Against the Wind

When I was driving back to school Tuesday evening, old Bob Seger came on the radio singing “Against the Wind,” and it was kind of like being trolled by my radio.

This week is a cutback week (my training plan has them every 4 weeks), so the mileage for the week is stepped down a bit. Tuesday I stepped it back even further than the plan recommended.

I felt really tired and crappy, I ate a ton of delicious but heavy Chinese food for lunch, I was having back cramps, and it was cold and windy with some strong gusts. I almost didn’t even run at all. I am pretty impressed I got out there. I made it to the hill where I do my repeats and wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to complete them. My legs were really stiff and tight, probably because of the muscle cramps I was having in my lower back, and I also felt a funny little twinge in the back of my leg during part of my warmup, since I had to sprint across an intersection. It’s this awful 5-way stop where Kenwood, Skyline, and some other roads combine. I wasn’t able to make eye contact with all the drivers and I had to just barrel across and hope everyone was letting me go. I survived, but sprinting like that with the tightness in my legs was a bad idea. The twinge didn’t get worse, but it didn’t entirely disappear, so I was a little nervous about going all out. I felt like I wasn’t turning my legs over at all, but somehow I still managed to hit similar paces to my previous hill workouts, so maybe that was all in my mind. My cramps hadn’t gone away, and I had homework to do, so after my four hill repeats (cutback week!), I headed back home, only completing 2.5 miles instead of the prescribed 4.

Maybe my watch was malfunctioning, because even though I felt sluggish and labored, and even though it took me forever to cross the street on the way back, I still hit an overall pace of 14:41 and a heart rate of 147 bpm. I am pretty sure the heart rate monitor wasn’t picking up my heartbeat correctly, but I don’t know, maybe it was. I did have to stop several times due to traffic and I did jog extremely slowly down the hill to recover after each interval. The pace just seems a little fast for me at that heart rate.

Yesterday I woke up and scraped ice off my car before going to school. I wanted to cry; it’s April, enough of that nonsense. I was tired, as I’d slept poorly, and I had a couple of homework problems left to finish that were due that afternoon. It was not a good morning.

I had planned on sitting out yesterday, not running. I was so tired, mentally and physically, it was cold, and I figured I could just scrap this week. But as I was leaving school, I realized it wasn’t as cold out as it seemed. It wasn’t windy, and it was kind of misty, but not in a chilly way. I didn’t describe that well, but it wasn’t an awful damp feeling. By the time I got home, I was resolved to work out.

I ran 4.3 miles at Hartley and it felt mentally great, although physically it was a little rough. I was tired, as I’ve written several times already, and my right calf felt a little funky. It felt like my lower right leg was shorter than my lower left leg. I don’t know if the muscle just didn’t want to work correctly or what, but it was affecting my gait a bit. It was still muddy, though not quite as bad as it was last time I was there, and I found a couple new short but really enjoyable trails. I ran an overall pace of 17:58, which isn’t groundbreaking or anything, but it’s about 2 minutes faster than my previous (excessively muddy) excursion to Hartley. It was a nice restorative run, mentally, although physically it wasn’t the greatest.

Since I have the 5K on Saturday, I will probably do my speed workout today, do an easy run Friday, race Saturday (well, not probably on that part), and then do my long run on Sunday. I do not plan on making up any of the lost mileage (I am already down 1.2 miles for the week between yesterday and Tuesday), so it’ll be a little more of a cutback week than the plan calls for, but it will also involve an additional day of speedwork (the 5K), so I think it won’t be a big deal to shorten the mileage.

Week Seven Update

Let me pat myself on the back for yet another awesome training week. And by awesome I mean I didn’t wimp out on any workouts.

A quick recap:
Monday: off
Tuesday: 5.3 miles, road, 6 hill repeats
Wednesday: 5.2 miles, road
Thursday: 4 miles, treadmill
Friday: 4.1 miles, Lakewalk, speed work
Saturday: 12 miles, road
Sunday: 2.9 miles, road/trail (Chester Bowl)
Total: 33.5 miles

Friday’s speedwork went well. I hit an overall pace of 12:35/mile, with about 3 miles of “medium paced” running. I feel like I’m in a good spot for my 5k this weekend. I doubt I can hold the speedwork pace for 3 miles (around 11 min/mile) but I think I’ll be able to be somewhere between my A and B goals.

Saturday was my first double-digit long run. It was not the best idea to plan it the day after my speedy day, but Saturday’s forecast was better than Sunday’s, and Sunday is my “desperately catching up on homework” day. So the first couple miles felt slow as molasses. My 2nd mile was the slowest pace (17:11) of the whole run, except for the one where I took a break. I planned an 8-mile loop, back to my house, followed by a 4 mile loop. My hips and my back were pretty sore the whole time, but as I turned off Rice Lake Road onto Central Entrance to head down the hill right before my break, I couldn’t stop grinning. It was a gorgeous day, the lake looked beautiful, and I was high on endorphins.

I planned a break at 8 miles just in case I had to pee or was dying of thirst. I had felt pretty thirsty toward the end of my 9 mile run last weekend, and I didn’t want to carry a hand-held water bottle, so I stopped at home for about 5 minutes. Somehow I still ended up with a “pace” for that mile of 19:23, which is faster than some of my trail running paces.

The last 4 miles felt pretty terrible. I made a kind of stupid route choice, with too much uphill. Maybe I am doing too many hills. That sounds lazy, but I also think it’s a valid question. I finished the run with an overall pace of 16:30 and an average heart rate of 151 bpm, so I didn’t push too hard and only lost about half a minute off my 9-mile pace, even with the break.

Sunday I ran as slowly as I could stand, and took it easy on my body by running down the Chester Creek path from Skyline to 9th. I stopped and took a picture of ducks.

5K on Saturday. At 9 am. And it’s not going to be warm. Blahhhh.

Inside Job

I’m not pleased about it, but I completed yesterday’s workout on my treadmill.

It’s kind of wimping out and kind of not, because the treadmill makes me miserable. My plan for yesterday was: meet up with my friends at Chester Bowl, take radiation measurements with a Geiger counter for our nuclear engineering class, then do my planned 4 mile workout from there. The measurements didn’t go as planned (we couldn’t get the Geiger counter to work), I thought I lost my phone (it was just in a weird spot in my backpack), and it was horribly windy out. That was enough to drive me indoors.

While I was running on the treadmill, I tried to justify its benefits to myself. I came up with some good ideas.

1. I was able to run at a steady pace. I am always varying my pace while I’m running on the road or on trails, sometimes intentionally because I’m running up or down a hill or through difficult terrain, sometimes semi-intentionally because I’m tired or because I’m trying to get done quickly, and sometimes unintentionally because I am a robot. Running on the treadmill occasionally will help me with consistency.

2. I could use it as a way to gauge how I’ve improved since I started training for the marathon, and since I started heart rate training. I ran 0.5 miles at 3.8 mph and 3.5 miles at 3.7 mph, without stopping to walk. 2 miles were at level 1 incline, and 2 miles at 0 incline. My average heart rate was 139 bpm. Contrast that with the last time I ran 4 miles on the treadmill (Feb 22), when I ran at about the same speed, but my average heart rate was 147 bpm, at 0 incline. So, that’s not that impressive, but it is still an improvement.

3. It was good mental training. One hour on the treadmill with a hockey game on and a fan blowing on me is more mind-numbing than any outdoor run I’ve had. But I powered through, as I’ll probably have to do on some long runs coming up. Maybe not for the same reason (I doubt I’ll be bored, more like tired or aching), but any exercise in mental toughness is going to help.

I think those are some valid, creative justifications for running on the treadmill. Too bad I only did it because I was lazy and crabby.

A Dream Postponed

My self-imposed deadline of March 31st has come and gone, but I haven’t made up my mind about Grandma’s Marathon yet. It’s fine, it costs $115 instead of $105 to enter, but I think of it like a stock option. It’s not quite analogous, but it works for me. There were 4 possible outcomes to my plan: enter before March 31st, pay $105, race; enter before March 31st, pay $105, DNS; enter after March 31st, pay $115, race; or enter after March 31st, pay $115, DNS. I would rather pay $10 more and be more certain about my ability to run the marathon, than save $10 and find that after 15 miles my body falls apart, or to find that I have so much work during the semester that I don’t have 5-6 hours to devote to those long runs. I will not go into this race undertrained.

Now I have until May 31st to decide if I want to compete (unless the race fills up). By that point I will have run 12, 14, 16, 18, and 20 mile long runs. That 20 mile run is going to be the deciding factor, I would guess. As of March 31st, my long run had been 9 miles, which I don’t think was a good enough gauge of my strength and endurance to justify spending $105.

I do have the Fitger’s 5K coming up next weekend, which will be my first real race in a long time, and the first one I’ve done with specific training since high school. (I did do timed runs in college for physical training requirements for the NROTC, so I guess they were kind of like races.) I am looking at the forecast and getting annoyed, although it does look like it might be nice again by next weekend, in time for the race. I need to run the route of the race at some point. I also need to try to get in at least one a.m. workout, because I tend to feel like complete garbage in the morning. I’m also probably going to have to get up at the buttcrack of dawn on the 11th in order to be functional. I hear the sunrises here are beautiful.

I do plan on racing the 5k, rather than running it at a training or even tempo pace, but I also don’t plan on sabotaging my training. I won’t be collapsing in a puddle of my own vomit at the finish line. I do have some time goals in mind. My B standard, let’s call it, is 40:00. My A standard is 36:00. If I finish under 30:00, I will sign up for the marathon right then and there. A sub-30 5k is HIGHLY unlikely, so don’t think I am actually gunning for it. Achieving 29:XX or under would indicate I am significantly underestimating my running ability, hence throwing down the cash for the marathon immediately. I am pretty sure I am only slightly underestimating my running ability, although who knows? Maybe the 5k takes me 48 minutes and I light fire to my running shoes and vow to never run again because I can’t even run 3 miles under my “slow run” training pace. Maybe the 5k takes me an hour because I miss a turn. I am prepared for all possible outcomes.

In My Shoes

Oh look, a picture of my shoes, how gauche.

I took this picture after my excursion to Hartley on Saturday. They look a lot less muddy than they were, although I tried to knock a bunch of it off so it didn’t end up in my house.

I need new shoes. I find this annoying because I haven’t owned them for that long. I can’t remember when I got them but I think it was last fall. So I’ve had them maybe 6 months, and there were a few months in that time frame where I wasn’t running at all. These shoes should be lasting through this marathon training cycle at least!

These shoes are Mizuno Wave Prophecy 3s, which are normally $200+ shoes. They were on sale for the price of a reasonably-priced running shoe, so I got them because I wanted to see what a $200 shoe was like without paying $200. I am not an idiot, it would be ridiculous for a slow n00b runner to buy $200 shoes. I assumed they were on sale because they are hideous, but I believe they were just switching over to the new model, like with cars. I didn’t even know shoes worked like that.

I need new shoes because there’s a hole on the inside of the heel of both shoes. This is probably because I am doing something wrong, and I’m supposed to be slipping them on and off with a shoe horn or having a butler remove them, but I am an engineer. Factors of safety are incorporated into designs in order to ensure a product, machine, or system is safe, not only under ideal operating conditions, but under abnormal operating conditions. A freaking shoe lining shouldn’t be wearing out in six months.

I also need new shoes because I was holding my cat while wearing them a couple weeks ago, and my friend came over and she got scared when she saw him coming and peed on my shoe. I am amazed it didn’t get anywhere but my shoe, since I was holding her, but cleaning the scent of cat pee out of a shoe is not easy.

I don’t really want to spend the money on new shoes now, and I’m not getting any blisters or rubbing, so I might tough it out a bit longer. It’s not the best idea to break in new shoes right before a marathon (especially since I will not be repurchasing these shoes unless they are under $100), but if I start to get hot spots or signs of blisters, I’ll have no choice.

I’m also disappointed that $200 shoes didn’t turn me into Kara Goucher overnight. They were good shoes, though. I did find they were good at keeping water and mud out, except for the really deep puddles.

Week Six Update

Hey, week 6 went well! I’m pretty pumped to have had two training weeks in a row where I didn’t wuss out on anything. I have very low standards.

I am very glad today is a rest day, although once I started moving around today I felt a lot better than I thought I would. My hips are suffering the most. I need an oil can. My lower back is a little stiff too. My legs and feet feel fine.

Summary:
Monday rest
Tuesday 4.4 miles, road, hill repeats included
Wednesday 5.2 miles, road
Thursday 3.5 miles, road + trail
Friday 4 miles, Lakewalk, medium tempo run
Saturday 4.2 miles, trail
Sunday 9 miles, Lakewalk
Total 30.3 miles!

Thursday I took another stab at Chester Creek, and while it wasn’t entirely runnable, it was passable enough. It was just what I needed since I was getting kind of crabby about running.

The view on the way:

Trees bent over the creek:

I love living here.

Saturday I went to Hartley Nature Center, intending to do my 9 miler. That didn’t happen. There was still snow and ice in spots, and I wasn’t wearing my chains, so I slid around a lot and fell on my butt once. It was not a good feeling, especially since I was already feeling crummy from my “speed” workout from Friday. In places it was so muddy I was slipping as badly as I was on the ice, and half of the trails were closed due to mud. I shudder to think what kind of condition they were in if the sloppy messes I was on were still open. So I conceded I wasn’t going to get the 9 miles done (I was going slow as heck anyway, ended up with a pace under 3 mph!) and got to 4.

Sunday I got out of bed late, took much longer than expected to do homework, and practically had to drag myself out the door thanks to rather depressing-looking weather. It turned out to be much warmer than I thought so I felt a little better about the impending run. I went to the Lakewalk because I knew it was about 4.5 miles round trip and it had easy access to my car and to a bathroom, so I could bail if things sucked horribly halfway through and I could get a quick bathroom break if needed.

The run itself went ok. My hips hurt (mildly) through a lot of it, which caused me to question if I am overdoing this training and need to rethink my marathon plans. Considering I don’t feel like total crap today, I am disregarding those thoughts. It rained a little bit, but only lightly, so it didn’t bother me. At times the wind was demoralizing. Running straight into gust after gust of wind was unpleasant.

I managed to keep my heart rate relatively low (mid 140s) for the first 5 miles, but it crept up during the last 4, probably due to fatigue and to wind. I managed to hold myself back from pushing it for most of the run. At the end I wanted to see if I had another gear (because I was doubting myself and doubting my ability to complete a marathon upright), but after a few strides I slowed down, reminding myself that I wouldn’t be finishing much faster and I would feel worse the next day or even hurt myself.

Here are my splits:
16:02
16:10
16:20
15:31
16:00
15:35
15:38
15:47
15:29

Those last 4 miles were fairly consistent (for me), which is a good sign. I have been having a tough time maintaining a consistent pace. The fifth mile is a bit of an outlier because I was running straight into the wind for about half a mile. (I know I said I don’t like to make excuses, but it’s only an excuse for why my pace was a little off the surrounding miles. It’s not an excuses for slowness. THEY ARE ALL SLOW SPLITS.)

This upcoming week includes a 12 mile long run, which will be a nice test. I hope that I can keep the pace in the mid 15s again. Right now the most important thing for me on long runs is consistency and endurance, and then I can just pray the hills and tempo runs will bring that consistent pace down. A solid plan!

At A Medium Pace

Yesterday I had my first “medium pace” run of this training cycle. My training plan defines a “medium pace” as follows: “You should feel like you’re running faster than your normal training pace but not so fast that you can’t keep it up for a little while. You may not be able to talk very easily and your breathing will be more labored.” Ok. I wasn’t sure how hard to push it, but I knew that I needed to be done in time to watch the Bulldogs’ hockey game. I was supposed to warm up, run at this mystery pace for a mile or more, jog for a bit, repeat.

I went to the Lakewalk for the run because I didn’t want to deal with giant hills. I could gamble because the game before UMD’s was going into overtime, so it pushed our starting time back. I needed 4 miles for the day, so I decided to keep an eye on my watch and then turn around at 2 miles, instead of doing the whole Lakewalk and adding another 0.6 miles. Time was of the essence!! Hockey was occurring!

I crushed that medium pace run. I am pretty pumped about it. I ran three 1-mile intervals, and ran all 3 around 12 minutes. On the last one I got a side stitch and had to slow down to keep it from getting out of hand. I finished 4 miles in less than an hour for the first time in forever, so that was exciting.

Splits:
12:55
13:30
13:25
12:27 (This was the only mile that was entirely at the faster pace)

This doesn’t mean much for the marathon yet, but it does bode well for the Fitger’s 5K in 2 weeks. I was really afraid I wouldn’t be able to run very fast or that I couldn’t keep the pace up long enough. I used to be a big quitter when running. If I felt crummy or frustrated, I would just give up. I need to continue to build mental toughness; it’s really lagging my physical fitness.

I finished up my run and made it home just in time for the hockey game to start, the Bulldogs won, and the Wild won, so it was a great day overall. I still have 14 13 miles to go this weekend (5 only 4! today and 9 on Sunday, or maybe flip-flopped), but I am a little concerned. My hip has been bugging me, just some overall soreness. I might need to back off on the 5 miler.

I’m pleased to have had a good training day after several not-so-pleasant ones. Yesterday was still cold, but the sun was shining, the lake was a gorgeous deep blue, and I enjoyed speeding up instead of plodding along. The next few days should be in the 40s or even 50s, so I hope to have a few more nice workouts.