’til the next episode
It’s safe to say that anytime I begin a post with a not-so-subtle allusion to a Dr. Dre/Snoop Dogg lyric that life is good. My opportunities for writing are limited (just like anyone else’s, right?), but probably more than anything, it’s not that I have less time to write than anyone else; it’s just that with the time I do have available, I’m choosing to do a host of other things (again, probably like many others). I have many drafts on my laptop that I haven’t yet completed and posted; I think of so many ideas mid-run (or mid-whatever, actually) that haven’t yet come to fruition; one of these days, I’d like to get on a somewhat-regular writing and posting schedule. I’ll figure it out. It’s on my to-do list.
Anyway – just chillin’ ’til the next episode is a pretty good reflection of what’s been up with my running lately. Post-Pony Express on 5/1, the fam and I went south to Disney for the big one’s birthday, I took an entire WEEK off running (which I’m pretty sure I haven’t done – or have only done – following childbirth), and slowly but surely I’m getting into training mode for TSFM on 7/31. After racing and tying-my-PR at Modesto, I learned that even if I’m physically feeling “fine,” I’ve got to take some mental downtime from marathon training. Maybe that’s something that is coming with “training age,” the number of years and seasons/cycles I’ve been doing this stuff, or hell, it might just be a natural consequence of the interaction between the marathon grind and parenting two little people 24/7 (read: exhaustion). At any rate, I gave myself two weeks of forced downtime and very little running after PEM and have slowly gotten back into marathon training mode.
We have some upcoming travel to the midwest for the summer to see family (hooray!), and while we’re in IL and OH over the summer, I’m planning to race some short stuff for the first time in … a while. I find that I gravitate toward running and racing the long stuff because, among other things, I feel like it’s a better decision financially (why pay $40 to race a 5k when you can race a half/marathon for not much more?!). I haven’t raced short stuff in a long time – my last 5k I “raced” was at 9 months/36 weeks pregnant – so I’m planning to be the conductor of those Pain Trains I’ll surely be riding. I’m planning to incorporate the races as part of my training, so it’ll be fun… or at least that’s what I’m telling myself. I feel like it’s easier to run fast when there’s a bib involved. I just have to tell myself that I’d be doing virtually the same workout/distance on a track, so why not do it with a bib attached and in the company of a bunch of other runners? Like anything else with running, I think it boils down to perspective.
At this stage in training, most of my running lately has been with the baby and at nice and run-all-day paces, so it’s exciting to see what’s in the stems and to hopefully see some progress over the next 8 weeks (or so) leading into TSFM. I haven’t done any formal speedwork or tempo runs since early March, right before Modesto, so on a steamy and windy day last week, I decided to kick things off with a 6 miler – 2 WU, 2 @ some faster-than-run-all-day-pace, 2 CD. It was nearly 80; about 150-200m of each track lap was straight into the wind … but fuck if it wasn’t exciting to just run footloose and fancy free without pushing three wheels and forty-five pounds in front of me.
Plus, with TSFM’s hilly (and wonderful) course, it kinda behooves me to run a lot of hills during training, so one of my goals for this cycle (and for each week) is to post at least a little elevation. That might get challenging once I’m in the midwest, but I’ll figure it out when I get there.
Hope you are doing well and had a lovely Memorial Day weekend. Happy almost June (and Global Running Day, apparently)!
