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October 28, 2007

Taper? On.

Man, it all went by so fast! How did we get here? The past few weeks have been very, very nice, seeing my fitness come around and having running - even 14 miles on a Wednesday morning - become so so easy and natural feeling again. But the weeks before that - dragging through a 5-mile tempo at 7:24 pace and feeling like death at the end, miles and miles of muggy, hot weather, squishy shoes and dragging ass behind everyone - were so rough when I was going through them. But I just kept showing up and running. We'll see what it gets me. Part of me feels like I could take my fitness to another level - one I haven't been to before - if I had a little more time, but the smarter part of me knows that getting to the end of a marathon training schedule and feeling ready to go is not something to wish away or take for granted. I'm so so lucky to be here. And I just have to keep it up for three more weeks.

The 20-miler yesterday was one of the best I've ever had. The weather was perfect. The company was good. The route was new and pretty. And we ran well. We started at 9:30 pace for mile 1 and 8:30 pace for mile 2, and then worked our way down to 7:45 pace by mile 10. Then we hovered at 7:30s for the next 7 miles, and then finished up (going downhill) with 6:59, 6:58, and 6:34. And I definitely had some left in the tank for more.

Rraaarrr.

Posted by jenandmats at 8:04 PM | Comments (2)

October 26, 2007

Oh sorry. I've been a little busy.

We moved. We now live very, very close to Town Lake, I mean, Lady Bird Lake Trail. It's amazing. It's stressful. It's chaotic.

Did I say it's been stressful? It's been really, really stressful. Our old house just recently went on the market, too, and there's that added stress. Seems like since we put in the offer on this house the news of the housing market has been relentlessly bad. Stop it already!

There have been so many things to do, but I have managed to get in most of my running. And I'm not entirely sure that's a good thing. It's so easy to run most of the time, because it's the first thing I do in the morning and there's no question on how to do it. With moving, there are so many different ways you can do things and different people to deal with, and unlike running, where the Garmin ticks off the miles for you, there's no telling when (or if!) everything will get done in time before the movers show up. Running is just too easy not to do when everything else is crazy.

And then there's the movers themselves. They don't make things easy for you at all. And if you don't get things right they're ready for your mistake so they can screw you. They're awful. Although I didn't know it until 8:45 pm on the night we moved, we apparently hadn't agreed to pay the guys enough to move boxes up the stairs. (I certainly told them there were stairs in the new house.) So they decided to only move a random few into the house and leave the remainder in the garage. Awesome. There are boxes stacked up three rows deep in the garage. I hate the movers.

But I can't believe we're here. It's been a goal of ours for a long, long, time to live centrally, and here we are. What do we wish for next? How 'bout a sub-three marathon? Probably not this time ...

Tomorrow is the LAST 20-MILER BEFORE PHILLY. I can't believe it. I'm barely even nervous about it, except that I had deep-dish sausage pizza and beer for dinner. That wasn't so smart. But it was really really good.

Running this week was pretty uneventful, which is a real blessing since the rest of life is way too eventful right now! We did have a really hard track workout on Wednesday. Remember I complained so much about 6x 1000 at 5K pace two weeks ago? Well, Wednesday was 6x 1200 at 5K pace. The rest was pretty substantial, though, so it seemed pretty doable. I think I was a little slow overall, but not too much so. I didn't know where the charger for the Garmin was, and my Timex Ironman went kaput a few weeks ago, so I was carrying Andy's watch in my hand and was having a really hard time seeing splits. So I just ran and decided to just run hard and look at my splits when I got home. I looked at them once before Andy erased them on me. There were a few quarters over, one or two under, and most right on.

Last night was a recovery run; a beautiful October night out on the trail with a full moon and tourists (there's a big spine surgery convention here in town this week) lining Congress Avenue to see the bats.

Crossing the 20-mile marker in a marathon gives me the chills. Finishing that last 20-miler of a marathon training cycle makes me wanna jump for joy! Hope it goes well tomorrow.

Posted by jenandmats at 8:32 PM | Comments (2)

October 14, 2007

My big fat marathon training week

This morning’s MGP run wasn’t as awful as I’d imagined. It was actually … good. I had company to actually run my pace, which is even better than when everybody runs their own MGP and you end up running by yourself in a group. I have SUCH nice friends to do this with me.

Five weeks ago I ran 12 miles out of 15 total at 7:47 pace and I felt like death at the end. (Could have been all the margaritas I’d had earlier in the week in Cancun, however.) The course we did for that run was hillier than this morning's, and the weather was warmer, but this morning I managed 14 out of 17 at 7:15 pace. At the end of a 66-mile week. And I did not feel like death at any point during the run. 7:15 is my marathon p.r. pace. I had intended to run between 7:30 and 7:40, but from the begining 7:20 felt baby-bear "just right" and as we went along "just right" got progressively faster. That's usually the way I roll when I do things right and don't start too fast.

And the 66 miles this week were no cakewalk: after racing last Sunday, we had 6x1000 on Tuesday, 15 on Wednesday, and 12 on Friday. Those 1000s cracked me up, too. I’d never realized how Pfitzinger lulls you into speedwork with 6x 600 at 5K pace with 90s rest one week, then a few weeks later he drops it down to 5x 600 at 5K pace with 90s rest, and then later, a few days after a race no less, he hits you with 6x 1000 at 5K pace with 90s rest! That’s double the previous workout at the same pace with the same rest! And it didn’t even occur to me until we were running over to the track that morning that we were going to be running 5K pace for longer than 5K. That workout wore me out. And I had extrapolated a 5K pace from my 5-miler last week, so my 5K pace was actually faster than it had been for the 600s. I was about to head into #4 when I mentioned to some friends who had already finished their workout that I might have bitten off more than I could chew with that 5K pace, and my Estonian friend with her perfect-for-coaching Eastern European accent says “Well, maybe it’s time to step it up!” It was just what I needed to hear!

So … we get a teeny tiny cutback next week, then head into the last week before the taper. Cue the Rocky theme, please. Philly here we come.

Posted by jenandmats at 3:06 PM | Comments (4)

October 10, 2007

Cedar Perk Five Miler 2007

Well, “Dad,” funny you should ask about that race. I’d just typed up my race report, and it goes a little something like this:

Cedar Perk Five Miler 2007: I had done this five-miler in 1998 and really enjoyed it. I think it was the first race I won my age group in. I won a coffee mug with a metal plaque on it that my mother-in-law zapped in the microwave recently. It’s ok, though. I still love that mug, even though now I’m the only one who knows that it’s supposed to say “1st place” on it. There’s still a metal plate, but it’s fried.

Of course my running felt awful before the race. I feel awful before the vast majority of races and tempos and track workouts. Many times how bad I feel beforehand and how well I run are inversely proportional. I did a 3.5 mile warmup, came back to the start and changed my shoes, found out that the race started a half hour later than I thought it did, changed my shoes again and headed back out for another two miles.

Even though this was a small race, it generally attracts some pretty fast people who live up in the Cedar Park area. The town has a phenomenal track and cross-country culture, and there were a lot of kids out for the race. I figured that most of the junior high kids would beat me! I also saw a woman I know to be faster than me, another woman I *can* but don’t necessarily beat when I’m in good shape, and another woman who’s very fast whom I knew had been out injured for a lot of the summer.

I started out fast, but noticed once the crowd thinned a little that I was pretty far behind all of the women I mentioned. That happens to me pretty regularly in races with people I generally finish with. I feel like I’m going so slow and there’s no way I’m going to be able to catch them. And then all of a sudden I was right behind them – they were all together – and I didn’t feel like I’d really picked it up at all. The boyfriend of the woman who was injured said “I think you’re going to be the first woman in a few minutes.” And I was. And I felt pretty comfortable, although passing them made me question whether I was going too fast.

So I was out in front just before the one mile marker, which I hit just over seven minutes. And then I just tried to maintain that pace, thinking the whole while that I didn’t want to pick it up and then die and have them all pass me back. That would be totally embarrassing. And I spent the remaining four miles anticipating that at least one of them would pick up the pace and be breathing down my neck. So I wanted to be ready to put up a fight. I really still don’t have (and never really do have) any kind of kick, so I wanted to be as relaxed as possible when and if I was caught so that I had something left to fight with. But there was never a challenge.

I ended up finishing at 33:31, or 6:42-ish pace. At least, that was the time on my watch; the posted results give me a 33:40 finish time with no lag time between gun and chip, but that can’t be right because I was several rows back. I had wanted to go under 7:00 pace, so I was happy with it. It’s another sign of progress. It’s still not overall progress, though: I don’t run many five-milers, so the fact that it was a p.r. (my 1998 time: 34:39) really doesn’t mean much - it’s slower than my 10K p.r. pace and only five seconds or so per-mile slower than my half-marathon p.r. pace. McMillan predicts a 3:18 marathon from that race, which would be my third fastest marathon, and not the fastest, like I’m shooting for. It’s better than the 3:31 marathon predicted from my half marathon in July, though!

After the race I headed back out on the course for a long cooldown, and since the race is an out-and-back course, several people who were still running had seen me leading at the half. So I got a lot of “did you win?” and I got to answer “yes!” and I got some high-fives. Man, that felt awesome.

Posted by jenandmats at 6:56 PM | Comments (5)

October 7, 2007

Regarding my previous post's comments about Chicago

I take it all back. I just talked to a friend who ran this morning. That sounds just ... awful.

Posted by jenandmats at 8:43 PM | Comments (2)

October 5, 2007

To those heading to Chicago, I say …

Suck it up! We had worse weather in Boston in ’04 and we survived! It was 86 degrees! We started at noon! And we had to run up Heartbreak Hill … twice that year! With no shoes! And then we had to WALK back to Hopkinton once we were finished! On our hands!

Really. In all seriousness … I wish you all the best of luck. I know the disappointment and frustration that crappy marathon day weather forecasts bring for those of us who chase p.r.’s. But I also carry a real sense of pride at surviving and doing well at that race that year in Boston (that is, I didn’t completely fall apart and lose my lunch in my finisher’s bag at the finish line like my husband did).

So good luck.

We are smack dab in the middle of the biggest training cycle Pfitzinger has to offer the 18-week, 70-m.p.w.-ers. And I feel good. I feel strong. I still don’t feel fast, really, though. We still have four magic track sessions left before all this is over, though, so there’s still time to get that snap back. We did strides this morning and I was moving so fast my feet were comin’ out of my shoes. That’s mostly because it’s nearly impossible for me to find shoes that fit really well.

My 22 last weekend felt moderately easy, although I still had a low point or two in there. Then we had 5x 600 at 5K pace on Tuesday that was really easy. I couldn’t figure out at first why we were moving *down* in our speedwork miles, but at some point during one of the last 600s I couldn’t help but remember that I’d done 22 miles two days before. That Pfitz is a smahty-pants. This weekend we’re supposed to race Saturday and then go long Sunday, but I don’t really have the luxury (or the desire, to be honest) of spending both weekend mornings away from my little friend who’s been in day care all week Plus, we don’t have any longer races in town on Saturday anyway. So that throws things off a little. I’ll race on Sunday and then do a big warmup and cooldown to make a compromise race/long run. And I’m hoping that doesn’t throw me off too much next week, which is our last 70 mile week for the cycle. (I’ve never quite hit 70, though. I’m always a mile or two short.)

I can’t believe we’re only six weeks out …

Posted by jenandmats at 8:48 PM