slow runners

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.

FANS 24 HR Training: Weeks 15 and 16

Lower mileage than I’d like, but I suppose I’ll just be that much more rested?

Week 15
Monday: 6.1 mi, trail (Lester Park)
Tuesday: 5.2 mi, paved trail (Lakewalk)
Wednesday: rest
Thursday: 8.4 mi, road
Friday: rest/travel
Saturday: 15.3 mi, trail (Superior 25K)
Sunday: rest/travel (raining)
Total: 35 mi

Week 16
Monday: 6.3 mi, road
Tuesday: rest
Wednesday: 8 mi, road
Thursday: 7.4 mi, road
Friday: 4.4 mi, trail (Western Waterfront)
Saturday: 8.7 mi, road
Sunday: 5.6 mi, road
Total: 40.4 mi

In week 15, even though I raced, I wanted to treat it as a true training week. That didn’t really work out, because my planned Sunday run didn’t happen. I made a non-noteworthy pasta salad (my own “recipe,” so basically some pasta, bell peppers, cheese, cilantro, and Newman’s Own parmesan-garlic dressing. Usually it has pepperoni, too, but I forgot.) and had a nice trail run at Lester Park. The only thing I don’t really like about running at Lester Park is the elevation: it’s all up, then all down. It’s not hard, but I prefer more variety.

In week 16, I switched my focus entirely to FANS, and started practicing walk/run intervals. I am not planning to do a Galloway-style walk run, that takes a lot more adjustment. I tried it once and found that I was constantly staring at my GPS watch, wondering if I missed a beep (and then I did miss one, the one time I wasn’t staring at it). I think that would be too distracting for me during a 24 hour race. I did some run 10/walk 5 intervals and some run 15/walk 5 intervals, to see which I liked better. The transition is harder than I thought. I found that run 10/walk 5 worked ok, but I wasn’t warmed up enough for the first transition and my calf muscles felt really tight, on the verge of cramping. I don’t think that will be an issue for the race, because I plan to run at least the first hour or so straight without walk intervals, but if my plan changes, I want to make sure my muscles are sufficiently warm before starting my first walk interval. I am probably over-complicating this but I excel at that.

I also made this:

Easy Chickpea Salad, once again from The Sea Salt. I didn’t cook the chickpeas long enough, so they didn’t absorb the dressing as well as I’d have liked. I subbed cilantro for parsley because I’m a freak for cilantro. The next day I made pasta and re-made the dressing from the recipe, added some of the leftover chickpea salad, and had a slightly different take on the meal. Be warned: it makes SO MUCH FOOD. I think I ate this 4 days in a row (2 with the pasta) and still had to toss some, not because it had gone bad, but because I needed to eat something different!

Last night, I made this:

Chicken Curry from Food52. I used half a jar of curry powder, which is amazing. I ended up using some extra cream, too (probably 2 cups instead of 1.5), since the skillet I used was kind of large and I wanted to make sure I had the chicken covered well. Also, I like sauce. I didn’t want to bother with the mess of cutting up chicken breasts, so I bought some already cut up chicken. I know that’s really lazy but I don’t really care. I guess that also means less chance of contamination. I actually didn’t put any cilantro in because I’ve bought it so much lately and some keeps going to waste. My meal planning skills are rudimentary.

The weather has been slowly starting to get nicer, and I have had a marked change in my mood. Earlier in the month I was stressing myself out a lot about the temperature, worrying about being cold only to find out it wasn’t that cold once I got outside. The last week+, I’ve run in shorts almost every day and felt fine. It was even hot for that 8.7 mile run on Saturday of Week 16! Some last minute heat training! Except now it looks like rain/thunderstorms for race day with highs in the 60s F. Woo.

I’m done running until Saturday! That feels strange to say. I plan on walking a few miles here and there to keep my legs moving, but other than that, I’m resting, prepping, and trying not to drive myself crazy between now and Saturday morning.

Superior 25K Follow-Up

Now that I have some space and distance from the tragic event of the weekend, I would like to go over some of the other aspects of the race. It still feels somewhat crass to discuss trivia like pace or food. I will say I don’t have any way to separate the runner’s death from my recollections or feelings about the race; it is always in my mind, but at some point it feels overwrought and dramatic for me to attach an asterisk to every blog mention of anything about the race. The following is a discussion of my race prep and execution tactics, and “good things” and “bad things” should be taken in that context.

A note before I move on to technical stuff: the responses of the race director and the trail running community have been kind and generous. Race participants have received multiple emails from the RD that have been heartfelt and genuine, with instructions on how to support the runner’s family, praise for the responders and the staff who kept the race going while he dealt with the incident, and access to a counselor for anyone who is struggling.

Refresher
Race Report
(since this was not a goal race, I don’t have a link to all the tagged posts like I usually do)

Good Things
Relaxed approach. I didn’t make an obsessive checklist for this race. I ran 15 miles on trails the weekend before with less stuff and less preparation, so why would I need to micromanage this? I didn’t make a time chart like I normally do – partially because there’s only one aid station and I don’t know the exact distances of any of the other waypoints on the trail (i.e. river crossings), and also because I knew my fitness was sufficient to achieve my B standard (4:30) without a monumental effort.

Relentless forward progress. (I love this term, thank you Bryon Powell for introducing me to it.) My non-time-related goal was zero stops on Moose or Mystery Mountains, and I was successful (with an emergency exception). I took them slowly and didn’t care if someone passed me.

Eyes on the prize. This was a training run for me, not a goal race. I didn’t overtax myself trying to get under 4 hours, or passing someone, or making some other ego-driven rash decision. I set conservative goals. I didn’t taper. I intended to run the next day, but it was pouring and cold.

Bad Things
Climbing skills. Someday, I’d like to be able to run up easier hills without paying for it later in the race. I haven’t been doing much hill work lately so my thighs were basically on fire anytime I hit anything more than a little bump. I’ve got to do more work on sustained climbs.

Hill recovery. I’d like to get to a point where, even if I can’t run up hills, I can run once I’m on them. I was about half and half on this one, but some of that was mental, too.

Superior 25K Goals (2017)

My first repeat trail race! This should be interesting. It is most likely going to be cold – like 35 degrees colder than last year!

Last year I ran 4:51:40, which is a minute and a half slower pace than I recently ran a 50K. So I’m hoping I can improve upon that. I don’t know by how much. The temperature will probably be more favorable, but I think the trail is going to be pretty disgusting, considering the volume of rain we’ve gotten. (Maybe it hasn’t rained as much up the shore, I don’t know.)

I know what I’m getting into this year. I’ve faced down Moose Mountain and Mystery Mountain twice before. And yet somehow I still want to do it again? Ugh.

This year, my goals are:
A Standard: 4:15
B Standard: 4:30

I think the 4:30 is conservative, but accounts for any possible issues with trail conditions. If I am slip-sliding up the back of Moose Mountain, I am dead meat. It’s funny because last year, my B standard was 4:15… oh how little I knew.

My non-time-related goals are to finish injury-free, avoid stopping on the ascents, and of course not soil myself in any way. I’m relatively relaxed about this race, since it’s no longer a goal race, I know the course, and I just ran like 15 miles last weekend with no problems. My only real concerns are trail conditions and weather, and really I don’t care too much about the weather other than that I hope it doesn’t rain during the race. It’s looking like a high of 46F. If it rains on top of that, it could get ugly.

I’m driving up today and volunteering at packet pickup before the race, which I enjoy doing. I like talking with all the runners and there are so many cool people who volunteer at event after event. If I’m not totally destroyed by the race, I’ll probably jump in and volunteer at the finish as well. I am staying at the start/finish this year, so it’ll be really easy to pop upstairs, shower and change, have my vanilla Coke, and go back down to have chili and help out.

I’m going to try to stay relaxed and sleep better the night of the race, and to eat better in the morning as well. Easier said than done, but again, I’m not as keyed up for this race as I was for Chippewa Moraine, so maybe adrenaline won’t get the best of me. I have the day off today, so I’m at least getting some extra rest that way.

Oh, and I’m wearing my old shoes. Then throwing them away at the hotel, lest I be tempted to run in them again.

FANS 24 HR Training: Weeks 13 and 14

I’m including all the CM50K training in my FANS training, not selecting an arbitrary week-numbering system.

Week 13
Monday: rest
Tuesday: rest (massage)
Wednesday: 4.5 mi, paved trail (Lakewalk)
Thursday: 6.5 mi, road
Friday: 5.5 mi, trail (Bagley)
Saturday: 8.2 mi, trail (SHT, Twin Ponds toward Haines Rd & back)
Sunday: 10.2 mi, trail (SHT at Jay Cooke toward Wild Valley Rd & back)
Total: 34.9 mi

Week 14
Monday: 5.3 mi, road
Tuesday: 9.6 mi, road
Wednesday: 6.1 mi, paved trail (Lakewalk), 4 miles at tempo effort
Thursday: 6.7 mi, trail (Hartley)
Friday: rest
Saturday: 3.3 mi, road (Be the Match 5K + short warmup)
Sunday: 14.9 mi, trail (SHT @ 123rd Ave W toward Jay Cooke & back)
Total: 46 mi

So, some of this training I’ve already forgotten about. Whoops.

In these last few weeks leading up to FANS, I’m trying to eat better and overall do a better job of taking care of myself. Taking training seriously doesn’t just mean putting in the miles; that’s only a portion of what it takes to have a successful race. I’ve been doing myself a disservice by neglecting the nutrition part of my training. I can’t fix my bad eating habits overnight (well, I can, there’s actually nothing stopping me other than my own willpower and laziness, but it is more likely to stick if I make smaller changes first), but I can take steps to improve my diet overall.

This doesn’t mean I’m going to go crazy with any radical food intake strategies like keto or high fat low carb or Whole 30 or whatever. I won’t be smugly posting about how “clean” I’m eating. I eat food I’ve dropped so I don’t eat clean. I am not the only person eating in my household, and I’m not the only person who prepares food, so I can’t make drastic changes to what I eat without bringing my husband on board, and it’s not my place to dictate the menu on the nights I’m not making food (which used to be every night! I rarely cooked). But now I’m making dinner about twice a week. My plan is to make something Monday and Tuesday night that is relatively healthy and will have leftovers, so I can have some decent lunches. No more pizza lunches 3x a week!

I am not super creative in the kitchen, so I never know what to make. I also don’t have a dishwasher, a lot of counter space, or a lot of fancy appliances, so I can’t make complex things without causing a lot of extra work for myself. I do know someone who is super creative in the kitchen, though: my cousin writes a food blog, The Sea Salt, with lots of delicious recipes, surfing photos, and mostly vegetarian ingredients. (I don’t really care because I like to eat meat, but it’s a nice feature for those who are vegetarian or looking to reduce the amount of meat in their diet.) So I made a recipe of hers last Monday, Falafel Spiced Quinoa Salad with Crispy Chickpeas. It was delicious AND it provided a LOT of leftovers! I might add chicken to it next time I make it.

I’m not a chef and the lighting in my kitchen sucks, but I took a photo anyway.

Besides trying to make some better food choices (which I wasn’t completely successful at – the red velvet Oreos I bought for CM50K but did not eat were NOT going to go to waste), I did do actual running. I took 3 days off after Chippewa Moraine 50K, got a massage the final day off, and then returned to running. I made a concerted effort to start running on challenging trails again, rather than just Lakewalk run upon Lakewalk run (and I’ve got to stop running there shortly, as it’ll be overtaken by tourists in those awful surrey-with-a-fringe-on-top bike things).

I ran the Be the Match 5K on Saturday the 13th. It went ok. I ran 29:43, which is not my best time ever, but was still under 30 minutes. My hope is that I’ll never run a road 5K in over 30 minutes’ time, unless I’m 80 years old, pacing a friend, or… I don’t know, some other extenuating circumstance. I was planning to do a short recap of the race, but decided not to. It wasn’t a goal race, it wasn’t a particularly well-run race, and my recapping plan was spoiled by technical difficulties.

I wanted to experiment with taking real mile splits, so I hit the lap button when I passed each mile marker (well, the first two). According to the auto-lap feature, my splits were 8:59, 9:33, and then 11:11 for the final “1.17” (a 9:34 pace). So that wasn’t the best, but other than the first mile, it’s not super far off, as I ran a 9:35 overall pace via the official results.

My lap button time splits were: 9:40, 7:26, and 12:38 (11:29 pace for 1.1 miles). Uhhhh. I think there was a mistake with the placement of the second mile marker, as best as I can tell. I’ll have to try this experiment again. Overall, this was not a particularly well-run race, thanks to poor training, tired legs, and poor mental attitude. I slept ok and ate ok before the race, for the first time in the history of me running this race, and I still ran my second best 5K time ever, but I was kind of thinking I’d just magically PR. I also didn’t PR in fundraising, although I think we came close to last year’s. We raised just over $1100 officially, but we did have 2 donors who made donations that were accidentally not attributed to our team. I was hoping to raise $2000, but realistically that wasn’t happening. My mom and I are the only ones on our “team” who fundraise, so realistically we’ve already maxed out our donor base.

The weather was decent the past couple of weeks, for the most part. There were even a few days that were actually hot! Relatively speaking. I run so much better when I’m in just a t-shirt and shorts. I’m breaking in a new pair of road shoes at the moment (Mizuno Wave Runners), and trying to decide what shoes to wear at Superior. My shoes from Chippewa are pretty beat up, but it’s looking like this weekend is going to be muddy and gross, so I might wear my old shoes (with ~567 miles on them) and save the new ones (~157 miles) for another day.

I’m kind of ready for this block of races to be over with: I don’t think I’ll plan so many races that require travel in such a short period of time.  Between traveling for hockey, racing, and work, I’ve been away from home more than I’d like. Too much time away from the cats! Next year I’ll have to be much more thoughtful about how I schedule my races.

Post-Mortem: Chippewa Moraine 50K

Refreshers
Race Report
All CM50K posts

Good Things
Training flexibility. I had to train around work trips, hockey, and weather reports, and I didn’t have a treadmill to fall back on when it was colder than the Arctic outside. I also wasn’t following a specific plan, but I still managed to get in long runs, 50 mile weeks, and a bit of quality tempo work. I got out there and ran when I could. I didn’t take too many unscheduled rest days. I dragged my butt outside in layers of clothing and still froze, but got my workouts in. I talked myself back into runs I’d talked myself out of running. I ran the same boring routes when sidewalk and trail conditions limited my options. I got sh*t done.

Preparedness. I made several checklists, and the only thing I didn’t do was purchase a travel-sized spray sunscreen. I brought along a full sized one instead. There wasn’t a single thing I forgot to do, or wished I’d done once I got out on the course. I put everything on these stupid checklists, by the way. I wrote down stuff like “take off rings,” “fill hydration pack,” and “leave race bib in the car.” It takes my mind off the little things to just write them all down.

Bad Things
Nutrition. Being hungry at the start of a race is a bad idea. I made mistakes in how much I ate. But ultimately, it goes further than that. I haven’t done much to address the diet side of my training, and that’s going to have to improve right away. I need to eat better during training as well as eat better pre-race. I think I do an ok job of eating during the race – not fantastic, especially if there are no potato chips, but ok.

Training volume. I did what I had to do. However, I still only averaged about 38 miles/week, and I didn’t do a whole lot of that on trails. More time out on the trails, on tough, hilly routes, and more miles in general (maybe an average of 42 mpw, nothing insane), would have given me a bit more stamina. I can look at all kinds of “reasons” for why my training wasn’t so great (travel, weather, etc.), but the “reasons” don’t magically turn it into a good training cycle, they just show I made the best of what I could get.

Sleep. I got probably 3 hours of sleep before the race, which is an improvement over my pre-race sleep at Wild Duluth. I am not sure how to fix it, but I’m going to keep trying. Maybe I’ll take a hot shower in the evening or something.

Chippewa Moraine 50K Training: Week 12

Race week! Basically a pointless training report.

Monday: 3.7 mi, trail (Lester Park)
Tuesday: rest
Wednesday: rest
Thursday: rest
Friday: rest
Saturday: 31.1 mi, trail (race!)
Sunday: rest
Total: 34.8 mi

I felt sick most of the week. Even my training run at Lester Park went poorly – I had some lower GI cramping that slowed me to a walk a few times — on a super short run! Some sections of the trails at Lester Park were closed, and they were a bit muddy in other places, but I cannot wait to get back there.

I took the rest of the week off because I was terrified of getting sick. The weather was crummy, anyway. I did yoga every day leading up to the race, so that was good. It helped quell some of the fatigue/malaise I was battling the whole week. That “taper flu” is no joke.

This training cycle is going to feed my training cycle for my 24 hour race in June, so I won’t really be taking time off (I will start running on Wednesday, after getting a massage on Tuesday, which I really need!), just making adjustments. There’s lots to dissect, but that’s best left to its own post.