazar to let her run the London Marathon six days later–an insane idea that yielded to reason the very next day. Play the video and then come back.

Kara Goucher after 2009 Boston Marathon | 2009 Boston Marathon on Flotrack

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Okay. Here’s what I think about Kara’s postrace reaction.

She wanted to win one “for everybody,” she says several times, both in her postrace interview and in the Niketown interview also available at Flotrack.

Kara, you don’t owe us anything. You’re an incredible runner, not just because your face is amazingly cute but because your form is beautiful and effortless, and because you’re a hard worker who doesn’t take anything for granted. I think one of the reasons we relate to runners like you, who weep when they get third place in only their second marathon–on an incredibly tough course–is that, internally, we all want desperately to win. We know the feeling. We clutch our medals, thinking Yay! I ran my marathon in 4:30. We’re so pleased with ourselves–for about a week. And then we get that itch, and pretty soon we’re training again, even to tweak that down to 4:25 we’d be happy. So we get it, the drive and desire to win–but we still think you’re amazing on the podium in third place, and we know one day you’ll have a gold medal around your neck. We’re willing to wait and train with you. Patience.

Now, about Ryan.

I’m happy that he had a good race, and I’m even happier with how he reacted to it. Of course he wanted to win, but he didn’t. He did what Little G taught me to do years ago: on days when you don’t perform at your best, take the run as a learning experience. No race is wasted when you use every effort to learn something.

And I think Ryan is a great ambassador for Christ. Run well, Ryan.