Change of Pace

There's a 5K here that's sponsored by a local bar every year and since this is my last year here in New York, I figured I better not miss the chance to run it one more time. It's a pretty hilly out and back course with a hairpin turn at the halfway point, but I didn't plan on really racing it anyway. I'd just done a 20+ miler the day before and I ran the almost four miles to the start in a stiff headwind, so really, the three chilly miles were just sort of logistic technicality to get to the real point of the event...the free Guinness, hot breakfast spread and Irish band that the bar provides for runners afterwards. The live music all along the course is great too, but it's not like you can really stop to enjoy it.

I've got to wonder a bit about the mile marker placement, since my splits came out really weird. The first one went by in 6:49, but felt like a much harder effort. I can easily blame that on having dead legs from the day before, but the second mile seemed much easier and that went by in 6:47. Then things got really strange because I did the last mile supposedly in 6:06. There was a downhill in there, but I'm pretty sure there was an uphill too. Then my last .1 of the race calculates out to 6:40 pace, so that would mean that I'd just done close to a 6-minute mile and then slowed up abruptly just as the finish was in sight? Not likely.

The good thing though is that I could care less. It was fun, I got to hang out with friends, I got a buzz going by 10 am and most importantly, I made it to another rest week.

As for the marathon, I'm currently leaning towards Kentucky Derby. I've got roots there, I love horses, it's easy for both me and my honey to get to and even if it's warmer than I'd like, everyone out there has to compete under those exact same conditions. There are no guarantees when it comes to weather and it's not beyond the realm that it could be 80 degrees in Boston and 55 a week later in Louisville.

7 weird things about myself.

Joe Positive tagged me and for the life of me I can't think of a single odd or extraordinary thing about myself. I've actually always wanted to have some secret talent that people would be shocked about if they were to find out, but for the moment, I haven't got any.

There was a girl in college who worked in the library and was sort of mousy and proper and I thought it was the coolest thing when I found out that she was a nationally ranked target pistol shooter. And the woman who used to be the unit manager when I worked at evening news was in an all-female accordion band...that was a fun little secret life to find out about too.

For a while, I thought the running could be like that for me. I don't think I necessarily come across as being particularly sporty in normal life so I thought people could be shocked and surprised to find out that my alter-ego was a sub-3 marathoner. Unfortunately, the running takes over my life so much that I'm either begging out of social events because of a race or training run or I can't help but mention the running without being prompted.

1. I'm quite pigeon-toed, if that counts as odd. I think that's pretty common among female runners though. And one leg is longer than the other, though I never remember which one. Does that count as two things?
   
3. I've traveled to 22 foreign countries, if you count Aruba, which some people say you can't if you've already been to the Netherlands which I have. I've gone running in eight of them.
   
4. I can tie a cherry stem into a knot in my mouth.
   
5. I won a wet t-shirt contest in Key West when I was 29. The prize money paid for my vacation and cured a host of lingering adolescent self-esteem issues.
   
6. My oven hasn't worked since I bought my apartment five and a half years ago and I've never bothered to get it fixed.
   
7. I've been slightly obsessed with the number 53 since childhood. I used to think that was the age I was going to die at, but since then I've rethought that premonition and prefer to call it my "lucky" number. It shows up in my life at disturbingly frequent intervals. My brother says that he has the same experience with the number 57.
   

Oh, and to answer your question Adeel, yeah it has been all in singles with one exception two weeks ago. By necessity really more than choice, but we'll see if it works out to be a better strategy than last time around when I was doing a couple doubles a week. And now that I've got a good, solid cardio base going, I really do need to start getting in some faster miles sooner rather than later. There's some famous distance coach that has a quote about how you can't train slow to run fast.

There was a big pile of scrub brush cut down alongside my running path a couple of days ago and right in the middle of it were some pussy willow branches that were just starting to blossom, or puff out, or whatever it is that those do. I made a mental note and on my last lap, stopped and broke off a few to take home. It is such an absolute no-no to take plants out of the park that I felt very self conscious running along with the branches, but they were just going to throw them away. I ran by a couple of Park Conservancy employees and they didn't say anything, so I figured I must be okay.

"Hey," one of them yelled down from the cherry picker, "It's a ten dollar fine to take plantings out of the park."

I was well into my urgent explanation of how they were cut down already when I finally realized that he was just teasing me. I felt like such a dork, but I'm glad I took them anyway. It's nice to have a little fuzzy springtime twigginess in the house when it's still pretty cold and grey outside.

Thank you, thank you for all the kind words and congrats. It's strange how I really hardly "know" most of the runner/bloggers out there, but you guys really are a great community of support.

Maybe it's just because I'm pleased with yesterday's race, but I really think it's too bad that the 15K isn't a more popular race distance. The only one I've run before was on an especially hilly cross country course, so this is the first time I've really gotten a feel for what 9.3 miles should feel like. It's just long enough to take advantage of my slow twitch proclivities, but short enough so that it ends before those last really painful miles of a half. I have this idea about an empty white room in my brain that I go into in the last 10K of a marathon and I don't really need to use it in the half marathon, but around miles 11-12, I sometimes hang out in the doorway.

Anyhoo...it seemed like a good day for racing. Low 30's, bright and sunny, a little windy, but not too bad. I planned to aim for a 7 min. first mile, figuring that would give me an actuality around 6:45 and I'd just try to stay around there like in my last half and bring it down later in the race. I brought an energy gel to suck down around the halfway point.

The mile markers from the 4 mile race run just previously so we all got a laugh (ha. ha.) when we went through the first mile marker around 5:45. I had a brief moment where I thought I was just in much better shape than I'd ever imagined before spotting the real mile marker off in the distance. Still, 6:30 felt quite a bit easier than I would have predicted.

I was running with the same small group of women that I'd started off with in a half back in January, who had all kicked my butt at the time. I ran the first few miles that time way too fast, but this time I felt more like I belonged there and just focused on staying comfortable. It was a nice, diverse collection of talented, competitive women and it felt really nice to feel a part of it.

1. An Australian woman just a year older than me that used to run for my team. She's improved quite a bit over the last six months or so, but we've been very closely matched in the past. There's a bit of friendly rivalry there and she's brought out the best in me in a couple races we've run together.
2. A 47-year-old local legend. She coaches a women's team that 1. now runs for and has an impressive competitive career of her own. I think she's qualified for the marathon trials five times. She gave me a few words of support early in the race and I felt supremely flattered that she knew my name.
3. A 25-year-old woman that also briefly ran for my team. She's small and intense and very talented. I'm sure she's still improving, so when I passed her, I felt sure I'd be seeing her again later in the race.

I'd decided not to wear gloves, so most of the race I had the mental distraction of having painfully cold hands. I kept shaking out my arms to try and get the blood flowing, which had the bizarre physiologic effect of sending a sharp "electric" shock up into my elbow. I hung in right behind woman 1. and tried to get her attention when she peeled off her gloves and tossed them to the side, but I was too late.

At the four mile mark I was at 6:22 pace and still feeling good. I don't know what was going on behind me, but my Aussie friend was starting to pull away. She was still in sight at five miles (6:24 pace), but since I was starting to feel tired, I let her go and focused on getting that Gu open and into me.

By mile six (6:25 pace), I had contact again and visualizing the sugar flowing into my blood stream, pumped out a 6:13 mile to put me on 6:23 pace at mile seven. It's always a little scary when you go by a strong competitor, but I figured that even if she picked up the pace, it could only help both of our times. With a mile and a half left, a guy on my team encouraged me to go after a young woman from another team that had suddenly appeared up ahead. I figured she must be slowing, so I worked on trying to slowly gain some ground on her. Problem was though that I was slowing too, or at least not speeding up.

Former teammate 3. was, not shockingly, right behind me and 1. was just behind her. Local masters legend was back a few more places, but she ran a devastating 83.9% age graded performance percentage.

And last, but not least, I got into grad school, so my head's in a whirl right now, but it does seem like everything is coming together. Exciting times...

Here's a little slideshow of the race today. Elite runners are a fine distraction when you've got a long run to get in. Just one more reason to love New York.

After that last week of training, I split town for a few days and am just getting around to making a few comments on it.

Did anyone catch that a week measured from Sunday, March 9th to Saturday, March 15th would have given me a 102 mile week? I think that may in fact be my first ever 100+ week, even though I guess I can't really count it since I've been measuring my weeks from Monday to Sunday. That also gives me 115 miles for eight days, which has to be some kind of record too, but that really wasn't the goal or intent. I was aiming for 90 and then just felt good and went with it. I ended up with a couple more than I'd planned on my long day and then I bumped into a friend who was just starting her run on Sunday, and it just added up from there.

As for Adeel's thoughts that perhaps I should be running a little less and a little faster...I really am starting to pick up the tempo a bit, at least in comparison to what I was doing a month ago. I'm making an effort to try and get in at least one MP or faster workout a week, but I'm cautious about pushing it too hard when the mileage gets really high. And the high mileage has been good to me so far, so as long as everything seems to be holding together, I might as well go with it.

My strategy is so not scientific I'm afraid, but I did 4 one-mile repeats on the track last night and I'm planning on doing a workout of shorter intervals on Saturday in the park. Then the next weekend I have a 10K, the weekend after that I'll do a half at MP, then the weekend after that I have a four mile race just before the taper starts in earnest. So there is some faster stuff mixed in with all the slower running.

All of this is still working on the assumption that I'll be racing in Louisville on the 26th, even though my boss still hasn't told me whether or not I can have the days off from work. Last I heard, the days I want are in conflict with someone else's vacation, so I'm just sitting tight until I hear if he's figured out a workaround. If the answer turns out to be no, I'll have to take another look at Ohio's C-cities and probably New Jersey too, I guess.

It's amazing how little I accomplish outside of running when I'm really training hard. All I want to do is anything that will keep me off of my feet. Actually, even that's not really enough. I'm lying here in bed typing on the laptop and all I want to do is shut my eyes and take a nap.

Which is exactly what I did for the better part of an hour after typing that last paragraph. There's just an overwhelming fatigue that infuses everything I do. I have trouble paying attention during conversations. I forget to do important things that have to get done, both at home and at work. My legs feel heavy and my feet ache. Right towards the end of last week - the easy week - all of this torpor was lifting and I felt myself returning to the world of the living. But here I am two days and 35 miles into this week and the veil is beginning to fall once again.

Five more weeks. I keep telling myself this. And really, it's not even that long, because the taper will kick in even sooner than that. So it's really two weeks more of carrying this overweight chimpanzee on my back. I just need to work on getting a little more sleep each night to compensate and it will be over with before I know it.

One thing that has been helpful for me on these unrelenting long runs is my somewhat tardy discovery of podcasts on my shuffle. I mean, I know what podcasts are, but I've never actually downloaded one. So I spent my last 5 hours of park loops listening to the jovial liberal banter of NPR. It's almost as good a distraction as actually having someone to run with, though it probably looks a little funny when I start cracking up at random halfway up Harlem Hill over P.J. O'Roarke and Roxanne Roberts' hopelessly witty banter. And I sometimes get a little choked up during This American Life segments, which can interfere with my breathing, but nonetheless, it really does seem to help make the miles go by.

Huh. After feeling so terribly beat down on Tuesday, the rest of the week just seemed to get easier and easier. I wasn't breaking any speed records, but I really do believe that all these miles on top of miles are slowly making me stronger. I'll do some faster workouts over the next few weeks to sharpen my legs, but I think when it comes down to the last 10 miles of the marathon, it's the monster mileage that's going to allow me to hold an even pace through fatigue. That's what I believe anyway, we'll see next month if that's the case.

Tomorrow morning I'm running a 10K which should be interesting seeing that it will be run on two very worn out legs. I felt the urge to pick up the pace in the park today and resisted it, so maybe I'll find that my body feels like running fast. I'm just not sure how to define "fast" for this particular exercise. I'm inclined to aim for 6:30's but I have a feeling that I probably only have three or four of those in me right now and the last couple miles would be better served if I started a little slower. Such a rational, logical thought there, we'll see what I actually do come tomorrow.

I am officially registered, hotel reserved and plane tickets purchased for the Kentucky Derby marathon on April 26. Who knows what I'll draw in terms of weather, but that's really true for any race, anywhere, any time of the year.

I'm sort of using my body as one right now. I feel like I step outside myself a bit as I evaluate what running two or three hours a day does to me. It's shocking how well the actual physical plant is holding up. My shins are really tender and the big toe joints on both feet ache pretty badly if I don't massage them a lot, but that's about it in the way of pain. My brain seems to be taking the brunt of the effort, as I feel a little druggy and out-of-it most of the time and I keep losing track of what it was that I was saying in the middle of sentences. The good thing is that this training schedule has almost completely eliminated my social life, so I don't really have many conversations anyway. If a certain news network's website either doesn't change much in the evenings or occasionally has an odd selection of stories on it, that might be somewhat related to this whole effort as well.

Now, as to the effects of the training on my running. Signs point to good. I went into yesterday's 10K expecting to race the first 4 miles at 6:30 pace and then feel my legs flag under the fatigue of the past week's workload. I was ready for that; I figured it was to be expected.

I took off at a strong, but reasonably comfortable pace, planning on staying within range of a local runner that usually beats me, but not by that much. I noticed on the first mile that she pulled away a bit on the uphills, but I caught right up to her on the flats and the down slopes. The race's theme was Scottish week in New York, so I'd worn a kilt for the occasion. I was aware that the other runners around me might not be taking me very seriously, but I figured I'd just have to accept feeling a little embarrassed whenever the point came when my legs inevitably lost their get-up-and-go. I hit mile one in 6:25.

Everything felt comfortable, so I keep pushing at the same effort, concentrating mostly on breathing as deeply as I could. I hit mile two at 6:20 pace. Mile three has a massive downhill curve to it, so I slipped by my benchmark competitor along here and stayed right on that same 6:20 pace. Mile four dragged the field back up the other side of the hill we'd just come down, so I knew my "running partner" was still hard on my heels. Either she was feeling the effort as well or just decided to bide her time because I fell off pace by 20 seconds for mile four.

Here it comes, I thought, and just concentrated on holding pace as best I could. Remarkably, my legs recovered pretty quickly from the uphill and again, focusing on the breathing, I set my sights on another woman I could see up ahead.

I'm not saying the effort was pleasant at this point, but obviously I was able to maintain it. I did not feel at all as if I'd just spent the past week covering 100 miles. The only real repercussion that I would blame on the mileage came in the last 50 yards of the race. I'd passed the woman up ahead of me pretty decisively with about 600 yards to go, but then right there at the end both she and the woman I'd paced off of for the first half of the race blew right by me. I don't think it even crossed my mind to try and stay with them - there just wasn't anything there to work with. And besides, I could see I was going to break 40 at that point and I was more than happy with that. I knew it was only the second time I'd done that in a 10K, but didn't realize that I'd even slipped under my old PR until much, much later when I got home.

Now this is where my accomplishments become truly impressive... After the race I headed out to Queens to continue the Scottish celebrations by sampling haggis for the first time at speedyscot blogger Yvonne's apartment. She and her husband laid out quite the spread and I will announce for the world to hear that despite the photo below, (which totally cracks me up) haggis is quite tasty. And then, after copious amounts of food and a rather strong serving of mimosa, I had to trek back into the city and go to work for eight hours. Talk about endurance. For the record, I'm planning on sleeping a minimum of 12 hours tonight.