slow running

Gobble Gallop Goals

The Gobble Gallop is tomorrow, so I guess I have some goals.

The course is really easy. It starts and ends and Duluth Running Co. and goes down Superior Street and back. It’s easier than the course for the Fitger’s 5K, which goes over I-35 and therefore has two large (for a 5K) hills. Of course I don’t mind a hill or two but this should be a faster course.

I’m not really sure about my speed right now but I’m just going to throw it out there, why can’t I shave another minute off my current personal best (34:21)? Okay, more like a minute and a third.

A Standard: 33:00
B Standard: 34:00

Why not? My treadmill repeats are faster than those paces. I’m stronger and I’m (slightly) leaner than I was back in June when I ran the 34:21. 33 minutes is a 10:37 pace and 34 minutes is a 10:57 pace. Obviously I have to run a little bit faster than those paces per my watch in order to ensure I come in at my goal times, just in case my watch is a little generous with the distance. I just need to be careful I’m not throwing down a 9 minute pace right out of the gate.

I’m fairly certain I’m physically capable of hitting my A Standard. I just don’t know if I’m mentally capable. I am more cautious than most runners, I think, or if not cautious, just unaware of how much harder I can push under certain circumstances. When I ran the Be the Match 5K, I let my cousin run ahead of me at the end because I felt like I couldn’t run any harder. She finished maybe 30 seconds ahead of me, I seriously could have hung on for that, but I let myself fall back.

It should be a fun race no matter what, although I’ll be a bit lonely since I don’t know anyone running. As long as it’s not raining and it’s not icy, I can handle it!

Building Character

That’s what I told myself while I was suffering through another boring treadmill run yesterday. It’s just making you mentally stronger, I reminded myself each time I wanted to quit. Man, I really hate the treadmill. Of course that kind of defeatist attitude didn’t help. Nor did the poor play of the Minnesota Wild.

Four days in a row on the treadmill is really taking its toll. It’s way harder on my body than trail or road running. I also think I have terrible posture on the treadmill, but I’m in my basement, not in a gym, so there isn’t a mirror to check. My lower back is stiff and my hips are kind of sore.

I wasn’t planning on four treadmill days in a row, of course. It rained Monday through Wednesday, but yesterday it was snowing so I figured I could get outside. When I was walking to my car at 5 (which is now well after sunset around here), it was slippery enough that I changed my mind. I don’t have a headlamp yet, and the streets around here are really dark, so I didn’t feel safe.

I’m taking today off from running as a result of these aches and pains, although I will probably do some strength training and a little yoga (which I’ve completely given up on since I don’t have abundant free time like I did this summer), so it won’t be a true rest day.

After today, I’ve got to get back outside. I have six days until my Gobble Gallop 5K, and I can’t be going into it with back and hip soreness. I plan on hitting some trails in the city limits this weekend (to stay safe from the deer hunters) and then I’m not sure, maybe the Lakewalk on Monday and Tuesday. I still have high hopes for a PR in this race, despite no actual proof that a PR is possible. Still, why not be wildly optimistic?

How I Get Back on My Feet After a Bout of Laziness

I feel very virtuous right now because I’m back in the habit of running again! And by that I mean I ran a whole two days in a row. On the treadmill both times, due to the dismal weather we’ve been having lately. This is my punishment for laziness over the weekend, when it was nice out both days.

The longer the layoff from running, the harder it seems for me to get back in the habit again. What’s one more day when I’ve already skipped five?

Here are a few ways I’ve successfully overcome this completely ridiculous, purely imagined obstacle.

  1. Start small
    Don’t expect to make up a whole week’s volume in one day. I’ve run as few as two miles at times, just to get back in the habit, if that’s all I can fit in. If you’re tired or you’re busy, it’s easy to let another day slip away, but that’ll just make things harder the next day. (If you’re really, truly tired, then take another day.)
  2. Start big
    This is the exact opposite of what I just said. I don’t know if it’s a smart idea, but I have been known to go out and run 12 miles on a Sunday after not running all week. I had the time, and it felt great to at least get to double-digits in mileage for the week.
  3. Don’t sit down
    Monday I came home, fed my cats, and immediately got into my workout clothes and got my butt downstairs to the treadmill. I didn’t sit down and turn on the TV, or check 8 different websites, or even get a little homework done. When I do that, I waste time and have to shorten my workout to get done before dinner. Or  I don’t do it at all.
  4. Incentivize the workout
    Don’t run the same boring route. Pick a new route, or pick your favorite route. Pick the easiest route, or the toughest route, depending on what will make you feel better at the end. I did repeats on the treadmill to mix it up. In better weather, I pick a great trail or a road route that has some great views. Of course, I live in a beautiful city on a great lake, so that’s easy for me to say. Bring music, promise yourself candy at the end of the run, whatever gives you a sufficient kick in the butt.
  5. Ignore the scale
    (Just bypass this if you’re one of those people who thinks running for any other reason besides the love of the sport somehow cheapens and denigrates it. Just bypass this whole blog, in fact.) This advice is kind of dependent on how long the layoff is. At some point, if I haven’t run in awhile and haven’t been eating well either, I do have to face the music. But I don’t see a point to doing a weekly weigh-in when I haven’t run in 5 days. It’s only going to further discourage me if I’ve gained a pound or so. I’ll just wait til the following week, when I’ve already gotten back on my feet. This applies to people in maintenance mode, too. If you don’t normally weigh in, don’t assess the “damage” of your time off. I don’t really know if people do that, as I’m not in a position to be so laissez-faire with my weight.

Those are just a few ideas that have worked for me that I thought I’d pass along. I’m sure I’ll need motivation again someday soon (like when it’s -20 F, the streets are covered in ice, the sidewalks are unplowed, and I’m facing another treadmill slog), so send any other tips my way.

Energy Drain

I haven’t run since Monday, which is not that great. It’s not terrible, the world isn’t ending. I’ve been really tired and low on physical and mental energy. My week went like this:

Monday: run
Tuesday: felt sick most of the day
Wednesday: SO tired
Thursday: extremely long day
Friday: cold-like symptoms
Saturday: lazy

I have new shoes (same as the old shoes, they were on super sale again), I just got a new charging cable for my watch so I can use it again finally, and the weather looks decent for the next few days. It’s still deer season so I’m not able to get out on any of the real trails safely, and during the week there’s just no time to get out on the trails. I’m not running in the dark on the trails just yet. The streets around here are dark enough.

I want to start planning my races for next year but my future is uncertain. I graduate next month and haven’t found a job yet, so I don’t know where I’ll be living. I don’t want to sign up for races I won’t be anywhere near, or won’t be able to attend due to an unpredictable work schedule (that does happen in engineering, it’s not all 40 hrs/week office work). But I also want races to look forward to and plan for! Yes, I have this 5K on Thanksgiving, but it’s not a goal race, more of a way to gauge if I’ve improved.

I need a nice long run tomorrow to get back on track, and then some easy medium length runs and some speed work to get my legs in shape for the Gobble Gallop. Turn the page, right?

Break on Through

Being a slow runner is really annoying. It feels really frustrating to still be slow, even after making progress. Like when I dropped almost 3 minutes from my 5K time in a little over 2 months, that was progress. But I was still running well into the double digits for my pace, and I still will be at the end of the month when I run my next race.

But I have noticed things, little breakthroughs, that have improved over time.

Hills aren’t so hard. The same hills that I used to huff and puff and struggle my way up, or partially walk up, are hills I can manage a lot better now. I’m not gliding effortlessly up them, of course, but I’m not walking them or gasping at the top. This only applies to hills on the road routes I run, currently. I haven’t been on the trails at all.

My lazy pace is faster. I was running yesterday and was completely zoned out for long stretches of time, and still finished at around a 15 minute pace (a little over including stops, a little under if they weren’t included.) My zone out pace used to be more like 16 min miles.

My average times on repeated routes are decreasing. Because I wasn’t doing a lot of road running for awhile, I wasn’t running the same routes. It’s hard to compare one run to another when there are so many variables in terrain (on trails) and in topography (for trails and road) between routes, especially in a hilly city. But I’ve seen my averages on the same routes go consistently down from where they were a couple months ago.

Short runs feel short now. I used to think four miles was a commitment and five miles was a long run and had to be saved for the weekend. Now I can do a 7 mile run on a weekday, not because I’m significantly faster, but because I have a different mindset and I have more patience.

I’m still worrying about cutoffs when considering races for next year, and still wondering if I’ll ever break 30 minutes for a 5K, but at least I’ve got a couple of imperfect metrics to remind me of my progress over the past 10 months.

Life in the Fast Lane

Now that I’m done with my half marathon, and done with the recovery period (that wasn’t very long, it only took 3-4 days to feel normal again), I’m going to try another 5K. I’m doing the Gobble Gallop on Thanksgiving, which I think will be my last race of the year. There’s another 5K the following weekend, but I don’t want to do two 5Ks in two weekends, I don’t see the point. I guess if I have a really crappy race or get sick or something I can sign up for the other one at the last minute.

I haven’t run a speedy race since July, when I ran the Park Point 5 Miler and sucked. I wish there was another 5 mile option, or maybe a 10K, where I could get redemption, but there’s nothing around here and I’m not in a position where I can travel for races. Too much school stuff going on, too many car issues, too much laziness.

I don’t plan on following any specific training plan, since the race is one month from today exactly. I’ll just do one speed workout a week and play the rest by ear. Last week I ran about 23 miles, including a run on the Lakewalk, 6×800 on the treadmill, and two medium-length trail runs (Jay Cooke on Saturday, Hawk Ridge Spur Trail Sunday). My goal is to start building a base of 30 miles per week over the winter, before I start training for my spring goal races, which are to be determined. Tentatively it looks like I’ll be doing longer spring trail races, shorter summer road races, and longer fall trail races, but which races I do depends on where I get a job upon graduation in December.

I am not going to lie: I have unrealistic expectations for improvement in this 5K. I mean, I don’t expect to run 29:59 or anything like that. My personal best is a 34:21, and if I don’t beat that in a big way, I’m going to be disappointed. This is based on no data or anything concrete, so I could be way off on my current abilities. I don’t really care. I haven’t invested a huge training cycle into this race, so if I don’t meet my somewhat unreasonable expectations, it won’t be a massive letdown like the Park Point 5 Miler was. Or so I tell myself.

Post-Mortem: Harder ‘N Hell Half Marathon

Now that the race is over and I’ve had some time to think, I have thoughts about what worked and didn’t work about the training cycle. Overall, a lot of things worked, since the race went well for me.

Refreshers
Race Report
All Harder ‘N Hell Half posts

Good Things
Hill work. I really think running up and down the hills at Chester Bowl was helpful. My legs felt extremely strong and I felt confident going up hills. Running hilly trails helped, too.

Running the entire course at once in training. I don’t need to do this every time, but since I’d never raced a half marathon, I wanted to make sure I was capable of it. It really boosted my confidence, especially since I’d been sick only a week or so before I did it.

Running by feel for most training runs. Since my GPS watch hasn’t been working very well, I used my phone to track my runs and just tucked it away somewhere. That means I had no idea what pace I’m running until I finished the workout. This helped keep me from “racing my training” or getting hung up on the pace, so my runs were more relaxed. I ended up kind of running by feel during the race, too, thanks to not starting my watch on time.

Running my own race. Yes, I noted when I passed people. But I didn’t make any special effort to get by anyone, nor did I worry if anyone passed me. I got passed at the end and didn’t really care. I got passed by a million people at the beginning and didn’t care.

Bad Things
Testing out only one source of food. Because when that food made me want to barf I thought I was in big trouble. It ended up being fine as I just ate at the wrong time in the race, but I should have had some other options for refueling.

Obsessively running the course. I ran the first few miles of the course way, way, way too often. I was obsessed with those stupid stairs, and they were a non-factor. I took them more slowly during the race than I had the last time I ran them, because guess what, other people took them slowly! It’s like I was surprised I wasn’t the only slow person in a race packed with elites. Test-running the whole course was good, but running it too often made me a little bit sick of it. One shouldn’t be sick of trails, they’re too freaking gorgeous.

Not warming up. I was too worried about other things and didn’t take the time to even run a half a mile to get some kinks out. The slow beginning helped me warm up, but there was plenty of time for at least some strides.

Abandoning strength training. I can’t believe my back didn’t hurt during the race! I was doing so well with yoga, but of course I had a lot more time during the summer. There was no reason I couldn’t have done push-ups on a daily or near-daily basis, at the very least.

There are other things, of course, if I want to nitpick every last detail, but these are the first few things that popped into my head. I worked hard in training; I was lucky not to be injured or sick (too often) and to have great race day weather; and there are things I can work on for next time. I didn’t come away from this race thinking “I’ll never do THAT again,” and I smiled almost the whole race. I’ll call this race a victory.