Women Rock Half Marathon Goals

I signed up for this race on Monday of this week, but that doesn’t mean I can’t shoehorn some goals into this event.

A Standard: 2:20
B Standard: 2:30

I literally have no idea if these are realistic goals. I used a couple of race predictors based on my most recent 5K (29:30) and then backed off even more because I’m not tapered or making this a goal race. I have never run a road half marathon before, so I don’t know how this is going to go. My suspicion is that I have the physical capability for these times but I have to find the mental capability inside myself. Also I have to be vigilant because sometimes I think I’m cruising along at a good pace and then I look down and I’m running like a 14 minute pace.

This is going to be a good chance for me to test out a couple things for Twin Cities. I am going to run without a handheld or a hydration pack, and just rely on the water stops. This is new for me – usually I’ve got at least a handheld. It’s like the equivalent of a security blanket for me. But I’ve got to take the training wheels off at some point.

It will be freeing to run without a pack on my back, and with my hands free. But will it translate into a faster pace over a sustained period of time? It should, as should running in the morning before it gets too hot.

Of course I have all kinds of excuses pre-set in my mind for how I won’t be able to perform up to what my abilities likely are. Oh, I just signed up for this race. Oh, I’m not tapered. I’ve never done this before. It’s early. I’m tired. I lack endurance. But what it comes down to is that in hard races like this, I race without courage. I worry about how the miles down the road will be affected by the mile I’m in. I worry about my stomach. I worry that it will be too hard. I worry I’ll get sunburned. I worry that even if I do run my hardest, it’ll be a mediocre time and what will be the point? I worry less about that last one than I used to, because it is what it is. But even after a couple years of slow-as-f*** running behind me, I still feel a bit embarrassed that my best efforts are times sneered at by faster runners when they think people like me aren’t looking.

Whatever happens, I guess I’ll be setting a road half marathon PR (since I’ve never done one) and an overall half marathon PR (since I haven’t run one since Harder ‘n Hell in 2015), and I’ll finally get an idea of what’s to come in October.

Twin Cities Marathon Training: Week 9

This week felt like nine weeks and five days, as Navin R. Johnson (Steve Martin) says in The Jerk.

Monday: 5.4 mi, treadmill
Tuesday: 5.6 mi, treadmill
Wednesday: 4.3 mi, road
Thursday: 6.3 mi, road
Friday: 5.6 mi, road
Saturday: rest
Sunday: 13.9 mi, trail (Lebanon Hills)
Total: 41.2 mi

I seriously cannot believe I managed to get over 40 miles in this week. As I said in my Week 8 post, I was in Portsmouth, NH for the majority of the week, and I didn’t have a car due to a comedy of errors. That meant that I spent Monday and Tuesday on the hotel treadmill, after a grueling 10 hours of technical lectures and lab work. I ate grocery store food and did homework after my workouts. Monday’s workout was okay, Tuesday’s was not as great since I had to use the crappy treadmill while some guy leisurely walked (with some occasional running) and watched something on his smartphone. I had been planning on doing an interval workout but the crappy treadmill kept cycling through the various display options, so I was only able to see the time or distance every 43 seconds or something. Oh he also didn’t wipe down the treadmill after using it, which is how I know this guy was actually the devil and not just someone who was looking for a lower-intensity workout.

Wednesday I got a car and I looked up some possible running routes. I thought I’d drive to this place, Prescott Park, and then run a loop as suggested on Map My Run. I headed that way, mistakenly driving through downtown Portsmouth in a very pedestrian-heavy area, and discovered this Prescott Park place was having a huge event. So I had to find something else to do, and drove around for awhile before parking on Goat Island and running onto New Castle Island and then along the beach at Great Island Common.

Yeah, wow. It was unbelievably gorgeous. I didn’t realize the sun sets a bit earlier in NH than it does in St. Paul, so I ended up running the last half mile or so in near darkness, wearing a black t-shirt and black shorts. Whoops.

Thursday I headed back to the same area, parking near Fort Constitution, running a circle around the islands near the mouth of the Piscataqua River. It was so blissful, a welcome relief after incredibly long and at times frustrating days in class. I started earlier so I was able to get in a longer run and then had a lobster roll and giant cone of ice cream at a place called the Ice House.

Friday I finished up my course with a practical exam in the morning, then took a self-guided walking tour of Portsmouth. It was mostly just me wandering off in whatever direction looked to have the most interesting old houses/buildings. I did see a few specific sites (I finally figured out what Strawberry Banke was), but I mostly stumbled upon cool things. I even walked across the Memorial Bridge into Maine, then turned around and went back again. I got to brag to my aunt later that I already had my 10,000 steps in.

After my walking tour, I drove up to Maine to my family’s camp near Kennebunk. I chose to take my training in Portsmouth because it was relatively near the camp, and fortuitously, it happened to be the same weekend that a lot of extra family was up there. So I got to have an amazing (but short) time with around 20 members of my extended family. After water-skiing, I headed out for a run around the lake between rain showers. (It was very humid.) After a late dinner, we had two sauna sessions and two jumps in the lake before I drove back to Portsmouth to take advantage of the opportunity to sleep in.

Saturday, I headed back to Maine for a few hours, getting in another water-skiing session plus some wiffle ball. We can call that cross training. I made Saturday my rest day so I didn’t have to throw stinky, sweaty running clothes in my suitcase. (I did throw my swimsuit into my carry-on, but it was dry.) I was flying out Saturday evening and drove back to Boston after the wiffle ball game. I made it home at about 10 PM and crashed at about midnight, without bothering to set an alarm. I was going to sleep as late as I wanted to.

Sunday I still got in almost 14 miles! I didn’t put any pressure on myself to get started by a certain time. I got up late, I ate my breakfast fairly slowly, and I watched a couple TV shows before I finally headed out. I probably could have cranked out a few more miles, but I was hungry and out of gels, and I was low on water. I really wouldn’t mind a few long runs on days in the low 70s F, if for no reason other than water conservation.

I am really amazed I managed to run 41 miles this week, with all the travel, work, studying, and even fun I crammed into my trip. I was pretty tired – traveling wears me down a bit no matter what the situation, and in this case I was up early every day and then up late studying due to semi-poor time management. Working out did help me decompress from the day and also allowed me to see some beautiful places. And yes, I did enrich myself professionally as well.

Half marathon coming up this weekend – I just signed up for it today, since I realized I haven’t raced in two months. And I’ll get to be home every day this week!!! So that will be great.

Twin Cities Marathon Training: Week 8

Oh my god what a week.

Monday: 5.6 mi, treadmill
Tuesday: rest
Wednesday: rest
Thursday: 7.4 mi, treadmill
Friday: 9.4 mi, trail (Lebanon Hills)
Saturday: 5.9 mi, trail (Murphy-Hanrehan)
Sunday: 3.3 mi, treadmill
Total: 31.6 mi

I didn’t intend for this week to be so low mileage, but here we are. Monday I had to go to North Dakota for work. I drove, because my last minute plane ticket was so expensive and it seemed like a waste, plus I hate flying. I wish I’d flown, because I was wiped out by the drive. Probably because I actually got lightly sunburned during the drive. I need to remember to put on sunscreen! I planned to get there, change into my running clothes, have dinner with my family in Grand Forks, and then get a recommendation for a good place to run from my sister in law. Instead I discovered my suitcase wouldn’t open – the zipper had started to tear away from the body of the suitcase, and so the teeth wouldn’t line up right. I wasted precious time trying to open it and then ended up taking it over to my brother’s, thinking we’d have to cut it open. He managed to get the zipper to open without further damage, hooray. I ended up on the hotel treadmill after our dinner though, since it was getting late.

Tuesday I had a bunch of extra driving from Grand Forks to get to my actual work location, then had a couple hours of meetings, then turned back around and went home. I had planned to run after I got home, thinking I’d be back by 5:30 or so. Instead I got back to my house at 8 PM and was so wiped I couldn’t think of running. Wednesday I didn’t feel well at all, like a cold was coming on, so I decided to rest. I don’t think it was a cold actually, I think it was an air quality issue, because the symptoms came and went the rest of the week but never really blew up into anything.

Thursday I ran inside on the treadmill because I was tired and didn’t want to deal with the heat. Friday, I left work a bit early due to my long days on Monday and Tuesday, and went home to change before heading to Lebanon Hills for some trails. I was planning on doing 12 miles, but I didn’t get out in time, and I ran more than enough, especially in the heat. I wasn’t planning on running Sunday, so I knew I needed to get a long run in on Saturday.

Obviously, no long run materialized on Saturday. I tried. I drove out to Murphy-Hanrehan Park, but I just could not get myself in gear. I had another work trip the next day, and I couldn’t stop thinking about all that I had to do for that, and worrying about how long the run would take. I could not get the anxious feeling in my chest to go away, even after a couple of miles. I just worried and worried and worried. I felt guilty about spending 4+ hours away from my husband (and cats) when I was leaving for a week the next day. I knew I had to do laundry and pack, and go to bed early, etc. The worry, combined with the heat, the bugs, and the grass, slowed me down to the point where I knew I needed to call it a day. I was done before the ice in my pack melted!

Sunday was an absolute disaster of a day. I got up at 4, after about 2 hours of sleep (and 4 hours of worrying in bed before that), drove to the airport, and had a relatively uneventful flight to Boston. Things started to unravel after I waited an impossibly long time to get a coffee after my flight (I hadn’t had coffee before the flight, because I don’t like to get up if I don’t have to – if you know what I mean). Then once I got to the rental car facility and tried to check in online, I realized I didn’t have my driver’s license. (I use my passport as an ID when flying.) I had taken it out of the pencil pouch I use as a wallet/purse when I was filling out my absentee ballot, and I didn’t put it back. So I had no way to rent a car. I ended up taking a taxi to my friend’s house (I had already planned to visit her), and then beat her there, then huddled under the eaves to unsuccessfully avoid the light rain for about 10 minutes before she got back. (It turned out she had a little mudroom/porch I could have waited in, but the door was sticky so I thought it was locked, argh.) She was unbelievably kind and offered to drive me to Portsmouth (her infant son is soothed by car rides), so now I just have to take transport to my training and put off any sight-seeing until after my husband overnights my ID. I took a nap at the hotel, walked to get dinner, and then conjured up enough energy for that treadmill run. Woof.

I’m in Portsmouth, NH this upcoming week and it’ll be another jumbled up week of workouts. I didn’t do a single prescribed run last week (although Thursday’s run was a semi-tempo, I guess), and I don’t know if I’ll be able to do any this week, either. I’ll just get done what I can and not sweat it.

Twin Cities Marathon Training: Week 7

Much more of a cutback than I expected.

Monday: 3.5 mi, pavement (Centennial Lakes)
Tuesday: 6.1 mi, pavement (MRT, 40 @ tempo)
Wednesday: rest
Thursday: 7.4 mi, road
Friday: 8.5 mi, treadmill
Saturday: rest
Sunday: rest
Total: 25.5 mi

Okay, I guess I needed to take this time off. Oh now, now I won’t win the race, boo hoo.

Monday I ran a short, sweaty run during my lunch hour. It had to be done, because I knew I was taking Wednesday off. Tuesday I did a miserable tempo run on the Mississippi River Trail. It was hot and I didn’t realize I sped up much too quickly, so I was blowing up during the tempo. I actually stopped and walked a bit! Not ideal, and the data got all messed up with some kind of GPS error. I set a world record with my 2:11 mile, which took me across the Mississippi!

Wednesday was much cooler, but of course was my off day. I volunteered at the final Endless Summer Trail Run. It was fun, as always. I won’t see my Rocksteady Running friends again until Superior! Which is less than 5 weeks away, whoops. I made my reservation finally.

Thursday was also relatively cool, and I ran 7.4 happy and relaxed miles down to Sibley High School and back. It felt so good (after the first couple miles, which hurt a bit thanks to some muscle tightness – the magnesium oil isn’t a cure-all) to run effortlessly, and to finally approach a speed resembling what I’d like to run in a marathon.

Friday I ran 8.5 miles on the treadmill before we left for Duluth for the weekend. I didn’t really have a reason to run on the treadmill, because the rain had already passed by and it wasn’t that warm. I couldn’t shake the anxious feeling I get when I’m pressed for time with a run. Where should I go? What will get this done the fastest? It’s paralyzing, and I end up losing time just worrying. I get in my own head a lot about even stupid stuff like individual training runs. I was lazy and took several breaks (once for water, once for a bathroom break, and… maybe one other time just because?), but I got it done. Then once we were up in Duluth, I stopped in at Austin Jarrow to pick up some new road shoes. They’re the ones that’ll carry me through this marathon!

Saturday it rained all day. I spent it inside, playing cribbage with my family and in general having a good time. By the time it cleared up, it was fairly late, so I decided to skip it rather than get caught outside in the twilight without a headlamp or reflective vest. Again.

Sunday I just didn’t give a crap, and that’s the truth. I could have run, but I didn’t. No energy, no enthusiasm. Instead I ate a lot of treats.

This week will be interesting, as I have a very short work trip to North Dakota (I will spend more time driving than working, since it cost like $900 to fly) and then I leave on Sunday for a longer work trip to New Hampshire. I don’t know if I’ll be able to get in a true long run, but I’ll certainly have to find a way to do better than 25 miles. I’m not super worried — I know I needed the extra time to recover this week, and I will have a lot more energy moving forward!

Lunch Rush

Occasionally, I’m stuck running on my lunch hour out of necessity. I don’t like it, and it kind of feels like a huge waste of time because I can only grind out like 3 miles, and that’s only because I’m salaried and work in an environment that gives me a lot of autonomy.

My most recent run netted me 3.5 hot, sweaty miles around the Centennial Lakes Park trails, which are usually overrun with children, strollers, lunchtime walkers (sometimes that’s me!), and maintenance carts. It’s a busy place, with not a lot of room for running. I also ended up with a horribly sweaty back once I put my dress back on. I felt pretty disgusting. I’m an engineer, so I’m not client-facing, but it was fairly unpleasant to sit at my desk feeling my dress sticking to my back.

I’ve had some time to figure out what works for me and what doesn’t. The biggest problem is something I can’t really change: there are locker rooms in two of the buildings in the office park, but neither are in my building. That means about 5 minutes of my break are taken up getting to the locker room (and 5 more are taken up walking back — although, more on that later).

I bring a bag with clothes, shoes, a hat, sunglasses, my running watch, and Body Glide. I should probably just get a stick for my office as well. Bringing a bag of clothes is nothing revolutionary, but that’s what I do. I try to pack it the night before but sometimes I’m lazy or forget, so I set a reminder on my phone. At work, I have some moisturizer, sunscreen, dry shampoo, deodorant, wipes, and petroleum jelly, so I don’t have to lug that around with me all the time. I don’t wear a lot of makeup on days when I run, so I don’t worry about reapplying.

The dry shampoo seems to work. It’s an aerosol spray, so I don’t have to worry about prematurely graying if it doesn’t blend enough. My colleague told me it actually works better if applied before a workout. I don’t know if that’s true or not, but I do it before and after now as a result of that advice. I can’t tell if my head is less sweaty or not.

What doesn’t work? The wipes. I mean, they do, in a limited way, but they don’t work for dealing with sweat. I don’t have time to, like, chill in the locker room naked while air drying, so I ordered a quick dry towel and I guess I’ll just take the world’s quickest shower, towel off, and hope the thing actually does dry quickly.  I haven’t tried it out yet.

I’m still trying to figure out what to do about food. I don’t pack a lunch, so you might say that might be a good place to start, and I agree. I usually eat cereal at my desk for breakfast, and then by the time I’m running, I’m hungry and even a few more bites of cereal isn’t enough for me to avoid feeling like garbage post-run. I’m thinking the solution is to 1. bring a lunch (or otherwise procure my lunch in advance) and 2. eat part of my lunch before running, and part of it after. I have been meaning to bring lunches for… my entire working life, basically, without much success, so don’t hold your breath on this.

I don’t have an office, but I do have a semi-fancy cubicle that has a dinky “coat closet” built in. I hang up my sweaty clothes in there (including my underwear, because I have discovered bringing a change of underwear is A VERY GOOD IDEA), which is probably something that my coworkers find abhorrent, but I am also an unabashed office nail clipper and have even clipped my toenails at work, so my threshold of shame is very high. This works okay but I think I need to bring in some kind of fabric refresher to mitigate the stink.

Beyond what I’ve already laid out, I think the only think that would make my lunch running more appealing and more useful would be for me to get significantly faster so that I could actually get in a substantial workout at lunch. Sigh.

Twin Cities Marathon Training: Week 6

Not the best week. It’s a sign it’s time for a cutback week, I’d say.

Monday: rest
Tuesday: 7 mi, road
Wednesday: 5.8 mi, road (5x Wabasha St. Bridge)
Thursday: 6 mi, treadmill (40 min tempo)
Friday: 5.1 mi, road
Saturday: 13.2 mi, trail (Murphy-Hanrehan Park)
Sunday: 12.1 mi, pavement (Mississippi River Trail)
Total: 49.2 mi

First off, I hate taking Mondays as rest days. I had to as we had made some dinner plans, which then fell through. I was already tired and had mentally planned on not running, so I didn’t make a last minute change to get miles in. Instead we went to see Ant-Man and the Wasp, which was funny.

Tuesday I had to go over to see about my mom’s cats again, and decided to start my run from her house, rather than drive somewhere else. I ran around my old junior high (now called a middle school, so weird), then into an area of the city I’ve never been (at least, that I was aware of – maybe I went to some friend’s house when I was like 5 and they lived in that neighborhood). St. Louis Park is not that big, so it’s kind of strange I didn’t know anyone living over there well enough to have visited, but I guess there are other pockets of the city I don’t know and need to explore. I turned around and headed back toward my mom’s house once I reached a natural turnaround point (I reached a major road), but realized I wasn’t going to make even 6 miles that way, so I ran past my old elementary school (now housing a Montessori school and a French immersion school) and over the highway, before swinging back around toward home underneath the highway.

Wednesday I did bridge repeats with dead legs. I hated the workout but it had to be done. I felt a little bit crummy and I guess that carried over into Thursday, because I felt like total garbage at work Thursday afternoon (well, also I ate 2 ice cream sandwiches) and left early. I ended up feeling better only a few hours later so I guess I just had indigestion. I ran on the treadmill as a precaution. Friday I had no interest in running but did it anyway. Hooray, I guess? It was a dull 5 miles meandering through my neighborhood, trying to remember which streets went through and which dead-ended. I wasn’t super successful at that, but it helped tacked on the miles.

Saturday I planned to do some recon for Surf the Murph at Murphy-Hanrehan Park. I’m considering running the 50 miler this fall. I’m still undecided, partially because I’m going to use my result at Moose Mountain Marathon to extrapolate whether or not I can make the cutoffs, and partially because I didn’t love my run there on Saturday. There was a lot of grass, which I hate. I despise the feeling of grass on my legs – so itchy! And of course I am paranoid about ticks. (I found none on me. That must mean they are all in places I can’t see.) If they mow the course, I’m still in. If they don’t, I’m out.

I planned to run 15 miles, and through 8 or so I was cruising. I was like “Wow, yeah, I can do this! I can totally race a 50 miler here!” Then I bonked. I guess I didn’t eat my first gel soon enough, although I wasn’t really hungry. But I also was experiencing a non-food-related bonk, if that’s a thing: a bug bonk. Some deer flies were following me, probably only a couple, but they were dive-bombing me over and over again and I was flailing my arms in vain, trying to get rid of them. I think I killed one or two but ugh. So annoying. I hate flies. I got turned around quite a bit on the trails and wasn’t sure how far I would have to go to get back to the parking lot, and I was running out of water. I reached the parking lot at 12.7 miles, and I had been walking for probably 2 miles. Even through the runnable sports. I gave up. I actually started to walk out another 1.2 miles so that I could do an out & back to get the 15 miles I had originally planned for, but after a quarter mile I actually said out loud “This is stupid” and returned to the parking lot. Ugh.

I decided to add the remaining 2 miles to my run on Sunday. Determined not to bonk again, I ate more food before leaving, and I opted not to do any marathon pace miles. I parked at Hidden Falls Park (up above on Mississippi River Blvd, not down near the picnic shelter) and ran 5 miles downriver, turned around, ran back, and then did another mile upriver and back to get to 12. It sounds slick and easy but it wasn’t. It was another miserable run. It rained for about 2 minutes right before I started running, so the sun was back out AND it was extra humid. The air was so hot, even though it was only like 80-82 F, since the humidity was so high. Most of my run was pretty slow once the heat caught up with me, and even after the clouds returned an hour and a half into the run, I was already sapped and couldn’t really recover. I was thirsty even though I had plenty of water (probably because my mouth was getting dry – I should have had a candy or something) and my stomach was a little too full of water so I felt uncomfortable a lot. It wasn’t as miserable a slog as it was on Saturday, but it wasn’t great. If the clouds hadn’t come through and provided shade for most of the run, I am pretty sure I’d have quit early.

So, this upcoming week’s a cutback week! I’ve had 6 weeks of increasing mileage and my body is starting to say nope. I’ll be in Duluth this coming weekend anyway and won’t have time for 4-5 hour runs. I also need to give my poor back a rest – no, not my muscles, my skin. My sports bra has totally shredded the middle of my back since I wore my pack 2 days in a row (and it was pretty bad after the first day, woof), and I need a chance for it to heal!

Metal Health

I am pretty fortunate that running comes fairly easily to me, physically speaking. I don’t have any physical impairments that hinder my ability to run, nor do I have any recurring injuries (knock wood). I’m slow, yes, and my mental game is kind of weak, but these are relatively mild issues.

I have some minor aches and pains from time to time, usually in my hips, and of course at FANS I had that weird foot issue that I self-diagnosed as peroneal tendonitis. But the one persistent issue I have that never seems to go away is extremely tight calf muscles. Absurdly tight. Like at massages sometimes I have been concerned about having a charlie horse. And I often do get charlie horses in my calves (specifically the gastrocnemius, according to Dr. Google) from simply stretching. They feel as taut as the E string on a violin, like I could play pizzicato on them they’re also one quarter turn of a fine tuner away from rupturing. I do feel like it hinders my running sometimes when they’re extra tight, and like I’m putting myself at risk for injury.

A year or so ago, a massage therapist recommended that I use magnesium oil applied directly to my legs. I had never heard of that before and was intrigued, but then never followed up, because I am lazy about things. I guess I could also take epsom salt baths to get the same effect, and while epsom salts would have required even less effort to acquire, I am not a giant fan of baths and also the faucet valve in my bathroom is broken so I can’t take a bath. (I have another shower, and while it is sort of scary and has spiders on occasion, it works and I am not walking around filthy.) Apparently there are magnesium supplements as well, but they can have a laxative effect and I am not interested in having blowouts on runs.

I finally went out today and bought some magnesium oil to give this a try. I sprayed it on my calves after a treadmill tempo workout, and now I’m going to see if it works some magic. I’m very hopeful! It certainly beats buying a foam roller, which I understand is actually a medieval torture device!