Girl In Motion

Pantry moths.  We discovered them a few days ago flying around the dry goods shelf.  The day after, I threw some pasta into boiling water and realized I was looking at a moth carcass and a wormy sac floating among the bubbles.  “Aha!” we said, Nick and I, agreeing that that’s where they must have came from.   I re-attempted the meal with an unopened cellophane package of noodles, doing a half-assed job of forgetting what I’d seen.

The next couple days, I took a broom and joyfully smashed any of the little suckers who’d parked themselves on the ceiling, mocking us in our hunger.

Thinking I’d gotten them all, Friday comes and I open a taco box kit (the taco shells are always in a sealed tray thing) and out fly a few more.  Inspecting the tray, there seemed to be a little crack in it so, for the second time…”Aha! so that’s where they came from”.  We ate frozen pizza that night.

Now that I’ve thrown away pasta, oatmeal, flour and all sorts of other good food, I went to the grocery store today and realized I’m screwed as far as shopping goes, unsure when I’ll be able to buy a box of anything again without wanting to hurl.  The thought of these disgusting flying creatures and their larvae sacs are enough to put anyone off their carb load.  Looks like it’s egg noodles for a while (stored in the fridge).  Nature sucks.

A fun run today!  17.5 with 3.25 MP at the end (was going for 3 but happily, overshot it a bit).

I’d been reading about adding MP miles to the end of Long Runs which seems like a good idea, since  I only have one more dedicated MP run next weekend.  That said, I had a mild hamstring tweak the other day, so I waffled about doing the MP miles today, but yesterday I foam rollered, iced and Sticked, so felt good as new and went for it.

My goal was to start out where Pfitz says (10:00/mi), but it wasn’t happening, so I at least put the brakes on enough to stick around 9:30s-9:20s for the first 11.  It was a blissfully cloudy day and I was feeling cheeky in a running skirt and bra top.

I had a strange energy throughout and was in exceptionally good spirits from the get-go.  By holding back at the start, when I finally gave myself permission to run freely, it was just fun.  The MP miles felt good, though not exactly a leisurely stroll in the park, not difficult.  The run averaged 9:06 with the last 3.25 splits at 8:20, 8:20, 8:13 and 8:21 for the last 1/4.

As I was coming home, I saw something disturbing.  There were 3 people together, 2 of them helping a 20-something kid, who must have just got hit by a car or ran into something.  He was completely dazed and was held up by one of the other people, before being sat beneath a tree.  There were 2 bikes, so I couldn’t make out if he was a runner or a cyclist, but it was horrible to see and brought tears to my eyes, reminding me of Nick getting hit by a car a couple months ago.  Hope the kid is alright.  And please everybody, be safe as you can, it’s too easy to get messed up.

But enough doom and gloom.  Looking ahead, tomorrow is a rest day, then Sunday is 4 recovery w/strides, then the 4-mile race on Monday.  I probably won’t be writing again till Monday afternoon or evening, so have a great Labor Day holiday folks, and for anyone else racing (Doggiepoo, Greenlee and Bruce): kick ass!

In the past week or so, for some inexplicable reason, I’ve begun to drool out the right corner of my mouth while running.  It’s not a huge stream of spit or anything, and passers-by wouldn’t be able to tell, but I am having to wipe the corner of my mouth every so often.

Now, I know I’m not running with my head sideways and my dental work hasn’t changed, so it’s a mystery as to the cause.  Meanwhile, I can only hope this is a passing phase and doesn’t develop into a full-fledged rabid dog foaming at the mouth type of situation.  My race pictures suck as it is.

Today’s run was 13 with 2 trips up Smile Hill.  Good run in general, even with the hill, averaged 8:53.

Don’t know if any of you are familiar with the underground comic strip, Zippy The Pinhead, but I realized today, while looking at the elevation chart, that Smile Hill looks a lot like Zippy…don’t you think?

In non-running news, I’m waiting for the UPS guy to bring me the case fan so I can repair the power supply in my computer.  My workaround, while extremely effective, is somewhat unsightly and takes up a lot of space. It’s also causing me to sit a little crooked from my monitor.  Hey…maybe that’s why I’m drooling!!

That’s it from me today, later kids!

Sunday’s 22 was surprising in that my legs felt great afterwards and I had no soreness at all.  I expected DOMS yesterday but…nothing.  So I was feeling ready for today’s 8w/5×600s at 5K race pace.  What I didn’t take into account was that the 22-miler topped a peak week of 57 miles, so I shouldn’t have been surprised when once I got outside, all I wanted to do was travel at a snail’s pace.

My goal was to hit the same as last week, 7:15 avg, since that’s McMillans corresponding 5K pace for a 3:40 marathon. I begin the intervals and my first one is 7:26…hrmph!  That sucks.  OK, time to start paying attention!  Got it together and did the deed.  Intervals splits were 7:26, 7:14, 7:09, 7:12, 7:08…avg. 7:14. So it ended up ok, though I’d have preferred even pacing.

Funny though, afterwards I felt really energized and instead of my usual apres-interval-poopedness where it’s all I can do not to walk home, I continued on to run 4.5 more miles at 9:01 avg. pace, leaving me with a total of 10.5 for the morning.  This is good because I’m having to rearrange my schedule to accommodate Monday’s race and toploading the week will allow me to get a mini-taper in there.

Meanwhile, I’m having little shivers of anticipation for the race.  It’s an automatic PR because it’s my first 4-mile race, but I want to do well.  On the other hand, with marathon training it can go either way - you have tired legs so short races might not be up to par, then again, you’ve been improving fitness, so it could be a good time.  I don’t race a whole lot, so it’s hard not to want to set an aggressive goal.

I think the way I’ve figured is to take my 7:52avg. from last week’s 7 mile tempo, convert it to 12K, then input that as a race into my Daniels’ spreadsheet, which predicts a 30:19 (7:35 pace) for a 4-mile race.  Since I’m basing it off a tempo, it shouldn’t leave me redlining.  Then again, I don’t know the course at all, it’s in a different town - though I must say, Google Street View was very helpful in this regard.  I was able to “travel” a good chunk of the course that way, so it’s not a complete mystery.

My main thing is, I need to stop making races (especially little ones like this) so “oooh, big deal” in my head.  I think the way to do that is to do more of them so when they suck, it just gets absorbed into the mishmash of race outcomes.  Here’s to a future of mucho racing and carefree attitudes!  Yeah, right, haven’t I said this before?

Such a lovely number, dontcha think?  I like it even better now that I’m done running it.

Got up at 5:30, had my usual bit of coffee, even had something to eat beforehand (rare occurrence)…peanut butter on a 1/2 a hot-dog bun (don’t ask).  I knew I was going to be out for a while, so figured a little something in my gut might be a good idea.

Wore my Tramp Stamp shorts which I am no longer mad at.  Now that I know where to apply the Body Glide, I’m liking them quite a bit - a gal can always use a back pocket.  I filled my gel flask with 2 gels & water and then stuck an as-of-yet-untested-flavor Power Gel Double Latte (double caffeine) in that back pocket.  Wanted to see if more caffeine at the end would be noticeable or not.  It wasn’t.

It was 73 degrees with 75% humidity when I started at 6:30, so I actually took the first 3 miles at recovery run pace - 10:07s.  I told myself that the object of today was time on my feet, and not to feel guilty if I went slower than usual.  By the end of the run it was 80, so it was a bit of a toasty morning.

I had a good run!  Did the museum loop and the Schuylkill riverwalk, then went back the way I came, detoured onto Smile Hill at around 15.5 for a single up-and-down (I won’t kid you, I was happy to see I only needed to do it once to make the correct mileage to get home), then 4.5 back home.

I lucked out, didn’t have one red stop light the whole run, so I never stopped the clock, the only physical stopping was 1:20, the amount of time it took to refill my water bottle 4 times.  Avg. for the run: 9:32, pretty much smack dab on Pfitz’s prescribed pace with the last three miles averaging 8:48.

Btw, don’t know if your city has them, but Philly is putting those fab new walk lights at almost every main intersection now, they give you the actual time left before the lights change, which is soooo helpful.  No more kamikaze running across to beat the light, I can actually see I’ve got 6 seconds left and speed up accordingly.  Really cool.

In other running news, I’m pretty excited because my schedule calls for an 8k-15k tune-up race next weekend but there isn’t anything local, so I was going to do a time trial.  But I found a 4mile race for Labor Day in a town about 45 minutes away, so I’m going to do it!  OK, it’s not 8k (aka 5 mile race), but it’s better than a 5K and I’ll be able to give it a proper race effort, which a time trial wouldn’t have been. I’m scared though!! I don’t race enough to be used to them yet, which is all the more reason for doing it (and one of the reasons Pfitzinger puts them in the plan in the first place).

And now, I’ll leave you with this link to a hilarious Usain Bolt spoof.  He’s the guy that set new World Records at the Olympics in the 100m, 200m and 4×100m relay.  But in the 100m, Bolt showed an unfortunate lack of good sportsmanship when he looked around, then beat his chest in self-congratulations before the race was even over.  Hah, this video is perfect.  Enjoy, and I’ll see you back here later.

Why High Five?  Because for the second time ever on a run, a runner I didn’t know at all gave me a high five!  But let’s go to the beginning…

I mentioned in yesterday’s entry that today’s 12 would partly be spent around Lemon Hill for a couple easy hill loops.   However, after several comments to that post referring to the Philly marathon and the accompanying hill at Lansdowne, it seemed apropos to revisit that area today.  After all, I had only been on it once since the Philly Half and that was at the beginning of marathon training, way back in June, so I was anxious to see if it was still as big as it appeared in my mind.

Today’s accessories included one handheld, gel flask with 2 gels and water to the top (first time filled to the brim) and sunglasses.  I wanted to test the flask filled completely since that’s how it’ll be marathon day and since the waistbands in my shorts are small-width elastic, I knew there’d be some bouncing.   Didn’t take long to figure out that by safety pinning both top corners of the flask holder to my waistband, it would immobilize it perfectly.  And with that, the flask situation is now officially 100% worked out.

Out the door and on to Landsdowne.  So yeah, there’s the hill I remembered, but it’s only 1/4 of a mile so nothing as daunting as my self-proclaimed Smile Hill.   Went up the thing, messed around in the concourse area (part of the marathon course), took a couple more smaller hills, then as I was backtracking to take another swipe at the hill, this huge burly running man passes me with a big ole smile and says “How you doing today?” and held out his hand for a high-five.  What could I do but give him a matching grin, say “Great! How’re you?” and slap that palm!

He got the raw end of the deal as my palm was gross and sweaty and his was quite nice, but I’ll tell you, that grin didn’t leave me for miles.   Funny how some nice people are so brave with their happiness, it’s a beautiful thing.

After that I messed around with the hill and the surrounding area some more, than got back on West River Drive to continue the loop and finished out my 12.  Because I spent extra time around the concourse area, I ended up getting to 12 while still 1.25 miles from home.  Ordinarily I would have kept running anyway but Sunday is going to be 22, so I was like, “screw it!, it’ll be nice to walk home” and I did.

Speaking of Sunday, of course as soon as I publicize what I’m going to do, I change my mind and the route for Sunday’s run is no exception.  I was going to do it on the trail, but that’s a hard run, lots of ups downs and gravel, but the real deciding factor is that it’d be a two-handhelds + gel flask run.  I’m ok with taking the 2 handhelds, but not if I’m also taking a gel flask - that’s just a little too much extra weight and plastic accoutrements to sit well with me.

So the new decision is to do my regular loop forward and back again and then, as I’m nearing home, do a couple trips up and down Smile Hill.  After all, that’ll mimic the race better because there are a couple hills towards the end and also, I’ll just need one handheld and the gel flask.  Besides, a 22 is enough of a workout on it’s own, I don’t need to add the difficulty of a trail in there, too.

And that is it for Friday.  We’re going with our friends Lara and Jeff to some kooky bike race today near Allentown at the Velodrome.  It’s a Madison which I’ve never seen before and sounds crazy cool.  Basically, they fling each other forward while bicycling madly.  Should be a blast, not to mention lots of good looking cycle boys because that goes with the territory.

So have a fine Friday, some strong runs and I’ll be chatting with you all later.

Usually I don’t post if it’s a rest day, but with a few little annoyances and pleasures, thought I’d post anyway.

On the annoying end, the fan went out in my computer’s power supply.  24 tiny screws later, I figured out what I needed and ordered another one.  Could have just ordered a new power supply, but I’m cheap and repairing stuff has its joys.  Meanwhile, I’m just hoping the power supply doesn’t overheat till it comes.  On top of that, one of my hard drives is making occasional high-pitched chirping sounds, which usually means hard drive death is imminent, so I have to deal with getting a new one.  Yawn.

On happy computer news, not sure what everyone’s using as far as browsers, but I’m a huge Firefox proponent.  I finally switched to version 3, which I highly recommened everyone do, it’s speedier than ever and has a lot of lovely features.  If you download it, go to this page for the speed tweaks that’ll have that baby absolutely flying.

If despite this, you still have a seemingly sluggish Firefox (I was about to tear my hair out when I first installed it and was going to revert to ver.2), disable your add-ons.  Once I did that, it was zoomy as all get-out.  I think imacros was the culprit (great add-on, btw).

Tomorrow I have a 12-miler.  I was going to visit Smile Hill, but since Sunday will be a 22-miler that I plan to take to the trail (harder run), I think I’ll just use my usual route with some Lemon Hill loops thrown in.  That’s  a short, steepish hill area closer to home and was a pain in the Philly Marathoners’ asses last year, as it was a new addition to the race.  It’s commonly used around here for hill repeats, but I want to stay fresh for Sunday, so just a few easy loops should do.

Looking ahead with PDR in the near future, I’ve been going over the schedule pretty intensely wondering how best to deal with that Half as it sits in the plan.  It lands on a 20-miler week, which isn’t so bad, I’ll make that up surrounding it, but I figure it’s best to switch weeks 3 and 4 completely since week 4 accounted for a tune-up race, thus the VO2max is only 600s falling on a Tuesday, as opposed to 1200s on a Wednesday.

The only pain about this is, he schedules the tune-up on Saturday and 17 on Sunday.  Since my Half is on Sunday, and I’m racing it full-out, I might just consider the Half a catch-all for both runs and gulp! skip what would have been the 8K tuneup (at least mileage-wise, since the Half totally counts as a tuneup).

Steamtown is the ultimate goal, but PDR has goal qualities for me, too, so it’ll be a balancing act. Not to mention I really want to do my last 20 the weekend after PDR where a 16 is scheduled, but I’ll have to see how I feel after the race to know if that’s a good idea or not.

Ah, the unknown.  Either a fun way to pass the time imagining multi-scenarios, or a great reason to lay blame if things don’t turn out right.  Gotta love it!

Today was one of the scariest runs in the book, 12 w/7 tempo.  There’s been a fun and interesting discussion on RW about this particular run, a lot of controversy because the general definition of a tempo run is what you can race in 1 hour, even Pfitzinger says so a couple times in Advanced Marathoning.  So 7 miles of tempo would be really overdoing it for someone like me with a 3:40 marathon goal.

However, while he says the 1-hour thing a few times in his book, he states much more often that tempos should be run at a pace between 15K and Half race pace, which, unless you’re planning on a 3:01 marathon, makes the 1 hour definition moot.  There are LT pace charts at the back of the book that support the 15K-Half paces over the 1-hour definition.  Anyway, all this chat did nothing to deter me, but it did have me seriously mulling over my goal for today.

I could use Daniels’ pace for a 7 mi tempo at my projected MP, which would be 8:17, but he’s on the slow end of the scale and since I’d done my last 6 at 8:02, 8:17 seemed laggardly.  On the other hand, with the Distance Run on the near horizon, it made a lot of sense to use my projected goal Half pace, giving it some extra gas if I had it and I knew I’d have some because this morning was set to be beautifully cool.  Good temps had to account for something and was the only reason I wasn’t quite as nervous about today as I might have been.

Considering I won’t be tapered for PDR and will be running a 20 the weekend before, I figured sticking with 8:02 for the Half pace sounded reasonable.  That equates to a 1:45 Half.

So out I go, in love with the 63-degree temperature, and start with 3 easy because 2.5 gets me to the last water fountain and there was no way on earth I was going to stop during the fast miles.  I start the tempo, ramping up a bit on the first mile, ending up with an 8:09 average.  Hmmm, it’s a start,  but I had more in the tank today, so I got into a groove and ended up kicking 8:02 out of the park.

Tempo splits were: 8:09, 7:45, 7:49, 7:49, 7:53, 7:52, 7:49.  My average?  7:52! Woo-fucking-hoo!!!  I just gave myself an unofficial new 10K PR!

Two cooldown miles later - a comfortable 9:05 avg. that included stopping at the water fountain - I’m feeling like everything I’m working towards isn’t as nebulous as I (too often) imagine.  The training is coming together as it should.  What an overwhelming relief.

My workout today was a beautiful thing, didn’t go the Pfitzinger med-long run route, because I was doing my mile long hill which makes the 20% - 10% not really a viable parameter. As for the hill itself, which I’ve been prefacing recently with “stupid” as in Stupid Mile Hill because things that make me suffer scare me and calling them names makes me feel better, today the hill and I came to an agreement; I wouldn’t bitch and moan and it would be nicer to me than it’s ever been.

Long story short, I did 2.5 trips with the uphills paced at 9:25, 9:29 and 9:47 and the downhills at 8:07, 8:17 and 8:17. How wonderful to be able to fully rehearse my Steamtown pacing (which I imagine will be 8:17-8:20 on the downs) and have it feel good. Of course, after a zillion of those strung together I know it’ll be less than happy-making, but I can start to imagine the real deal now.

After I was done with the hill, like magic (or as running god Arthur Lydiard might have predicted) the final miles home were strangely faster than they felt. I seriously felt I was going along at 9:15 or so but thanks to that fast downhill running, I was actually averaging 8:39. Final tally today: 14.5 miles, average pace: 8:59.

The other big news of the run was I have finally found a gel I LIKE! Not “can stand” “can stomach” or “is palatable” but one where I thought the taste was juuuust right: Gu Just Plain. Wow, not at all cloyingly sweet while at the same time without any of the tartness I find in Hammer or Carbboom. Simply a truly light taste that, mixed in a flask, will improve the Vanilla and Apple Carbbooms I just got, or taste great straight. Seriously, it was so strange to finish a gel off without a single grimace.

On to real running news, I cried last night when 38 year-old Constantina Tomescu won the marathon. What an edge of the seat race that was! Of course, so heartbreaking for Deena and Paula but so thrilling to see a 38 year-old conquer that race! And with such a daring break, just shocking. So here’s to Constantina Tomescu and Dara Torres, another amazing athlete at 41 years old. Cheers to these mature athletic powerhouses, you make the world a more hopeful place.

Moving sideways away from running, I had quite a laugh yesterday while grocery shopping with Nick. We were standing in the produce section of ShopRite, a huge grocery store chain, when I realize the Muzak coming over the loudspeakers was “Love To Love You, Baby”, complete with lyrics. I turned to Nick and said, “check out the music”, we had a chuckle and squeezed some peaches. Then a few minutes later, I recognize the next song is “Voulez Vous Coucher Avec Moi”. Granted, both were fab disco hits in their day, but I find it hilarous that the background music for grocery shopping is now Fuck Me songs. How lovely for the little children, lol.

But enough gabbing from me today, go find some fruit to play with and hum a nasty tune to yourself. It’ll either have you wanting to go grocery shopping or make wild crazy love next to some Kraft Macaroni and Cheese.

Didn’t write the last couple days because one day was recovery and yesterday was off, so nothing interesting to speak of. Well, I did have my first running nightmare last night that involved not knowing where the race was held and having to wear “fashion” running shoes from J.C.Penney (oh no, where are my Mizunos?!?! I can’t run in these!!). So I was a little tense upon waking.

On the menu this morning, 8 @GA Pace (Pfitz-speak for general aerobic) w/ 8×100m strides. While on the run, I realized that, since hopping on this particular training plan, something dramatic has changed within my running style. Used to be I’d never warm up to begin, just go out all gangbusters. As the run progressed, I’d always end up with positive splits. I wasn’t too concerned because my last mile is uphill and the run always averaged a pace I was happy with.

Nowadays, it’s ass-backwards. I start every run on the slow end, using my comfort level to determine the starting pace (aka a warm-up mile…what a foreign concept). Then, as the run progresses, I speed up - not because I’m clock watching, but because the effort feels easier as the miles chug along. What do I get for this newfangled way to run? Negative splits without even trying.

I’m sure credit goes to those molasses recovery miles, since running slowly has become much less evil in my mind and just another flavor to the full running recipe. Whatever, it’s lovely to find this happening without actively seeking it out.

So anyway, today’s run averaged 8:41, splits were 9:07, 8:51, 8:49, 8:33, 8:31, 8:28, then the strides and a mile home.

Tomorrow is a 14. I figure I’ll go 4.5 to my new found friend Mile Hill, go up and down that baby 2.5 times then take that final 4.5 back home. And with that, out goes the cutback week and in comes the hard stuff again, in particular a 12 w/7@tempo on Wednesday. Joy, oh joy.

Actually, that’s not even snarky, I am finding joy so often these days. Hard to believe just a year and half ago I felt directionless, uninspired, bored and flabby. God, I heart running.