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March 29, 2006

Positive Energy

For the first time in my life as a runner, I was not a tad bit sore after pounding out 22 miles. I usually feel tight the next day, or my quads scream at me, or my plantar fascia is srunched up into a ball. Not this week. When I woke up on Sunday, I was surprised to feel a light bounce in my step and a pain-free left glute. The pain free glute was a huge milestone. I don't know how long it will last, but I will gladly enjoy the ride while it does!

I ran easy Sunday and Monday - just 6 miles a pop. I took yesterday off, and I am prepping for a nice 10 mile fartlek run this afternoon. I have stuck to my plan like super glue of taking at least 1 day of complete rest each week. When I ran my fastest marathon, I religiously and consistently ran 6 days/week with one day of complete rest . . . I would like to think that one day I can run in the 70s and 80s, but my body responds well to lower mileage. Actually, this training cycle marks the most milegage I have ever run/week - usually around the mid 50s and twice in the low 60s.

If all goes well, I should hit 54 miles this week, and then I imagine that I begin to taper next week. This morning I weight trained for an hour and I am curious to see if that makes a difference in Boston - hopefully my legs are strong enough now to handle the hills, and when they pass out from exhaustion, my upper body will take over ;-) That's the hope anyway.

Aside from running, Spring Break is officially over and I am staring two 15-20 page papers in the face. Hmmmmm - I had a week to get a ton of research and writing done, but I completely avoided all things academic :0 I started building a website, reading bad magazines, surfing the net, taking long walks, and running a lot instead. It was heavenly! Of course, now reality has hit me and I have a fairly severe case of metaphorical whip lash. Ahh, the work never ends.

I have to go and teach now, and then I have to focus on finishing Faulkner's Absalom, Absalom and write a paper about it. Fun stuff.

Happy Running!

Posted by bridget at 10:48 AM | Comments (1)

March 25, 2006

22! (sans PR this time)

Before I launch into a recap of my run, I want to give a shout out to Corrado (a loyal reader of the eliterunning blogs) and wish him the best of luck in the Rome Marathon today! I am eager to hear the results =)

When my alarm clock screamed at 5:30 this morning, my initial reaction was to turn it off, bury myself underneath my covers, and go back to sleep. But B. was wide awake, Ajax (our dog) was anxiously wagging his tail in anticipation of breakfast, and the CNN news anchors looked hyper-caffeinated. So I got up, chugged some caffeine myself and rolled out the door at 6:05 to pick up my friend, Corvette, and we hit the lakefront to meet up with a group of Boston Bound Chicagoans.

I have never run with this group before, but I immediately felt welcomed and found a group of about 4-5 people to hash this run out. The workout that they were doing was six 3.7 mile loops. Loops 1-2 were easy, 3-5 were supposed to echo marathon pace, and the final loop was a cool down.

On the first two loops, I felt sharp pains shooting across my left glute. I was a little concerned, but I guessed that once we picked up the pace a little, my stride would normalize and my glute would loosen up. Fortunately, that's exactly what happened. The first two loops were almost painfully slow, but on the third loop, we hiked up the pace to a more comfortable 7:25 (I think we were doing 8:00 minute pace before). I was surprised at how comfortable and easy this pace felt . . .especially since I have been feeling a little fatigued lately,

We ran the 4th loop totally schizophrenically. J. bolted into the wind like an untamed animal and killed us for 2 miles! We ended up running the final 1.7 a little bit slower than I would have liked, but we picked up the pace again the last quarter for an average of 7:13. I was still feeling great at this point, and the pace was still comfortable.

On the fifth loop, another woman and I decided to lead the men and run a more steady effort. It paid off. The group averaged 7:03 pace and I was a little faster with a sub 7 pace (probably around 6:55). This loop felt more challenging and the effort was definitely more uncomfortable, but not so uncomfortable that I felt like stopping. I was actually stunned at how good I felt and at how my body took over and floated into cruise control.

We ran the final loop as a cool down at 8:05 pace. Overall, a good effort and another confidence boosting long run before Boston.

B. (my husband) just landed in Jackson Hole for a quick weekend of snowboarding! I already miss him - we celebrated our 5 month wedding anniversary on March 22nd. I bought him a dozen roses and chocolates and a cute little curious George monkey.

So far I have managed to continue ignoring my studies. I went for a walk with Ajax and we stopped off at the dog park to play; I am impressed at his newly acquired retrieving skills (as opposed to keep away). He is such a well behaved dog, and I love the fact that even when he is off leash, he follows me every step of the way. He is my best companion - he is currently curled up next to me as I write this.

I really need to study!

Posted by bridget at 04:22 PM | Comments (6)

March 24, 2006

Good Advice for Every Runner

I have been stewing in nervousness the past couple of days. I am on Spring Break (well, not really - the work never ceases), and all I have done is think about the marathon. I dream about the marathon too. Last night my dog woke me up at 2AM - I was at mile 24 of the Boston Marathon. I wish I could tell you how I finished, but I never made it back into the race once I fell asleep again.

I found out my bib # and that has made this entire experience suddenly very real. I emailed Tom from GBTC and he sent back the following words of wisdom:

Present yourself to the starting line as fit as possible, then stop thinking and run.

Go ahead and go out fast. It is wicked downhill so go as fast as you'd like. Then slow down a lot on the first uphill. Thereafter yield to all the uphills. Let it roll on all the downhills.

Read the 1990 chapter. Bordin won because he did not race the crazy guys up every dinky hill.

Steady effort is important not steady pace.

Do not constantly use your watch to get even splits.

Do not have a time goal except as a lie to shut up people who ask you such a stupid question.

You are going to get what your fitness and the day give you.

It is what it is and you can neither succeed nor fail.

Once the training is done;

just go along for the ride.

I don't think I could say it any better than Tom has already said it . . . I am going to read his email everyday for the next three weeks!

On the running front, things are going well. I did 12 miles yesterday with 3x2.5 @ 6:40-6:53 pace. I was dead on 6:53 pace for the first two sets and finally cruised to 6:35-6:45 on the last set. I felt a little more fatigued than usual, but I think that is to be expected. I have never been a high mileage runner - mid 50s - 60s is pretty high for me. It will be interesting to see if this consistency pays off =) I sure hope it does.

I ran easy this morning, and I am going to the gym in an hour to do some strength work. I have been doing strength work the past few weeks, twice a week, an hour each time. I can already feel the difference in my upper body strength and core stability. My glute is getting stronger too. It's about 85% right now.

I am planning to run 22 miles on Saturday, but I am going to move at a much more relaxed pace for most of the run than I did last week!

Happy Running =)

Posted by bridget at 12:14 PM | Comments (6)

March 21, 2006

20 Mile PR

Since I am now running Boston, I decided it was time to run a 20 miler. I have a sneaking suspicion that I will toss in another one this weekend - and if I am feeling particularly good and ambitious, I will run 22-23 this weekend. I met up with a Chicago group at Universal Sole for a 20 mile supported long run on Sunday. I have done this run for the past 3 years, and I ran the course 20 minutes faster this year than I did last year. That doesn't say much, really, since last year I was completely out of shape at this time and I think my longest run had been 6 miles. I cannot pass up the opportunity to run long with people, though! Maybe I'm slightly crazy.

So this weekend I ran with my friend Jessica and her father. Jessica is my age (26) and her father is in his 50s - he is still cranking out 3 hour marathons, and this fall he plans to run sub 3 in Detroit. We started off at a pretty good clip and I was a little worried that I was going to get dropped, but as the run progressed, my body woke up and I felt surprisingly good. I hung with them until mile 18.5. They kicked it up a notch to about 6:30 pace. I knew I wasn't ready for that - especially since this marks my first 20 miler of the year - but I kept an even pace and ended up running 2:22:00 for the course. That works out to 7:06 pace. I was actually shocked by this and even google mapped the route to make sure it wasn't short! I don't know what this means for Boston since I didn't have to worry about one hill, but I think it's a positive sign that I am in better shape than I think I am.

Of course, I am playing it extremely cautious right now as well. I have signed up for two Bostons and I never made it to the start. With 4 weeks to go, I do not want to do anything stupid (no running PRs on 6 mile training runs this time!). I cross trained yesterday and I felt fantastic . . . I am going to run for 60 minutes tonight and then do a workout tomorrow :) I might even do my workout tomorrow on a treadmill so that I can throw in some hills.

On a completely side note, I have to tell a story that I think is funny. It may or may not be funny to other people. My father came into the city yesterday and we went to the DePaul women's basketball game at All State Arena. He has coached at the same university for 30 years - I think he enjoyed being a spectator last night! DePaul won the game with a last minute surge . . . it was awesome. Anyway, the second half of the game, my dad and I met with four of his "old timer" friends. All of these guys are in their mid 60s, and my dad played baseball in the old-timer's league with them through his 40s. He even played little league and high school with some of them. As we were leaving the game, I noticed the four men limping down the stairs. Then Benny turns to my dad and says, "Hey, we should all go get our knees replaced at the same time and ask for a volume discount!" The volume discount line totally cracked me up.

Posted by bridget at 10:24 AM | Comments (2)

March 19, 2006

Coming Out

I wasn't too sure if or when I was going to officially "come out" about this on my blog. So I'll cut right to the chase and say it: I am running the Boston Marathon.

Now I'll explain how this came about . . . I have only known this seemingly important detail for the past 2 weeks. I have written about Margaret Bradley before on my blog (I should link to it, but I will try to copy and paste some of it for my next entry). Margaret ran for the Greater Boston Track Club (GBTC) and Chicago's Universal Sole. I also ran for GBTC, and when Margaret moved to Chicago, Tom Derderian - the GBTC head coach - made sure that the two of us connected. It was one of the best connections made in my life. Margaret was a medical student at the University of Chicago and she was also a sub 3 hour marathon with (realistic) dreams of qualifying for the Marathon Olympic Trials. I knew she had a sub 2:46 somewhere in her rather awkward gait :)

The last time Margaret and I spent a lot of time training together was for the 2004 Boston Marathon. Margaret managed to run 3:04 on one of the hottest days recorded in Boston Marathon history and I never made it to the starting line . . . I was sidelined by an injury about 6 weeks prior to the race. That summer, Margaret decided to road trip to Arizona . . . she never came home. She died while hiking in the Grand Canyon, and her death is a loss that many of us (her family, friends and teammates) have never - and will never - understand. To say that I miss Margaret is more than an understatement . . . I would give anything to have one more run with her.

But since I cannot have that run, I can at least run for her . . . in her memory. After her death, Universal Sole and GBTC came together and formed the Margaret Bradley Award. Each year, GBTC sends a runner to Chicago (a female, competitive runner) and Universal Sole sends a runner to Boston. In spite of the short notice, when the owner of Universal Sole asked me if I would like to receive this award and run my heart out for Margaret, I could not refuse.

Boston will not be about PRs or time goals for me. It will be about Margaret and her legacy and her infectious energy. I am not prepared to run sub 3 or even 3:10 right now, but - for once - that is okay with me. All I can do is go out there and remember all of the reasons why I fell in love with this sport in the first place.

I will run my first and only 20 mile run in preparation for this race in about 7 hours (which means I really need to go to bed).

Posted by bridget at 12:33 AM | Comments (8)