Girl In Motion

Great run today, 8 miles w/10×100m strides. I’m getting acclimated to the weather finally, yay!

Because I’m so forgetful when I have to do anything repetitive (I even forget what lightpole I’m at when only 3.5 of them=100m), I plugged the strides into a Garmin workout which worked really great. Didn’t have to think about which stride I was on or how many lightpoles I’d passed and since strides don’t require a specific recovery time, just that you be fully recovered, all I had to do was press the lap button when ready for a new set.

So 6 miles @ 8:50, 10 speedy strides (working on keeping shoulders back and trunk centered) then a half mile home. Felt strong!

I didn’t take water with me today, opting for the fountain. My latest “decision” concerning the fountain btw, is: I don’t stop my Garmin to take a drink or refill my bottles, unless there’s a line, then I’m allowed to stop it. This mimics the marathon more honestly, I think.

On a related note, on the way back there was a line for the fountain and the woman in front of me is a vigorous walker I’ve seen for over a year but have never spoken with, though we always wave to each other upon passing. So it was nice that today, when she realized I was behind her, she made a cute comment about my hair color changing back to brown. It was sweet to finally exchange pleasantries with this non-strange stranger.

Back to the clock stopping, that brings up a great point about goal times. I said in my last post that my goal is 8:23, which would be a 3:40 marathon. Mind you, I’m not married to it - it’s open to change and likely will, but I like having something to shoot for and it’s as good a number as anything at this point.

BUT! Planning on a 3:40 marathon doesn’t really equate to a 8:23/mile, it means more like running 8:13-8:17 after you count in water stops, possible potty breaks, a stretch or two, not running perfect tangents, etc. I read this a few months ago on the Marathon Race Training forum, where they said subtract 1-2% to get the “real” pace, which makes a lot of sense. So, you could say I have 2 goals, one is a 3:40 marathon, the other, an 8:23 pace. As I get closer to D-day, I’ll know if either of these is reality. I’ve vowed to train as honestly as possible so if I’m not hacking it, Que Sera Sera, I’ll just readjust my goal time to suit. No shame in that, just the fun of trying.

What an eye-opening season it’s been for marathons. After following several marathoners’ stories from training to completion, I’m relaxing my marathon goal.

It was humbling to hear from runners you knew had it in the bag - doing their 3rd, 5th or 6th marathon - reporting races peppered with unexpected physical issues, pacing woes or nutritional troubles that killed their expected goal. The newbie stories are just as compelling, though less surprising as far as goals not coming to fruition, but it’s the seasoned marathoner let-downs that scare you.

What I’ve Learned: no matter how well you follow your plan or how beautifully your tune-up races point you to that BQ and beyond, you just never know what can happen race day.

So, here’s the dirt. I need a 4:00 to BQ. Honest Injun, I don’t even care so much to run Boston, it’s the point of being fast enough to qualify for something - that’s the draw. Anyway, barring injury or unforseen ailments and considering I have 5 months to train, not to mention I already run faster than 9:09 for my easy/longs runs, this would be a conservative goal.

My original goal for October was 3:40 - far from conservative, even over the edge especially considering it’s my first marathon (though keeping in mind, Steamtown’s a famously fast course). I’m letting this one go.

I could split the difference and shoot for 3:50, which makes for a comfortable goal since 8:45 is often my easy/long pace anyway. But where’s the challenge in that? I know I can run long(ish), I did a 19 and 18 last October just for fun. I want to get faster for the Fall, not just go longer.

So my revised plan is this: 3:45. If I’m improving in leaps and bounds, I might glimpse that 3:40 on the radar again, but 3:45 is realistic with some work. I’ll be following a Pfitz 18/60 plan by removing the double recoveries on the the 18/70. I don’t feel I need to get up to 70 just yet - I don’t want to burn out and also, at 46 years old, I don’t need to push it to destruction the first time.

Conversely, since I’ve run several successful weeks at low to mid 50s and my usual mileage is right under that, it doesn’t make sense to do the 18/55 which starts in the low 30s. Yet perversely, considering I’m sitting here with a bum ankle and will be out of town for two weeks prior to plan start, 30s might be my weekly mileage at that point. If so, I’ll embrace the 18/55, no problem! Playin’ it by ear.

My general attitude keeps improving concerning speed gains vs. the calendar. I’m still hungry as ever for crazy cool race times in all the distances but am no longer driven by a timetable. Last Fall, I was “Since I’m doing X, that means in 3 months I’ll be at Y, then 3 months later I’ll be at Z,” I’m coming around to the idea that I don’t need to push it out like a hard dump, all things come in good time.

And with that lovely visual, I bid you adieu for the day. Because I’m tasteful like that.

The Broad St. 10 miler is just about here. I’m looking forward to it - though thanks to about 16,999 other runners, I’m dreading the wall of people guaranteed to clog the start. It’ll be an automatic PR since it’s my first 10M race, but I’d still like a fighting chance to do my best.

So I’m thinking of doing things differently this race. Instead of my usual scurrying/weaving around slower people at the beginning, I would like to not waste that energy, instead keeping myself contained, then speeding up as an opening occurs. The problem with that is I don’t trust myself to be able to surge later and make up for lost time…will I have the energy? This method scares me but I’m sure it’s the best way to run the race.

Cluster-fuck in mind, I have two goals; one that I can live with and one I think I could get if everything went hunky-dory. Here’s hoping either of those occur.

Meanwhile, my ankle thing that made itself known exactly a month ago (and which I’ve finally accepted as my first real injury) has just now stopped being a source of worry. It’s a tendon strain that didn’t want to heal, which wasn’t helped since I wouldn’t take 2 consecutive days off in a row. I finally got more serious with icing and ibuprofen (600 twice a day for 4 days) and started wearing an ankle wrap at home so I wouldn’t inadvertently point my foot, which aggravated it.

My plan was to get through Broad St. and then if I needed to see a doctor, do it right afterwards since my racing season would pretty much be over anyway (save for one Garmin-less 5K I’d like to do mid-May). Looks like that won’t be necessary (whew!) but with every little niggle and twinge I’ve been dealing with, it’s made me insanely grateful for the fact that I can run at all. Every step is a beautiful thing.

So as far as running, last week after my nice tempo run, I took it pretty easy. I managed to get a 13-miler in last Sunday, which because of races and ankle crap, was the longest I’d gone in all of April! This was unusual for me, because I really enjoy going longer, but I had to be prudent.

In the end, I came out with 44 miles for the week, 10 less than I’d originally scheduled, but the most I’ve run this month. It’s a pain in the ass to be hobbled!!

Yesterday I did my last pre-race speed session (ala Tinman), whose advice I highly respect (though I’m only following the last week of his advice). So I did 4xmile at race pace, but added a minute to the recoveries since that advice was given to a faster runner. It was fun to do them at 10M pace, like doing tempo intervals, so it didn’t feel anything like a speed session.

Today and tomorrow I’m up for 6, then Friday has 5 with 3 200m strides and then a day off.

Lara and I will hit the expo on Friday where we’ll each get an exciting bonus gift since the race is sponsored by Blue Cross and Lara and I are both members. OMG…it’s a free pair of Blue Cross socks! Can’t wait.

Then Saturday it’s pasta dinner with a lovely group of forum friends (oh, how I love those forum get-togethers) and Sunday, the race. But I’ll pop in here before then. Who knows, those Blue Cross socks might deserve an entry of their own.

I’m getting excited. Maybe it was the blissful weather change (shorts and tanktops in January??) or the calendar moving along, but after 8 weeks of “freeform” running, I’m beginning to get the training plan thrill again.

My very first training plan was a 16-weeker started in May for the Philadelphia Distance Run in September. I loved having a schedule to follow so when the race was over, I was quite blue afterwards with nothing to work towards. A couple days later I signed up for another Half and suddenly I was a happy gal with a plan again.

With only 8 weeks before the second Half, I knew my improvement would be less dramatic, so I signed up for a handful of smaller races in the interim to keep my excitement level high. That turned out to be a smart idea, as it improved my racing chops and confidence, as well as showing me what the local talent had to offer (again with those carrots!).

So my race calendar this Spring has two “goal” races: First is the one-year anniversary of my first race, the Clean Air 5K in April. I can’t wait to revisit the origination of my racing mania and measure the improvement. Incidentally, I have many embarrassing hunched-over pictures from that 5K, it being my first race, my running form sucked big ones. I’ve sequestered them on my computer as great “Before” pictures because they’re too ugly to share, so hopefully if Nick’s there again with camera in hand, I’ll have a great one-year “After” photo that doesn’t resemble Darwin’s Evolution.

My second goal race will be the Broad Street 10-miler in May. This will be my first year doing it and is the focus of my training plan (which I just realized starts next Monday…that’s 16 weeks out, yay!!). I’ll be doing more than these two races this Spring, but I like having my schedule build out from the goal races, the better to fill in the periphery.

As far as the training plans I’ve used and will use this time too, they’re all bastardizations of Runners’ World SmartCoach, in which I add both tempos and speed weekly (instead of alternating) and make a few other small changes. I also use it in conjunction with McMillan’s calculator to get a variety of paces instead of the single paces offered by SmartCoach.

A major substitution I’ll be adding this time will be to alternate hill work for some of the intervals. Turns out I have a phenomenal .9 mile hill loop that is absolutely perfect for improving my shoddy hill performances in 2007. I just have to ignore the occasional strewn condom wrapper on the ground. And speaking of speed work, it’ll also be nice to include some shorter intervals instead of the mile repeats I insisted on doing for the Halfs. I’m thinking I might not hate interval work so much if the intervals aren’t so dang long.

And now, I’m off to begin tweaking my new plan. Maybe next post I’ll upload some pics of the spreadsheet/planning calendar I made in Excel, along with the cool McMillan compilation sheets I fashioned together that, when in training mode, give me hours of time-wasting enjoyment before bedtime. Seriously, I can stare at them for a good hour before going to sleep. What a freak, huh?