slow running

Eugene Curnow Trail Marathon Training: Week 8

Technically I guess this is now Moose Mountain Marathon training.

Monday: 5 mi, treadmill, 145 bpm
Tuesday: rest
Wednesday: 5.3 mi, paved trail (Lakewalk starting @ East HS), 137 bpm
Thursday: 4.3 mi, paved trail (Lakewalk starting @ Brighton Beach), 134 bpm
Friday: rest
Saturday: 10 mi, trail (SHT starting at Lismore Rd), no HRM
Sunday: 13.1 mi, paved trail (Munger Trail starting at Munger Inn), 146 bpm
Total: 37.9 mi

Not much to say. Most of the week consisted of maintenance runs, assuming I’d be racing on Saturday. Then I ran two rather punishing runs over the weekend in self-flagellation.

I’ll just wallow in self pity a little bit longer and then maybe start enjoying running again.

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.

Eugene Curnow Trail Marathon Goals

24 hours from now, I’ll be departing at the Lake Superior Zoo, hopefully at a decent pace and hopefully not needing to pee already.

A couple weeks ago, I was wearing headphones on a run, one of the rare times I do, and this song came on and it is now my mantra for the race.

I will not go down under the ground
“Cause somebody tells me that death’s comin’ ’round
An’ I will not carry myself down to die
When I go to my grave my head will be high,
Let me die in my footsteps
Before I go down under the ground.

I’m not going to give up. I’m going to battle through anything this race throws at me, whether it’s heat or rain or mud or who knows? I’m prepared, or as prepared as I can be. I’m going to be a marathoner by tomorrow afternoon.

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

I don’t usually have a back-up back-up before the race begins, but there are so many unknowns that I figured I’d better have more options for success. I made a “laminated” (covered in clear tape) chart noting what time I’d need to arrive at each aid station in order to be on pace for each of these goals. This will eliminate any need to compensate for GPS error, and will allow me to know my situation even if my GPS watch dies.

All of these goal times are at paces slower than even my Superior 25K race, which was somewhat of a disaster. UltraSignup suggests I should target a finish time of 8:53:16, which is very precise. I’d take that, for sure.

I’ve still got a laundry list of things left to do, although the list is long because I have gotten very detailed. I have things like “fill hydration pack” on the list. I also have writing this post on my list. Check. So, I don’t have a lot of big stuff to do, just a billion little things that will take a few seconds apiece. I bought a lot of gels and put my precious vanilla Coke in the fridge. I’m ready.

The usual non-pace-related goals apply: I don’t want to puke, become incontinent, pass out, or otherwise have a medical emergency. I don’t want to get struck by lightning in the event of a storm. I don’t want to get poison ivy when I have to step off the trail to pee. I don’t want to get swept or pulled off the course for weather-related issues. (I don’t know if this race actually sweeps, they give no cut-off times.) I need get in a couple warm up miles, especially since I’ve been sluggish the past couple days. I will start at the back of the pack as I always do, and run my own race.

Let me drink from the waters where the mountain streams flood
Let me smell of wildflowers flow free through my blood
Let me sleep in your meadows with the green grassy leaves
Let me walk down the highway with my brother in peace.
Let me die in my footsteps
Before I go down under the ground.

Eugene Curnow Trail Marathon Training: Week 7

I’m deep in the throes of race anxiety at the moment.

Monday: 5.2 mi, road, 132 bpm
Tuesday: rest
Wednesday: 5.5 mi, trail (Hartley hodgepodge), 146 bpm
Thursday: rest
Friday: 7 mi, treadmill (tempo run), 145 bpm
Saturday: 9 mi, trail (SHT, Magney Snively trailhead to Becks Road & back), 147 bpm
Sunday: 4.8 mi, trail (Bagley, though I think the GPS is off/too high on mileage), 142 bpm
Total: 31.6 mi

I actually didn’t intend to cut down the mileage quite so far. I thought I’d do about 35 miles, but 3-4 of my runs last week were shorter than I’d intended. It doesn’t really matter. My run on Saturday was good, I was able to run under 20 min/mile over some fairly tough terrain, also including a stop to take a selfie on top of Ely’s Peak. Here is a huge photo of me.

The rest of the week was basically boring.

Like I said, I am extremely anxious about Saturday’s race. It doesn’t look like it will be too hot, so that is good. Now my 2 biggest concerns are 1. mud/trail conditions and 2. getting pulled off the course due to a storm. I guess I just need to be faster and finish before any potential thunderstorms develop. Hahahahahahahahaha. It rained a lot on Monday so the trail conditions and water crossings could be… interesting.

My biggest irrational concern is getting lost, which I’ve addressed. Everything else should be ok. I know I can finish. I know I’m probably going to perform better than I am expecting, but I am keeping my expectations low and manageable. I have another marathon 8 weeks after this one, so I can’t go buck wild.

There’s not much left for me to do, besides avoid injury, get adequate sleep, and complete a page-long, evolving to-do list. “3 more sleeps” until the race, as they say. Never mind that my resting heart rate is on the way up, my feet are sorta grossly calloused, and I am over-analyzing and second-guessing just about every decision I’ve made regarding this race. Especially signing up. WTF was I thinking?

It’ll be fun. Or a learning experience. Or both.

A Short List of Things I Suck At

I suppose I could be positive and grammatically correct and call this “A short list of things upon which I wish to improve,” but I don’t really care to. The list of running-related things that I suck at is long, so this is of course an abridged version. I’m going to give it its own tag since I suspect I’ll be revealing more suckage in the future.

I went for a run at Hartley yesterday that was fairly disappointing, both in length (Hartley is undergoing some kind of logging operation and many of the trails are closed, so I had to improvise. I am going to have to trust that it’s a good thing, as I’m not a forester, though I am the granddaughter of one) and in overall performance. I’m coming off a rest day so I thought it would go well and it didn’t.

Here are some things I suck at, relevant to yesterday’s run.

  1. Running fast (for me, not objectively fast) on trails.
    Once again, I found myself looking at my watch and noticing I’m going at a 20+ minute pace. It’s really annoying. Why am I so bad at gauging my pace? And why is my pace so damned lazy? I did manage to focus on pace successfully yesterday, and after running the first 2 miles in 18-something, I ran the last 3.5 in 16-something. Again, fast is relative, but that is more like the pace I want to be running on trails. It might be too little, too late for Curnow, but it’s a start.
  2. Picking up my feet
    I am always tripping over things that I see. I don’t really know why. It’s annoying. I need to quit shuffling. Especially when I’m like 2 miles in. There’s just no reason.
  3. Keeping my head up
    I watch enough hockey to know that keeping one’s head up is a key part of any sport, but I find myself staring at the ground in front of me instead of focusing on good posture and scanning the ground a few feet ahead of me for hazards. How can I stare at the ground in front of me and suck at picking up my feet? It is the mystery of the dance.

That’s enough for now, I was only running for an hour and a half so I didn’t have time to make any more mistakes.

Eugene Curnow Trail Marathon Training: Week 6

A lesson in what happens when I don’t take a cutback week in time.

Monday: rest
Tuesday: 5.7 mi, road, 138 bpm
Wednesday: rest
Thursday: 9.4 mi, road, 135 bpm
Friday: 7.1 mi, paved trail (Lakewalk starting @ Brighton Beach), 142 bpm
Saturday: 14.1 mi, trail (SHT starting at Highland/Getchell), 149 bpm
Sunday: 4.6 mi, road, 133 bpm
Total: 40.8 mi

Wow, I just did not care about running this past week. Both Monday and Wednesday, I took a rest day just because I couldn’t bring myself to run. I simply didn’t care. I hated myself for signing up for the race, I doubted my ability to finish it, and I just wanted to sit around and do nothing. I’m tired and my runs all feel like sleepwalks. I don’t think I had a run all week that I enjoyed.

Well, no, that’s not entirely true. I did enjoy Saturday’s run. I enjoyed having a long run that wasn’t six hours long. I learned a few things on that run, too:

  1. Long runs are much easier when not begun during the heat of the day. I have been starting my long runs at, like, 1:00. That means I’m starting out in the heat, and by the time it cools off, I’m already sapped from the heat. I am doing it on purpose, to try to acclimate, so this isn’t a total surprise. But I started my long run this past week at about 3:45 pm. I had a lot more energy and I was able to run the second half a minute faster than the first half, including a potty break during the second half. This gave me a bit of confidence for the race. It starts at 6 a.m., so I will be covering a lot of ground before the sun gets too high. Of course, some people will be finishing before that point, but I will at least have a few hours of better weather to make some progress. I’ve been torturing myself with these warm long runs without putting them in context with the bigger picture, and I finally took a step back and pieced it all together. It’s good to remember the purpose of tough workouts, and if there isn’t one, I’d better find one or find a new workout.
  2. I can run faster than I do. Ok, these are training runs, so the point isn’t to go fast, especially on long runs. But I am definitely holding back. I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or not. I mean, yes, conventional wisdom is not to race one’s training, but am I going too easy? I realize that I am not practicing running faster on trails enough. I’m always afraid I’ll blow up, get sick from the heat, get hurt, fall, etc. And then of course there are the times I think I’m moving at a decent clip, look down at my watch, and see I’m running at a 21:xx pace. Why do I have such a bad sense of pace? Or is my watch just that unreliable? I don’t know. However, in pushing the pace to try to have even “splits” for the run, I ran the final mile, which was entirely uphill, faster than I ran the first mile, which was of course entirely downhill (since I did an out and back). I’m capable of more than I think.

Those are some good lessons, ones that I needed to learn as I struggle with my confidence. I’m less than 2 weeks out from race day, ready to start cutting back (I’ll be doing 2 rest days this week and next, and my “long run” this coming weekend will not require a hydration pack), and ready to do some much-needed mental work.

My biggest fear is the weather, that it will be 90 degrees the day of the race and in the days leading up to it (I don’t have air conditioning so 90 degree days = sleepless nights because my house takes so long to cool off) and I will suffer and get sick. I can’t control the weather, so I need to focus on my cooling strategies.

My other fear is not knowing the course. I don’t really feel like the maps and written course descriptions are very detailed or clear (I’m not sure how far “a bit” is), and since the course doesn’t follow a specific trail like the SHT, it worries me. I worry about getting off course. I shouldn’t worry; this isn’t a new race, not their first rodeo, etc. I’m more concerned about my own abilities to spot course markers and make good decisions. This concern is minor relative to my worry about the weather; I’ve already run two races without knowing the courses at all, and have not had issues. If I knew without a doubt it was going to be 75 and cloudy but not rainy for the entire race, I would be confident about my ability to finish strong.

I have a tiny fear of being swept, but there isn’t an advertised hard cut-off at any of the aid stations, and I do see some official finishes that are over 10 hours, but who knows if I just haven’t read the right part of the website and there really is a cut-off, or if those last finishers had to run without aid stations, or something. I’m not super concerned about this, but it does creep into my mind occasionally.

Now here I’ve gone and worked myself into a small frenzy over a simple weekly training log post. Good thinking!

Eugene Curnow Trail Marathon Training: Week 5

Still tired. Guess I didn’t really cut back on volume, either.

Monday: 8.5 mi, road, 135 bpm
Tuesday: 6 mi, trail (Bagley), 141 bpm
Wednesday: 5.5, treadmill (intervals), 149 bpm
Thursday: rest
Friday: 4.1 mi, paved trail (1 mi warm up, 5K race), 136 bpm/183 bpm (technically on Saturday)
Saturday: 6.5, road, 135 bpm
Sunday: 16.3, trail (SHT starting @ Twin Ponds), 149 bpm
Total: 47 mi

Nope, 47 miles is not a cutback when I’ve been averaging less than that over this training cycle. Whoops.

I’m feeling very uncertain and nervous about this race. I have no doubt I can cover the distance. I’m just very worried about the heat. For my long run, I started at about 1:30 and it was maybe 80 degrees, not sure. I had a steep climb in the first couple miles that took a lot out of me. It was a very difficult run overall, and I struggled to keep cool. I actually stopped and sat for… probably 2 minutes. I never do that. Well ok I stopped and crouched down several times during the Superior 25K. But full-on sitting? Never. I rested until my heart rate dropped into the 130s.

A few times I ended up with too full a stomach from the water I was drinking. I’d still be thirsty but have to deny myself water in order to keep from getting sloshy. I do know I was underfueled, since I had 4 gels and a bottle of sports drink, but didn’t eat anything else. So yes, I made some mistakes. And yes, I know during a race I’ll have access to aid stations where I can get cold water, tasty food, ice, etc., all things that would have made a difference during the long run. The race also starts at 6 AM, so I won’t be out in the heat and full blast sun for the beginning. It’ll still most likely be hot at the end, but I won’t start out hot. Maybe I should try getting up early for my long run sometime. Ha ha ha.

All of this solidifies that even if I complete a qualifying race, I won’t be throwing my hat into the ring for Western States, which I followed over the weekend. A very strange race (on the men’s side) this year!