marathon

Marathon Monday

Yesterday was the Twin Cities Marathon, and it marked my second year in a row of not participating, after finishing in 2018, quitting in 2019, and running it solo in 2020. Last year I saw all my friends participating and felt sad and kind of ashamed of myself. Last year I lost a lot of motivation to run, and felt completely without purpose, beyond my quest to run every street in St. Paul (which I completed on Christmas Eve 2021). I thought the discomfort and jealousy I felt following my friends’ accomplishments would spur something in me and I’d get back on track with training for endurance events like marathons and ultras.

I didn’t. I can’t say for sure, but I think this year I might actually run less than last year, and last year was the lowest distance I’ve run since I started tracking. Naturally, I didn’t run any marathons. I’m a lot more at peace with that this year. Once again, I had to prioritize my mental and physical health, and training for something high stakes, that consumes a lot of time and energy, would run counter to that plan. I could hardly justify giving up one of my precious weekend days to get up early and run for 5+ hours. Even writing about running had to go – my work was consuming so much of my brain that I had no creative energy left over. I slept poorly (sometimes not at all!), my legs sometimes felt weak and wobbly (though I had no balance issues at all), and often times if I ran, I felt anxious the entire time (zero runner’s high) instead of settling into the run a mile or two in. I struggled to make simple decisions and I found even a single evening or weekend commitment was too much. I decided I would only run when I felt like it, and just focus on doing my work as well as I could.

A few things happened recently that have changed things for the better. In August, the Inflation Reduction Act was passed, and I can’t understate the immediate and significant impact it had on the work that I do (I build solar plants). Overnight, it transformed my approach to my projects for the better, and that made my job more bearable (I love what I do, but the intense pressure to meet certain targets or face catastrophic impacts to my projects was not part of that love). After that, two things happened in quick succession: I went on vacation, and I got promoted. The promotion alleviated a lot of the pressure to perform and be perfect all the time – it’s a long process to get promoted at my company, and it can be derailed very easily, so I felt like at any moment I could sabotage my own success. It wasn’t logical or helpful but I was very focused on this goal.

I got to go to Colorado knowing the financial success of my projects was more secure and my own career was on the right trajectory, and it only took a few days before I had shed a lot of the stress, anxiety, and worry, and the physical effects evaporated. (It would have been more immediate if we had not decided to drive up Mt. Evans, which was terrifying.) I didn’t run at all (it was too hot and I don’t handle altitude very well), but we hiked every day and I slept well almost every night.

I got back home and the energy persisted. My first full week back at work, I was motivated enough to pack running clothes and work out directly from the office, instead of going home and hoping to get in a few miles. And that’s continued through all of September into October. I’m still working on getting out of the run/walk habit and adding distance, but I’m making progress. It feels great, and explains why I haven’t felt a lot of concern about not racing, or FOMO at seeing other people racing.

There’s no guarantee that I won’t spiral back into doom and gloom and miss out on another season of racing, but I’m feeling hopeful that I’m starting to feel committed and competitive again. Of course, now I look at the prices of races and think “Is it really worth it?”

2020 Goals Revisited

It’s incredible to think about my outlook on life when I wrote these goals. It was the absolute height of American privilege for me to think that the COVID-19 pandemic was something that would happen in other countries, not in the US, and something that would be over quickly. The past 4-5 years have shown me how many things I have been taking for granted and it’s a shamefully long list.

I was still able to accomplish some of the goals that I set – that’s one advantage of setting very high-level, general goals. Some of my multi-year goals will have to be put off until 2022, since there’s still so much uncertainty regarding this pandemic and so many people who are committed to prolonging it. There’s also growing violence from insurrectionists and traitors around the country that could make running or traveling unsafe.

  1. Run a distance personal best.
    I could have done this, I guess, by doing FANS on my own or just setting a personal goal to run 50 miles in a day. It seemed like a poor idea to weaken my immune system with such a strenuous effort, and with facilities like restrooms closed at state parks, doing a long FANS day would have been a bad idea.
  2. Complete more long runs than I did in 2019.
    I made it! I did 29 long runs vs. 28 in 2019! That’s pretty good considering I ran no organized races and thus didn’t have any training runs. I also did fewer “split” runs; more of my double digit mileage days in 2020 were from single runs rather than 2 or 3 runs that added up to more than 10 miles.
  3. Do 100 push-ups a day.
    I averaged 107.9 pushups during the year, and the last day that I skipped was August 5th when I wasn’t feeling well. There were only 16 days during the year that I did not complete at least 100 pushups — even though sometimes I was doing them at bedtime. I wish I’d taken a “before” shot to see how buff my arms have gotten over the year.
  4. Start cross-country skiing again.
    It took until Christmas Day to make this happen, but I went skiing 4 times! I need to get better at waxing now. There are so many places to go that aren’t that far away.
  5. Run a new marathon.
    Obviously this was not an option for me this year, but I did run a solo Twin Cities marathon, so that’s kind of a new marathon?
  6. Buy a bike.
    I don’t have a new bike. This is because of my own stupidity. My company “wellness dollars” onto a rewards debit card and I have been hoarding those dollars for years. On the day my husband and I went to purchase new bikes (for his birthday), I discovered that the “special spot” that I had kept my rewards card was not so special, and while I tore my office apart looking to the card, it appeared that the card got swept into the trash at some point. I ordered a replacement but it was a huge rigmarole that took a long time and cost me like $10 and we never got around to ordering the bikes. This year is our year!

I also ran in two new counties and three new state parks. That’s much lower than I’d like in a normal year, but I chose to stay in the metro area, especially during the time when outstate Minnesota was not yet experiencing many cases of COVID-19. Once I start traveling for work again (or for fun!), I’ll be able to catch some new parks and counties and make more progress on those goals. And maybe combine those goals with my new marathon per year goals!

The only goal I feel truly disappointed about missing is the last one, because there was no reason beyond my own disorganization that kept me from making that goal. As a matter of fact, I just went downstairs and verified that the new card is exactly where I placed it for safekeeping, and it was. I’m learning from my mistakes!

Race Report: Twin Cities Marathon (Solo)

That was an experience I don’t care to repeat.

Watch Results:
Time: 7:02:58
Pace: 15:12
Distance: 27.81 mi
Heart Rate: N/A

Goals:
A: 6:00
B: 6:30

Food:
What I ate the night before: solo deep dish pizza, slice of cheesy garlic bread
What I ate on race morning: cereal, energy bar
What I carried with me: water (2L), gels

Gear:
What I wore: t-shirt, shorts, trucker hat
Gadgets: GPS watch, fitness tracker, hydration pack

Discussion: Well. Nothing went as anticipated, which is to be expected when I do almost no planning.

I thought I could be footloose and fancy-free about this race since the stakes were low, but when I turned the lights off to go to sleep on Friday night, anxiety descended upon me just like it does during a regular race. I don’t know how much sleep I got, but it wasn’t much and it wasn’t restful. Since I was making my own schedule, I figured I could set my alarm for an hour or so later and eke out a little more sleep. Nope. I woke up before that alarm, despite being exhausted. Disappointing.

I hadn’t done much prepping the night before, and while there wasn’t much to do, I wish I’d spent that little extra time putting gels and supplies in my pack and writing out the race route, just to shave off a bit of time. I ate part of a bowl of cereal, until I couldn’t shovel any more food into my mouth, and during the drive to the race start, I ate an energy bar. This was definitely not enough food! I generally underfuel for races (not on purpose, I just haven’t figured out what works), but this was exceptionally bad. I wanted to have my usual bagels but I dawdled on Friday and the bagel place was already closed. Since I started running much later in the day than I would for a regular race, I wasn’t able to rely on residual fuel from my dinner the night before. I didn’t consider that either.

I was able to conveniently park directly at the corner of Portland and 6th, the start of the race. It’s funny because to me, the race “starts” in front of US Bank Stadium, because I’m all the way back in the third corral. Here I was in the first corral, all by myself! (Side note: because the run took so long and then I relaxed at home for awhile, I had to pay $16 to park. Not my worst parking mistake ever, but woof!)

I made it all of a block on 6th before I hit a traffic light. I did not anticipate the impact that all these traffic lights would have on my run. When I was doing my solo 50k, I made up my own route, so I could skip the busy streets and the traffic lights. The TCM route goes down major streets, and without the street closures I was often stuck waiting at lights or stop signs. There were a few times I had to veer off course a bit to find the actual crosswalk or traffic light to safely cross the street. I probably could have crossed against the light a few times, but I am a rule follower by nature and as the race wore on, I didn’t trust my legs to be able to quickly get out of the way of an unexpected car.

While the first few miles of the race were fairly faithful to the race course, things started to get complicated when I got the Lake of the Isles. I couldn’t always count on a sidewalk or trail to be close to the road, and often times the trail that was closer to the road was the bike path. I ended up running on the curb or on the grass for most of the sections around the lakes as well as along Minnehaha Parkway. I hate running in grass, and while the curbs were wide enough to run along, I felt too close to traffic and worried all it took was one wrong step and I’d fall right in front of a car. Once I got past Minnehaha Falls and onto West River Rd, I was able to use the running path (for the most part), which was fine in some ways but also annoying because I was constantly stepping onto the grass or into the bikeway to try to maintain social distance. I am curious how much of the extra mileage I added as a result of adapting to the course without the closed roads, and how much was a result of normal GPS errors (like the giant error at the beginning when going under the Government Center). When I ran the marathon in 2018, my watch read 26.76 miles, which would imply that I added an extra mile of running with the little detours and deviations. That does seem a bit extreme – although I did also add an extra little bit by not remembering where the race ended.

This was my first time using the navigation feature on my watch – I created the route on the MovesCount site, uploaded it to my watch, and then used navigation mode for the race. I ended up not needing it, as the only time I got “off course” was the turn off Lake Harriet onto Minnehaha Parkway, when I took the right side of the creek instead of the left side of the creek, and yet I was still within the tolerances of the program. It did once tell me that I was going off course, but that was when I was finding a safer way to cross Lyndale. It also told me when I was at the end of my course so I knew when to stop running. (Silly me, it was past the actual finish line, but oh well.) It did also drain the battery quite a bit so I don’t really intend to use it that much. My watch went from nearly fully charged (maybe? It does fluctuate quite rapidly, it’ll say 85% charged and then when I attach it to the charge, will change to 71% or something – not thrilled with Suunto lately and probably won’t buy another watch from them, more on that at another time) down to 20%, and for a watch that’s supposed to be for ultrarunners, I feel like it should last a bit longer.

The run itself was nothing special. I walked a lot, although I definitely forced myself to run at times when I wanted to walk, so I guess I did some work on my mental game. I wanted to quit about a thousand times, but I didn’t, so hooray! I was clearly not trained to run a marathon, especially not lugging 2 liters of water with me (and yes I needed that much, I had less than 500 mL left when I finished), though I had hoped to finish it faster. I’m not sure if all the stops for traffic were a help or a hindrance to me – did the pause to recover help me go faster later, or did the pauses just increase my fatigue by drawing out the run longer?

I guess somewhere in my mind I was hoping I’d run faster, that my untrained self would somehow still be able to keep up a decent pace. I ended up running the exact same pace (per my watch/GPS) as I did for my 50K in the spring, which is kind of interesting. I do miss having something to train for – I suppose I could have trained for this, but eh. I’m never going to be able to treat a virtual/solo run like a real race and give it that same effort, so putting in a tough training block seems like a waste.

Maybe I do miss racing. I’d like the chance to train for and run a regular old marathon, and see if I can knock down my PR, get under 5 hours, etc. It’s sometimes fun to do big challenges like this on my own, but when the world emerges from this pandemic and we can have big events again, I’m going to be shelling out the $$$ for races again.

Twin Cities Marathon (Solo) 2020 Goals

Tomorrow, provided I don’t wake up and chicken out, I’m running a solo Twin Cities Marathon. I was planning on doing it last week, the official weekend of the race, but I was feeling kinda crappy due to the colder weather and decided to wait.

I haven’t really done any marathon training and I’ll be running this effort unsupported, so I’m not expecting any miracles here. But I’m fully recovered from my FANS effort and I needed something new to focus on.

I didn’t sign up for the official virtual race, because it was $125, but I am running the race course (provided I don’t take a wrong turn). I’m going to drive myself to the start, park somewhere nearby, and then get my spouse to pick me up at the Capitol when I’ve finished. I’ll probably start around 10:00, which is great for me but also means it’ll consume my entire day. The key here is not farting around at starting at 11:30 or something.

I have to carry a bunch of stuff with me since this is an unsupported run and I’m super slow. I’ll be wearing my hydration pack, carrying gels, my cell phone, sunscreen, probably some money, and a mask, just in case I have to duck in somewhere to use a bathroom. (Are public bathrooms open? I guess I’ll find out.) I’ve done a self-supported long run before (my BTTT 50K back in May), but never a point-to-point one, so I’ll be like a pack mule comparatively speaking.

I don’t really have goals that I’ve been working toward, but I also don’t want to be out there forever, so I’d ideally like to finish in 6 hours. I ran TCM in 2018 in ~5:33, so I guess that would mean I’d be finishing at a pace about a minute slower than I did when I trained and ran the race supported (~13:43 vs 12:43). That’s probably a bit ambitious, but I did a heck of a lot of walking during that race thanks to a side stitch, and I also ran several of my FANS efforts at a faster pace than that. If I finish in less than 6:30 that will be acceptable.

The nice thing is if I fail for some reason, I can go out and try again next weekend, or I can just… not. And if I wake up a bit later than planned, I can just start slightly later. And if I go off course, it’ll just be a Twin Cities Ultramarathon. And if I totally bonk and end up walking it in, there won’t be any SAG wagon chasing me down. I like these low stakes endeavors!

Fall 2020 Running Goals

I have a lot more certainty about my fall running goals than I did about my spring and summer goals. When I started setting my spring goals, I had no idea how long this pandemic would last (and it shouldn’t still be this bad! Ugh!) In the summer, it was clear that there would be long-term impacts to racing and training, but I didn’t re-imagine my approach to running. Now that I’ve made a decision that I’m not going to sign up for any in-person races this fall, and I’m not going to travel too far for any adventures.

  1. Complete 45% of St. Paul streets.
    I got up to 31.74% completion during the summer (I’m currently at 35.38%), so this might seem a bit unambitious. I’m scaling back a bit on this for a couple reasons. It’s getting dark earlier these days, and I don’t want to waste a bunch of waning daylight driving to Como Park to complete some streets. I’m also obsessing a bit over the completion project. I’m barely running any trails (paved or otherwise) because I’m planning out how I can run some boring industrial road instead. Setting a less ambitious goal will give me an opportunity to run more trails, or just run routes I like and haven’t run in awhile.
  2. Complete 25% of West St. Paul streets.
    I’m currently at 16.67% of West St. Paul, which is a little bit harder to complete because so many of the streets are long. St. Paul has a lot of tiny streets that are only a block or two long; West. St. Paul is laid out more like a suburb so the streets are harder to complete. WSP is closer to my home (and easier to drive to) than most of St. Paul, so it’ll be more convenient and will help me maximize daylight. There are a lot of streets without sidewalks, so I’m not thrilled about that.
  3. Run a solo Twin Cities Marathon.
    This might actually turn into a Twin Cities ultramarathon, because part of the course is currently under construction and has a short detour. My current plan is to run it on the proposed marathon day, but that’s weather permitting. I might enlist my mom to meet me at Lake Nokomis to refuel (and maybe one other point along the way?), and I’ll have to figure out how to get to the start (light rail? drive?), but those are logistics for another day. I considered signing up for the official virtual race, but it costs as much as just doing the race, so no thank you. My cousin just ran a virtual Boston Marathon and I was re-inspired by his awesome effort. (Plus he raised like $13K for the Michael J Fox Foundation in memory of his father! Now that’s inspiring.)
  4. Get caught up and ahead on YTD mileage over last year.
    I want to be able to cruise in December, rather than pound out 12 miles on 12/30 in order to barely eke ahead of my previous year’s mileage (as happened in 2019). I don’t need to match 2019’s totals by November (that’s way too ambitious), but I’d like to be like a week (say 40 miles) ahead by 11/30.
  5. Run 3 new trails/parks in the Twin Cities metro area.
    I haven’t done enough exploring around here! I’ve been too focused on new counties and new state parks to check out some of the local options. Since I’m not focusing on traveling outside the Twin Cities right now, this is a great time to find some new urban/suburban trails. Now that summer is over and kids are back in school, perhaps places like Elm Creek won’t be so crowded.

Spring 2020 Running Goals Revisited

We’re almost a month into June and I have hardly thought about running at all. I mean, I am still running, but without a lot of thought. I just go out and do it, since there’s nothing to train for.

There’s not much to discuss with my spring running goals (they weren’t that exciting to begin with), but I still feel the need to be consistent with my posts. Spring running goal evaluation:

  1. Run two races.
    I ran one race, a virtual 50K. That was the only option; all in-person races were canceled. I didn’t find any other virtual races that were reasonably priced.
  2. Run a mile in two new counties.
    I did my best to stay near home the last few months, so this was tough to do. I think I got in one new county, Anoka County, but I can’t verify that because my counties list is on my desk at work.
  3. Visit two new state parks.
    Again, tough to do without driving quite a bit. I did visit William O’Brien State Park back in March, which was okay. It was still pretty snowy there, so the run wasn’t very entertaining. I will have to go back again and try out the full park now that the snow is gone.

Not a great performance, only 50%, but when I wrote those goals I had no idea what this pandemic would look like. So many race I love have been canceled. So many conveniences I took for granted, like bathrooms at state parks, have changed the way I approach my runs.

As far as my overall 2020 running goals, I am doing okay. I’m right on track with my number of long runs and I am averaging 100 pushups a day (I’ve missed a few days, but made up for them with >100 pushups on other days). I didn’t get any cross-country skiing done – I never took the time to wax and prep my skis. I’ll have to wait til November or December to hit this goal. I’m planning to buy a bike and have a model picked out, thanks to my friend Waylon, but the bike shop in my neighborhood is closed due to the pandemic. They are accepting online orders, but I don’t know anything about what size bike I need, and would like to test ride a few, so I’ll have to call them and see if there’s a test ride option. FANS has been canceled, but if there’s a virtual option, I will go for a distance personal best and fundraise. I don’t think I’ll have the choice to run a new marathon, unless the Mankato Marathon goes through, or some other late fall marathon. (The Fargo Marathon is occurring in August, but I don’t think North Dakota is handling the pandemic very well, and I also don’t want to run a marathon in North Dakota in August.)

It’s kind of nice, saving money on races, spending less time traveling for races and long runs, and doing my own thing, but I do miss the structure of a training plan and the support and atmosphere of a race. Still, it’s a small price to pay to keep hundreds of thousands more people from getting seriously ill or dying.

Cooler Heads Prevailed

In case it wasn’t obvious, I didn’t run the Mankato Marathon last weekend. It was a good decision, for many reasons, which I will enumerate here.

  1. It was an overreaction.
    I wanted to run the Mankato Marathon because I was upset with myself for my poor performance/DNF at the Twin Cities Marathon. I was mad at myself for not achieving my main goal for the fall, getting a marathon PR. I have signed up for races on an impulse before, and I am sure I will in the future, but any time I can restrain myself from making a reactionary and overly emotional decision to enter a race, I consider that a win.
  2. It would have expensive.
    The race itself would have been nearly $100, plus I would have needed to get a hotel room the night before the race in order to safely get to and from the race. It’s an hour and a half drive from my house to Mankato, and I’d have needed to arrive there well before race start in order to get my bib and handle the rest of the logistics. We all know I don’t sleep well before races even in the best of circumstances; it’s highly likely I wouldn’t have slept a wink before the race, knowing I had to drive and deal with packet pick-up, and then I’d have had to drive home after running for 5-6 hours. NOT SAFE.
  3. I have two other races coming up.
    I’ve already paid for Icebox 480 and Mustache Run. It’s likely my performance at Icebox would be negatively affected by running a full marathon two weeks before. I can focus on trying to get a 50K in less than 8 hours and set myself up for success now.
  4. I was less ready than I thought I was.
    I ran 9 miles on Saturday afternoon and I felt pretty fatigued after the first 5-6 miles, and that’s after sleeping in! I have had a lot of stress at work lately and I think that affected me a lot more than I realized. My resting heart rate has been up, too, which is another sign of fatigue. I might have ended up crashing and burning again, but without an easy way to bail out this time.
  5. It was really, really, really, really, really, really nice to have a weekend with no commitments.
    I slept in! I ran when I wanted to! I vegged out! It was great. I enjoy running, but with a lot of commitments lately, doing nothing was far preferable to running a marathon. Of course if I’d destroyed it with a 4:55 time or something I would probably feel different.

I’m moving forward and trying to put my disappointment behind me. I hate that I have to wait until next year to get redemption at this race, but I can’t let that get me down. Not every race is going to go well, or even go decently. Time to move on.