marathon

Summer Running Goals: 2017

Gotta get these done before the weekend. “Summer” running goals are things I want to accomplish between June and August.

  1. Reach a personal best in distance.
    Bring it on, FANS. I’m hoping to see huge increase over 50km this weekend.
  2. PR at the marathon distance.
    My current marathon PR is 8:23:29, set last year at the Moose Mountain Marathon. While I expect to set an unofficial PR this coming weekend at FANS (and set an unofficial PR at CM50K of some unknown time under 8 hours), I’m looking to set an official PR at the Eugene Curnow Trail Marathon in July. Since I DNSd that race last year, just getting to the finish line is a small victory.
  3. Run from home to my dad’s place on Pike Lake.
    It’ll be a fun adventure. I just have to plan a route that keeps me off the highway.
  4. Run from Gooseberry Falls to Split Rock Lighthouse.
    This one is a holdover from last year. It seems like a good idea for a long run (an out and back is the most likely way I’ll achieve this, due to my lone wolf nature).

As for my spring running goals, let’s evaluate.

  1. Race a distance I have not raced before.
    I raced the Hot Dash 10 Mile in March and loved it!
  2. Run a race where I’m not sure I can make the cutoff.
    I raced the Chippewa Moraine 50K in April and finished 2:31 before the cutoff, after missing the intermediate cutoff but being allowed to continue.
  3. PR at the 50K distance.
    I dropped my PR from 10:25:37 to 8:57:29! Granted, CM50K was an easier course than Wild Duluth, but I’m taking some of that credit for myself.
  4. Help my team for Be The Match 5K raise $2000.
    I really flopped on this front. My mom and I raised over $1100 (probably more like $1200 as we had a couple make general donations), which is neither a fundraising PR nor anywhere near my stretch goal. Yuck.
  5. Improve my time at Superior 25K.
    I ran 45 minutes better than last year. Check check.

Post-Mortem: Moose Mountain Marathon

Refreshers
Race Report
All MMM Posts

Good Things
Hills. I did a lot of hill work. All those torturous trips up Chester Bowl were worth it. I didn’t collapse and die on Mystery Mountain. My legs felt extremely strong, and I recovered really well, which was important since I have WD50K in less than 5 weeks.

Simplifying my race plan. My mantra was keep moving. I kept moving. I was tempted, for just a moment, on Moose Mountain. I wanted to stop for just a minute. I almost did, and then I muttered “Keep moving” and took another step. Before I knew it, I was at the top. Getting my picture taken.
I also planned out what time I needed to be at each aid station to reach my time goals. I typed up a little table, “laminated” it with clear tape, and tucked it into a pocket of my hydration vest. This kept me from getting frustrated when I realized my watch had gone haywire. The only problem I had was forgetting to note the actual time on my watch when the race started, so I wasn’t positive the times matched up exactly. It didn’t matter because I was ahead of my goal, but I could have ended up thinking I met my goal based on my watch time, only to find out my watch was slow and I was a little bit over. I mean, who cares, it’s a trail race and goals are only estimations, but that would have been annoying nonetheless.

Reconnaissance. I ran every section of the course. It sucked, driving up the North Shore every weekend (ok yes it was lovely, but I didn’t get to stop and enjoy the lake) and devoting an entire day to running. But it was worth it. I was prepared. I knew what the climbs felt like. I knew that I could conquer Moose Mountain and Mystery Mountain, despite my disastrous encounter with those two in May. I will not be able to do that with every race, but for my first crack at a marathon, I needed that extra confidence boost. I knew what I’d encounter, even if I didn’t know how my body would react.

Bad Things
Nutrition. It wasn’t terrible, but I am still sure I didn’t eat enough. I have to start planning better for remote races; I need to bring a cooler so I can eat something fresh for dinner the night before the race, instead of eating goldfish crackers and cookies. I didn’t eat much in the morning, either, just one Clif bar and a bit of Powerade. I had some minor stomach (well, really, esophageal) issues early on in the race so I felt kind of crummy. I should have eaten more at aid stations, carried something with me if I needed to. Potato chips tasted so good; I could have taken a cup to go and ditched the garbage at the next aid station. My stomach improved as the race went on, though. Chugging a Coke and a ginger ale helped prevent pressure from building in my stomach, and it also helped me get in some sugar when I ran out of Powerade. I knew they were only going to have Heed at the aid stations, but I should have tried some in training to make sure I could stomach it. I didn’t want to try out something new mid-race, so I just went with water and then pop at the aid stations. I felt hungry a few times during the race, especially at the end, so that was a bad sign.
My nutrition during training also sucked. I am going to wait until the off-season to start planning improvements to my day to day meals, but I’m ignoring a huge component of performance and overall health.

Strength Training. I’ve got to stop putting this on my “bad things” list. I don’t know what else to say about it.

Training Structure. I really winged it for this race. I didn’t follow a training plan, just had a general idea of the mileage I wanted to hit. My average miles/week was around 37 miles, and that average includes the two weeks I took off almost completely. (Taking out those two weeks, my average miles/week goes up to 40.) I appreciated the flexibility of going without a training plan, but I could have drawn up something fairly basic in advance so I’d have an idea of goal mileage and make sure to get in a couple of specific types of workouts (hills, other speedwork, etc.).

Race Report: Moose Mountain Marathon

I did it.
marathon.jpg
My friend Katherine took this photo. One of the perks of volunteering is there are always friends at the finish line.

Official Results:
Time: 8:23:29
Pace: 19:13
Placing:
Overall: 207/258
Gender: 81/112
Division (OPEN F): 37/50

Watch Results:
Time: 8:23:28
Pace: 17:10/mi
Distance: 29.31 mi (hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha)
Heart Rate: 131 bpm (my HRM only intermittently worked)
Obviously I had some technical difficulties.

Goals:
A: 8:30
B: 9:00
C: 9:59:59

Food:
What I ate the night before: Goldfish crackers, chunks of bread & Nutella, 2 cookies, Triscuits
What I ate on race morning: a Clif bar at the marathon start
What I carried with me: 3 Clif bars, 10 Gu packets, Powerade

Gear:
What I wore: t-shirt, shorts, ball cap
Gadgets: GPS watch, heart rate monitor, fitness tracker

Discussion: I feel amazing right now, even hours after I finished running. I’m writing this at 10 pm, just after the race officially ended. I know this because I could hear the finish line from my room, and listened to the awards ceremony and the names of the runners as they crossed the finish line. I would have joined to help out but I feel pretty drained and even going down to get my post-race chili after cleaning up felt difficult.

I arrived Friday afternoon feeling pretty out of it. I thought I was sick but I am pretty sure it was just adrenaline. I helped hand out race t-shirts to marathoners and 50 milers, and then helped pack things up for the race morning check in. I hung out in my room and hoped to relax, but my heart race was still elevated and I don’t think I fell asleep until 1 am or so. But I slept until about 5:30, so at least I slept!

I got on the bus to the race start and hoped I wouldn’t get motion sickness. I don’t get bad motion sickness but just feel a little off/slightly nauseated. I hadn’t eaten anything at that point and had only had a little bit of Powerade so I was behind on nutrition from the start. I ate my Clif bar once I got there and didn’t warm up because I didn’t feel like it. I was wearing a lightweight rain jacket because I wasn’t sure about the weather (it rained while I was getting ready and had rained overnight, poor 100 milers!) but I took it off once off the bus since it wasn’t too cold. It folds up and zips into its own pocket and weighs like 1 lb so I just stuffed it in my hydration pack. I opted not to use drop bags or send a bag of clothes back from the start, just to simplify things. My friend Matt, a Ham radio volunteer, was at the start and I was able to talk to him until the pre-race briefing started.

One of the key elements in my pacing strategy was a little pace sheet I printed out, giving me times I needed to reach each aid station in order to reach my time goals. This is the only reliable way to stay on pace, since GPS is always a little off, and in this case, 3 miles off. However, I was unaware that the start had a funky little turnaround before we went through the aid station that is listed as the marathon start.The turnaround adds 0.8 miles, which was significant enough to affect my pace plans. [Update 9/15: it doesn’t add 0.8 miles, I read the map wrong; it is included in the 26.2.]

Cramer Rd – Temperance River AS: 7.9 mi, 2:34:05, 19:30 pace (segments ended when I left the aid station)
I didn’t start in last place like I usually do, and ended up falling in between two grand masters runners with tons of experience. We reached the first turn, then saw there was a traffic jam where the singletrack began. No one was able to run very much at the beginning, so we settled in for awhile. I ran with a small group of people for the first few miles, enjoying the runnable sections along the Cross River especially. I tripped while crossing one of the creeks, didn’t lift my foot up high enough to step onto the bridge. Once I started the climb that precedes the descent into Temperance, I separated a bit and ran by myself. I had heartburn so I was glad to be alone to just feel crappy. I ate a gel at miles 3 and 6. Nothing else eventful happened, I guess, or maybe I just forgot. How do people write such detailed race reports? I think I also ate a Jolly Rancher and maybe a wintergreen LifeSaver. I rolled into the aid station, ate some potato chips, and left, forgetting that I’d wanted to throw away some garbage and also drink some pop. Oops.
(I am not sure how the 0.8 mi fits into this, so I am going off just the distances given on the aid station charts. I don’t know if the 0.8 mi addition to the start makes the total distance 26.2 or 27 mi, but since it’s billed as a marathon, I’m going off that pacing.) Update 9/15: the total distance is 26.2. It’s 7.9 miles from the start/Cramer Rd to Temperance for marathoners, and 7.1 miles from Cramer Rd to Temperance for 50 and 100 mile runners.

Temperance River AS to Sawbill AS: 5.7 mi, 1:44:32, 18:21 pace
Out of Temperance, I trotted along for awhile, reapplying sunscreen and trying to wash down the chips. I ate part of a Clif bar before the Carlton Peak ascent began (I was also passed by the 50 mile winner just before the ascent!). I suffered through that as best as I could. There was a race photographer near the top, so that was marvelous. We’ll see how the picture turned out, I was beet red, I’m fairly certain. I think I have a bit of a sunburn but we’ll see tomorrow. I kept putting one foot in front of the other and actually passed a few people on the climb. It’s pretty tough, and there are big boulders at the top (which is not actually the summit, thank goodness). I was able to run a bit after getting off Carlton, and rolled into the Sawbill aid station. I remembered to throw my trash away, filled my 1/4 full Powerade bottle with water (the sports drink there was Heed, and I’ve never tried it, so I didn’t want to risk it), slammed a cup of Coke and a cup of ginger ale, ate some more potato chips, and left.

Sawbill AS to Oberg AS: 5.5 mi, 1:49:01, 18:49 pace
I slowed a bit during this section for some unknown reason. I guess just generally losing energy. This is also where my GPS went crazy, telling me I was running 9 or 10 minute paces at time. I realized it was completely useless and tried to just focus on running well. I fell in with a 100 mile runner and his pacer; they let me lead up a hill, then passed me, then I passed them when the runner stopped to pee, then I led up a hill, they passed me, I passed them during another pee break, and then that was it. The runner finished a bit behind me and I congratulated him at the finish line after his crew/family did, and we hugged. This section felt really long, especially for only being 5.5 miles. Nothing was really that hard, except for a few switchback sections. I tripped and fell in some mud and scraped up my leg a bit, but was otherwise ok. I tripped another time about a mile later. I was starting to feel like Grandpa Simpson with his frequent trips to the ground. I stopped to pee at some point along the trail, then caught up to some others and ran with one woman til we reached the aid station. It was quite a bit further from the Onion River than I remembered, and I found that sort of annoying. The Oberg aid station was AMAZING, though. Concierge service. I had my water bottle refilled, was led to the food, and even had someone take the trash right out of my hydration vest pocket. I mean… wow. That’s how I will acquit myself on every aid station volunteering stint from here on out. I had more chips and more Coke and ginger ale, and then left.

Oberg AS to Finish: 7.1 mi, 2:15:56, 19:08 pace
I thought as I left Oberg that I still had a chance to run under 8 hours. Hahahaha. Moose Mountain and Mystery Mountain said no. I was running slower even before then. I chowed down on a gel before climbing Moose Mountain, and then just put one foot in front of the other and hauled myself up.

And was met at the top by one of the race’s social media contributors!

I look like a Sith lord, which is good. He actually took a video but I swore on it (He asked how I felt and I said “I feel great, I’m done with this sh*t!”) and our conversation wasn’t that funny (he reminded me Mystery Mountain was still to come, I said I knew but I just was happy to be done with Moose Mountain, it was confusing).

I recovered and was able to run some on the top of Moose Mountain, and then slowed for the steep descent. I had another gel right before Mystery Mountain, popped in a LifeSaver, and then dug in for the switchbacks. I had hardly seen any other runners, just one 100er/pacer, and enjoyed being able to handle both tough ascents alone. Once I got to the top of Mystery Mountain, I was… giddy. Like, grinning and laughing to myself like a goon. I was ecstatic to be done with the climbs, and I could smell the barn!

It was at this point I realized that I needed to move my butt or I wasn’t going to make it ahead of my goal. I didn’t know how far I had left to go and I knew I was going to have to hustle. I was passed by a volunteer running by, who told me that I had 2 miles to go; I was thinking I had less, so that was a kick in the crotch. I passed a marathoner who was ambling along, not sure if he was bonking or just didn’t feel like running. A 50 mile runner passed me and we had a little chat as he flew by (he was the 5th and last to pass me; no marathoners passed me after I took my bathroom break), and I tried to keep my pace up. I ate the little bit of the gel remaining from Mystery Mountain and that was it, even though I was actually hungry. I knew I could eat at the finish.

I can’t say I really hammered it once I reached the road, but I did kick it up a notch. I didn’t like losing the shade of the trail, since the sun was still fairly strong, but I didn’t care too much since I was almost done. Once I turned off the road to come around the back side of the resort, I was grinning, and I ran through the chute smiling. There were a lot of nice people cheering and some women gave me high fives as I crossed the finish line, got my finisher’s medal, hugged the finish line coordinator, and accepted some glorious lemonade from the race director.

I went back to my room, cleaned all the mud off, changed my clothes, and then goofed around in my hotel room for a little while before I mustered the strength to go down to get the post-race chili (and some kind of quinoa salad), then brought it back to my room to eat, since I was feeling kinda… dazed, I guess. I drank some pop, ate some goldfish crackers, watched some Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, read, and listened to the sounds of the race.

I loved the race, loved the atmosphere, the other runners, the volunteers, the race staff, everything. The Minnesota/Wisconsin trail running community is so inclusive; fast or slow, everyone genuinely encourages each other and looks out for one another. We are here to have fun, to enjoy the beautiful trails, and to test our own limits.

And speaking of testing limits, I signed up for the Wild Duluth 50K.

Moose Mountain Marathon Training: Week 4

My last big week before the race!

Monday: 6.2 mi, trail (Western Waterfront trail), 134 bpm
Tuesday: 5.4 mi, trail (SHT starting @ Magney), 151 bpm
Wednesday: rest (yoga)
Thursday: 7.3 mi (8 x 0.5 mi), paved trail (Munger), 143 bpm
Friday: 5.7 mi, paved trail (Lakewalk), 126 bpm
Saturday: 14.4 mi, trail (SHT @ Lutsen), 144 bpm
Sunday: 5.5 mi, paved trail (Bong Bridge), 130 bpm
Total: 44.4 mi

Last week was an eventful week. Monday, I found a new trail, the Western Waterfront trail. It is accessible from the Munger trail near the Munger Inn. It’s not a really long trail, but I wasn’t able to traverse the entire trail due to construction. This gravel trail follows the St. Louis River in west Duluth, with nice views and very little traffic, at least when I was on it. I will have to give the entire trail a shot some time, once I’m confident the construction work has passed by.

Tuesday, in addition to running, I did some trail work on the Superior Hiking Trail. I was able to sign up through an event at my work, so I can’t really call it volunteering, as I got paid. We assisted with a trail re-route near Keene Creek, including moving a small footbridge (the one that crosses the creek right before the trail goes under the freeway). I got to meet Larry, who is responsible for trail maintenance on the Duluth sections of the SHT, and give him a big thank you for the great trail conditions. I used a glorified rake called a MacLeod (?) to do final grading of a section of the trail, and removed roots and weeds from the trail. I was planning on running right after we completed the work, but it was 88F so I went and got an iced latte and cooled down for awhile before running in the late afternoon instead.

Thursday’s speed workout left me with horribly tight hamstrings both Friday and Saturday. Each day, it took a couple miles to loosen them up. Friday I went running on the Lakewalk and saw a bear. That was exciting. There was a chain link fence between the bear and me, but the fence wasn’t actually containing the bear. S/he was just chowing down near Tischer Creek. At first I thought it was a large dog, then backtracked realizing, no, that’s not a dog.

bear jamboroo

It’s a freaking Country Bear Jamboroo on the Lakewalk.

I’ve spent hours and hours running alone in the wilderness but I see a bear on a well-traveled paved trail in the city. Of course.

Saturday I trekked back up to Lutsen to finish my recon of the marathon course. All I had left to do was the Oberg to finish section, which I’ve already done as it is the Superior 25K course. And oh yeah, it sucked last time. I found it challenging this time around, but not nearly as difficult as I did back in May. I was able to scale Moose Mountain and Mystery Mountain without stopping (though Moose Mountain was still incredibly tough), although I know when I’ve got 20+ miles on my legs, it’s going to be a lot harder. I can attribute my improved ability on the course to a couple of factors: 1. Improved fitness (I think) 2. Better weather (cooler in August than in May, that is odd) 3. Managed expectations (I knew that Mystery Mountain would go on forever, so I was mentally prepared). The first few miles of the run were tough due to my tight hamstrings. I had to pick around a lot of rocks and roots and didn’t have the maneuverability I’d have like. I had to stop a couple of times to practice my latrine-digging skills, so that was a bit annoying, but that was only due to poor planning/timing, not stomach issues. I encountered a group of ladies hiking on the trail, hearing them before I saw them as one was wearing bells to scare off wildlife (I assume). Jokes on you, lady: all the bears are in Duluth.

Sunday my hips hurt, so I didn’t push too hard on my recovery run. I ran across the Bong Bridge from Duluth to Superior (and then back again), which was cool, but not as cool as I’d have liked.

It is a short run; the bridge is probably less than 2 miles across. I thought at some point the view would be breathtaking, but I never quite got my socks knocked off. I don’t plan to run this route often, but I wanted to give it a try at least once.

This was probably one of the most interesting training weeks I’ve had, with something notable happening every single day (new trail, wildlife encounters, trail work). I am pleased I’ve been enjoying running again lately; it means the break I took in July to get my head straight was worth the time off training. Never dismiss the power of a mental health break.

Moose Mountain Marathon Training: Week 2

I’m living in denial. This marathon isn’t less than a month away. Everything’s fine.

Monday: 5.1 mi, road, 142 bpm
Tuesday: 7.2 mi, trail (SHT starting @ Twin Ponds), 157 bpm
Wednesday: 5.2 mi, road/trail (including 7x Chester Bowl ski hill), 152 bpm
Thursday: rest (30 min of yoga)
Friday: 5.2 mi, paved trail (Lakewalk), 141 bpm + 20 mins of yoga
Saturday: 15.9 mi, trail (SHT @ Cramer Rd), 155 bpm
Sunday: 5.2 mi, road, 135 bpm
Total: 43.7 mi

Definitely a quality week of workouts. But also a reminder that I don’t feel very ready for a marathon.

One notable stat to mention is my average heart rate on these runs. Half of them have average heart rates over the target of 143 bpm I had when I was doing MAF training. I’m not sure if this is good or bad. It’s freeing, not being tethered to that monitor and obsessing over staying aerobic. But now I’m in a sort of no-woman’s-land, with some aerobic workouts, some that are mostly aerobic, and some spots where I’m hitting my max heart rate (or thereabouts). It’s probably not good to hit my max heart rate on a long run. But what am I supposed to do when there’s a huge steep hill to climb? Climb it, heart rate be damned.

I was fairly pleased with my run on Tuesday. It was HOT when I started, although I waited til about 6:15 pm to start, so I didn’t have the blazing sun on me. I managed a much faster pace than I normally do for trail training runs, even on the steep climb I hit after leaving the Lincoln Park area. Between that run and my hill workout the next night, I was feeling pretty confident about my training.

Saturday I ran the first ~8 miles of the Moose Mountain Marathon course. I’ll have some details on that run later, but I made some key observations during this run. First, even with all the climbing I’ve been doing, I’m still not in super great shape for the big climbs. I really struggled on the way up from the Temperance River after I turned around, and I know that the climb out of the river is even harder in the opposite direction, since it crests Carlton Peak. I am nervous about that. I was swearing and getting frustrated during miles 10-12 on Saturday. I think I can also attribute that to poor nutrition. I need to be better about timing my food so that I’ve got energy during a climb. I pulled myself together once after those few low miles, but I was really, REALLY cranky for awhile. And also very nervous, because of the challenges that will face me on the course next month. I guess I need to constantly stuff my face with food while running.

Sunday I was a little bit sore in the quads and stiff in general, and I lacked energy on my recovery run. Not surprising. After my run I had to sit in the car for an hour and a half to drive back, not an ideal situation. I got home from Sunday’s run just as the men’s 400m finals began, so I got to see Wayde van Nienkirk’s amazing race. Perfect timing.

Somewhere on Sunday, while I was cursing and grumbling, I surpassed 1000 miles for the year. I’m less than 200 miles from surpassing my total miles for 2015, so I’m on track for this to be my biggest year yet!

Moose Mountain Marathon Training: Week 1

Obviously this is a continuation of the training I’ve been doing all summer, rather than a 6 week marathon training program. (MMM is Sept 10th.) I took a couple weeks “off” from training, averaging about 16 miles/week, so this past week of training was my return to training-level mileage.

Monday: 6 mi, road, 135 bpm
Tuesday: 6.4 mi, road/trail (including 6x Chester Bowl ski hill), 152 bpm
Wednesday: rest (30 min of yoga)
Thursday: 8.5 mi, road, 152 bpm
Friday: rest (travel)
Saturday: 5.6 mi, road, 144 bpm
Sunday: 5.1 mi, road, 142 bpm
Total: 31.8 mi

This is almost double the mileage I’ve done the past 2 weeks, but I didn’t feel like it was a huge, exhausting increase. I did do mostly road running, mostly due to time or travel constraints.

My focus for this mini training cycle is my “lazy” running. I have complained about this before, but I have this terrible tendency to sit back when I’m running. I’m not an expert in running form and I don’t really know how I “look” when I’m running, but I do know how it feels. When I’m running “lazy,” I’m leading with my hips, and my shoulders are back. When I’m not running “lazy,” my shoulders and upper body are more forward. I suspect that I’m also running a slightly higher cadence when I’m running in a more engaged way, but I haven’t paid much attention to cadence so I can’t say. The more engaged running style is much more efficient; I can run faster paces while maintaining the same heart rate, and I can run faster overall. I don’t think I can go much faster in my relaxed/lazy posture, and so I need to train myself to stop running in that posture. Easier said than done. No more mindless running for awhile.

Tuesday’s hill workout was tough, but necessary. Chester Bowl is fairly steep, and my legs start to burn before I’m even halfway up. I need to learn to avoid going there on Tuesdays, though; I forgot about the concert series. It’s not on the hill, so it’s not like I was running through the audience, but there were still more people milling around the bottom than I’d like, and there was a young couple lying literally right next to the only dirt path up the hill. They didn’t move for my first few reps up the hill, which was really awkward. I didn’t feel like moving off the little path, since the grass had not been cut recently and I didn’t want to add that extra challenge. I ran about 4 more miles after I complete my hill repeats, and my legs recovered nicely, so I think the workouts are really beneficial.

Wednesday I could/should have run, since my haircut was… canceled, at the last minute, kind of. Rather, I drove up to the salon and it was no longer a salon, but a travel agency. I did not get the info that the salon had moved/closed when I made the appointment 3 weeks ago, which seemed like maybe some important information to have. I did about 30 minutes of yoga, although I really, really sucked at it. I struggled with all the poses and my flexibility in certain positions was pathetic. I did 5×10 pushups after. That was my one organized strength workout for the week, oops.

I didn’t do a long run this weekend due to travel. My family got together at the cabin my dad rented for the summer, and I did not want to take the time for a long run. It was much more important to spend time with people, especially my nephew, who lives in Grand Forks, and my grandparents, who will be returning to Florida permanently, and no longer coming up to Duluth in the summers. I didn’t want to spend 2-3 hours (or more) alone doing some boring long run (the scenery is nice on the lake, but the only running options are county roads with no shade, or smaller roads with lots of bugs) when I had limited time with everyone. I also slept in a tent Friday and Saturday night and didn’t get good rest, so a shorter run was less taxing. I don’t know if kneeboarding and tubing officially count as strength training, but I’ll count both. It took a lot of strength to hang on for dear life when centripetal force threatened to fling me out of the tube (actually a raft) during a particularly tight, fast turn. I did a small amount of lake swimming as cross training, too!

This upcoming week, I’ll be getting serious about running again, and getting my mileage back up in the 40s. My plan is to start running earlier in the day, like when I get home from work, not an hour and a half later, after lolly-gagging about. This will give me time to do strength workouts after running, and also ensure I don’t miss prime-time Olympic coverage, which is a HIGH priority.

Sunk Costs

At 3:38 this morning, half an hour or so before my alarm, I got out of bed and sent a defeated email to the race director, scratching myself from the race. I’d been tossing and turning and unable to sleep, and I couldn’t start my first marathon after being up for 24 hours.

So, I’m not a marathoner. Just embarrassed. It was a beautiful day, I had good (not great, but good) training, and I was finally coming to accept that I could actually complete the race. Of all the things to go wrong, all the reasons I might not get to the finish line, I didn’t think it would be something that would prevent me from getting to the starting line.

And people run races sleep-deprived all the time. I know I shouldn’t compare myself to others, but this is different. This isn’t about speed or physical ability, things that are not completely within my control. Mental toughness is completely within my control, and I wimped out. People running Hardrock right now have had less sleep than I would have by the time the race ended.

I made a good decision that I can’t seem to live with. I do think it was the right decision for me: I’ve never run a marathon before, I would have had to drive myself to the race already sleep-deprived, and I wasn’t running with a crew, so if I was unable to continue, I wouldn’t have had a way to get home and would have had to beg for a ride to the finish, or sit at an aid station until my husband finally woke up (he sleeps late on the weekends due to an unusual shift schedule) and could come get me. Not ideal.

I’m still mad at myself. Mostly for not being able to even muster 3 lousy hours of sleep. I’ve run on little sleep before, like at Zumbro. But never on no sleep. And maybe I did really get some sleep and just didn’t realize it, but I doubt it. My fitness tracker shows me restless more than once an hour, and doesn’t show my heart rate dipping down to the level it normally is while I’m sleeping until after I’d sent my email and gone back to bed. And even then, it took me awhile to fall asleep and I still woke up around 9. Race anxiety got the best of me, it seems.

I’m not sure what I could have done differently. I thought about a lot of different things. Take a sleep aid? I went to bed at my normal time, I’m tired at that time almost every night. I didn’t sleep in on Friday, either, probably only got 5-6 total hours of sleep Thursday night (another factor in my decision not to run). I wouldn’t have known I needed a sleep aid until it was too late. They don’t always work, either, they tend to either backfire, or make me sleepy long after they wear off. Plus I always fear when I take them, I’ll sleep through my alarm. Eat something different or eat earlier? I always eat late and had no stomach issues last night. Not drink a pop before bed? Again, I drink a pop with dinner most nights (it’s my one pop of the day and IDGAF if I shouldn’t have it), and I don’t have trouble sleeping. Go to bed earlier? I wasn’t tired earlier, that would have been pointless. Run a few miles to tire me out a little more? Maybe. I considered that and then realized I still had to go check out where I was going to park in the morning, so I didn’t have time to run a couple miles.

The only thing I think I could have done differently was change the logistics of my plan. I worried about parking more than anything else. I was afraid there wouldn’t be a spot to park (it’s pretty limited), but I didn’t want to take the bus from Carlton at 4:45; I’d have to have gotten up earlier and driven in the dark to the finish line. I guess I should have just done that, but I wanted to have my car with me and have a little more freedom. I’m not sure that would have helped, but I did worry about it. So if I do this next year: I’m taking the bus.

I need to turn this setback into something positive. Besides saving money by canceling my post-race massage, I mean.

I still have the Moose Mountain Marathon to complete, and I have work to do. Weight to lose. Diet to improve. Speed to increase. Core muscles to strengthen. All the things I put by the wayside as I rushed to train for this marathon, and started getting a little mentally checked out. I was going through the motions of getting the miles in, but I wasn’t doing much else. So here’s my chance to make it right, and to toe the line in Schroder on September 10th with confidence and strength.