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Oakland Marathon 2014 training: 2 weeks out

Oakland Marathon 2014 training: 2 weeks out

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Two weeks out – week ten – week of March 3, 2014

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Closer and closer to race week! And so begins the taper.

Earlier in the week, I wrote a rare mid-week post about how I was finally all kum-bah-yah about pretty much all the big stuff in my life right now–moving to California, how my training has progressed, and where my fitness is, relative to my goals/where I want it to be, as I prepare to toe the line in a couple weeks–and I think finally putting everything down on paper (screen) really made some type of indescribable-yet-indelible impression on me. It is a bit strange to describe, but I think that the taper cutback is also giving me a chance to metaphorically step back and look at my training this cycle, concurrent with our cross-country move, and see everything from a greater vantage point than before. I’ll write a separate post reflecting exclusively on my training, but suffice it to say for now that I’m happy how things have gone.

Of course, life can and does happen sometimes. I wasn’t planning to fall ill this week–really, who plans to, ever?–but when the week began with the scratchy/burning feeling in my throat, I knew it was just a matter of a few days before I’d get hit with a sinus infection or a cold. I made the executive decision to forego my last LR, 17 miles, on Sunday morning after feeling kinda bleh on Saturday. It’s a hard decision to make when I thought about it like a runner, but once I stepped outside that mould, it was a no-brainer.

At any rate, I guess if there’s ever a good time to get ill during training, it’s during taper, when you’re already at a reduced volume or intensity and slowly awaiting your body to rebuild and repair itself after weeks and weeks of working hard and haulin’ ass. I really do not want to be the fittest spectator on the sidelines at Oakland, so I’ll do whatever I need to do between now and then to ensure that I’m on the other side of the barricades. 🙂

This week’s training!

Monday, March 3

p: rest/XT

a: rest

Gotta love the Monday rest days.

Tuesday, March 4

p: VO2 max 9 mi w 5x600m @ 5kRP, jog 90 sec between

a: recovery + speed: 6 w 6x100m strides: 6.02 miles

In the interests of observing the purpose of the taper, I wasn’t super keen to start the week with a VO2 max workout that came shortly after an 8k, that came right after a 20 miler. Instead, I thought it’d make more sense to have a nice recovery with some strides thrown in for variation. The recovery felt really good, the strides were comfortable, so I was happy that I seemed to be holding everything together post-final peak week. For little runs like this, I’ve finally figured out that it makes the most sense to just run tedious laps around my ‘hood. I don’t lose any time to stoplights or much vehicular traffic that way.

Wednesday, March 5

p: MLR 11

a: altered VO2 max workout: 9 miles with 8x800m repeats, 3 min RI — 9.64 miles, avg. for 800: 3:16

Pfitz had the 5x600m repeat workout on the books a couple weeks ago, and I didn’t do it then because I wanted to do 800s instead. With that in mind, I thought it’d make the most sense to do the 800s again for comparative purposes, so off I went to the PCP track in the pre-dawn darkness for my repeats. I was convinced that this run would go poorly due to life interruptions, but it did just the opposite; in fact, I’m positive I’ve not run such consistent 800s before, and especially when doing them by myself:

3:16, 3:15, 3:14, 3:15, 3:15, 3:16, 3:17, 3:16

For the first five repeats, my first 400m was on pace for a 3:05/3:08, but I intentionally slowed down on the second loop because I knew that I am not yet quite able to hold that pace for the entirety of this workout… and especially doing it sola. (Note to self: I desperately need to find fast pre-dawn runners here). On the last two sets, however, my splits for each 400 were perfectly even. I was really thrilled about how these 800s felt and, when I finished, felt like I still had some more left in the tank. It was a really encouraging workout for sure.

in case you wanted to know what it looks like to run 800s at the PCP track pre-dawn. It makes me think of those old "Cops" episodes..
in case you wanted to know what it looks like to run 800s at the PCP track pre-dawn. It makes me think of those old “Cops” episodes..

Thursday, March 6

p: recovery + speed: 6 w 6x100m strides

a: recovery 5.02

Another switch this morning. Everything was in working order when I awoke, but given how the week had progressed, a recovery seemed to be reasonable. Super chill, super humid, pretty cathartic run, and immediately after I finished running, I walked straight into a parked pick-up truck. Yup, I was that relaxed, folks.

Friday, March 7

p: recovery 5

a: MLR 11 mi, 8:23 average

Final midweek (kinda) MLR in the books for this cycle, “just” 11 miles.

I mostly just stuck to running laps around the cemetery that’s about a mile away from home. Like running around my ‘hood, it’s tedious, but I don’t lose a ton of time to vehicles, stoplights, and the like as I do running pretty much anywhere else in my immediate vicinity. Plus, the cemetery has a nice descent and ascent. Anyway, the run was really nice and comfortable, and I felt super spring-y. I’m simultaneously chill/kum-ba-ya and HYPER as all hell, and I told myself a couple times to calm down on this run.  842, 29, 18, 19, 23
826, 31, 21, 14, 15, 18

Saturday, March 8

p: 8-10k tune-up race

a: LR 17 GA 6.02 miles, 8:09 average

Well, I knew I wasn’t going to race on Saturday since I just did on Sunday, so originally, I planned for my 17 mile LR. After doing the typical pre-LR dance with my tea and breakfast, I was literally on my front porch warming up when I decided I’d be better off doing the GA run I was going to do on Sunday. I wasn’t feeling 100%–by now, that cold/sinus thing I had been nursing all week was really making itself known–and while I knew I could, was able, to run 17 miles, I didn’t think it’d be wise. Oh, and shortly before I left to run, I had a lovely nosebleed. It’s pretty hard to snotrocket on your runs when you’re worried that your nose is going to flow red again at any second… just sayin’. Also, during the short little GA run, I experienced some of the seasonal vertigo stuff I get–also not fun. I typically don’t feel it when I’m running, but Saturday must have been my lucky day! At any rate, the actual run itself, through the west side of PCP and over my highway hill, was quite nice. I just felt like I had a bunch of sinus/allergy/cold nonsense in my head and promptly went back to bed once I returned home.

the west side of PCP, near Mabury/Jackson
the west side of PCP, near Mabury/Jackson

Sunday, March 9

p: LR 17

a: LR 17 “being smart 0 miles day”

I spent most of Saturday in bed and super-medicated to clear this shit outta my head, and come Saturday night, I actually felt pretty great; I was pretty confident I’d be ready to do my 17 miler in the morning. When I awoke at 4 to start my usual pre-LR dance, basically, I just had a moment with myself (I do this often) and asked myself what was more important: running a 17 mile training run on sub-par health, just to say that I did it, or taking a true rest day so that I’d be ready to run well, strong, and healthy two weeks from today (race day!!!)? The answer was a no-brainer.

As much as I didn’t want to miss my LR, I knew it was the right decision to make, and in the big picture, really, really important. I can’t remember the last time I skipped a LR, so while I felt a bit guilty about it, once I stopped thinking about this like a runner, I knew I was 100% making the right call. I really don’t want to be the fittest spectator in Oakland.

Missing the long run, combined with this being a taper week anyway, made my weekly mileage tank, but big picture, it’s inconsequential. Rationally, I know that a LR today isn’t going to affect my race performance in two weeks, but having a lingering cold that I was too stubborn dumb to mind early on surely will.  It’s funny; a couple years ago, I would have surely (and stubbornly) run through this in an effort to hit all my prescribed mileage for the week. The things that experience can teach you…

Next week will be amazing, and we’ll be ONE WEEK CLOSER to race day!!

Weekly Mileage

p: 59

a: 37.69

Let’s hear it. What do you do when you fall ill during a training cycle?

At peace

At peace

Comments 9 comments

I’m beginning to eagerly count down the days until Oakland, and more and more, I’m finding myself at this highly-coveted place, somewhere I didn’t think I’d be right now, yet somewhere that feels so good and so right.

 

Peace.

 

I feel like I’m at peace.

 

The words will surely fail me on this attempt, as they often do (despite the piece of paper I have that tells me I’m a master at writing, rhetoric, and discourse…), but probably the only way I can describe the feeling that has been coursing through my veins this week, my first taper week of this Oakland cycle, is that suddenly, everything just feels… good. Right, even. Running-related or otherwise.

 

This isn’t to say that I’m usually not at a place of peace in my life, but instead, I think I am so surprised that these feelings have seemingly erupted from the depths of my soul (hyperbolic, I know… bear with me) when they have.

 

I’ll back up.

 

I took the move from Chicago pretty hard: pretty hard as in, crying a lot, frequently, nearly every night, and repeatedly, type of hard. I cried not only because I was leaving my beloved city but also, probably more so, because there was just so much up in the air, so much unknown. After living in Chicago for eleven years, since the ripe age of eighteen, I grew up there. I earned my BA, MS, and MA degrees there; I met my future husband and had a baby there; I resurrected my running there (in the north shore, where I worked and lived for two years, anyway)–a lot happened while I lived there.

 

When I ran Chicago in the fall as my twentieth marathon, I wrote that it was like a homecoming for me and likely the last time I would do it for a long time. Shortly after I ran Chicago, C left to begin his new job here, while A and I stayed behind for the foreseeable future (at the time) to sell our condo and, for me, to finish teaching my forty undergrads through November. At the time, I knew that us making the move westwardly was in our best interests, especially while A was still so young, and surely, the move would be for the good of C’s career, but with it came a huge question mark, or, as it were, a series of huge question marks:

When will A and I leave?

What if we don’t sell our place until the spring or later (ed. note: we listed in mid-September)?

What if C hates his new job, and we’ve made the move for nothing?

In the absence of an outside-the-home job, how am I going to make friends?

And, while he’s gone, how am I going to run (and train) with A at home with me every day?

 

This series of questions merely skim the surface of what went through my mind on a daily nightly basis, which, as you can imagine, made going to sleep at night (alone) a blast.

 

Fast forward, and we sold our place to a cash buyer about five weeks after we listed it; A and I left Chicago on December 21, about 16 hours after we closed; and then, after living in temporary housing for about two weeks in SJ, we closed on our new place in late December, and all our personal effects arrived on January 13. Perhaps unsurprisingly, my first run in SJ was a mere hour after A and I landed at the airport, and my Oakland training began the week of December 30, after I had only been living in CA for just over a week.

 

putting on a happy face with our agent at closing (Dec 20)
putting on a happy face with our agent at closing (Dec 20, around 4pm, in Little Italy)

 

beyond dumbstruck that it was 52 degrees at 7:40pm on Dec 21 as I was headed out for a run
beyond dumbstruck that it was 52 degrees at 7:40pm on Dec 21 as I was headed out for a run in SJ

 

To say that a lot has happened in the past two months and change, since we began life anew here on December 21, is an understatement. While I’m not surprised that I didn’t waste any time in training for a spring marathon—and I don’t recall if I registered for Oakland before or after we actually sold our place in Chicago … I registered for a lot of CA races while I was still living in IL (hello, coping mechanism)—I am quite surprised that I feel as “at peace,” if you will, about everything now.

 

Running typically keeps me pretty even-keel, but this time around, I think it has done much more than usual, and much more than I bargained for. I think running, and training, as seriously as I have since I began my “new life” in CA has helped me acclimate to life here, has helped forced me to reach far outside my comfort zone to make new friends, and has lit a fire under me to get my shit together in my new life here, just as it has for me to chase that 3:15 this year.

 

Were it not for running, and training for Oakland, I think I’d still be in the same place I was in my final months in Chicago: emotionally spent, stressed as all hell, and swimming in a sea of question marks about my (and my family’s) uncertain future. I knew everything would work out, but I didn’t know how, and I didn’t know when, and not having the security blanket of having answers to those questions is a bit disconcerting.

 

This training cycle has given me plenty of opportunities to slow the hell down and to re-learn everything: new people, new routes, new races, new clubs, new everything. I still have a thousand questions to be answered, but I’m realizing that I’ll find my answers in time: maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but sometime.

 

Perhaps this is just my taper talking, or the high I’m riding from my workout yesterday morning, but I think I am beginning to feel some semblance of normalcy now as a NorCal resident. I feel like I’m beginning to make my way around now, like I’m beginning to establish “my routes” and “my track” and “my hills.” I’m still entertained by some of the huge differences between SJ and Chicago—and I suppose those will continue to entertain me for a while still—but this week, I feel like I’ve finally begun to exhale and finally think this is it. We’re here. This is our new life.

 

Of course, I miss Chicago, and I miss my running there, and my friends, and my family, and everything that is associated with my Chicago life from the past decade-plus, and I don’t anticipate that ever really going away.

 

And that’s okay.

 

This week was finally the week where, when I was unpacking (and yup, two months later, we still have boxes—this is what happens when you move cross-country and get rid of all your furniture, folks), I wasn’t thinking to myself that it’d be stupid to put things in a certain place because we’d be moving again in 18 months.

 

Instead, I’m thinking about where we’re going to put our Christmas tree next winter, or when we can take daytrips to the many sites within a day’s drive of SJ, or which races I should prioritize doing this spring, summer, and fall, or which schools I should research to see if I could teach there part-time. I am finally beginning to feel not necessarily that I “belong” here—because I don’t know if I ever actually feel that way anywhere—but that being here is good.

 

Leaving Chicago hurt, but Northern California, Silicon Valley, the Bay Area, the South Bay, San Jose, whatever you want to call the area where my family and I now reside, ain’t half bad after all.

 

Just as in running, every day is an adventure, if not also an opportunity, and what I choose to do with each opportunity I now have here is my choice and mine alone. Perhaps it’s silly that an intense 70/12 marathoning cycle had to happen in my new digs for me to get to this place, but that clarity or confidence that I’m finally feeling now, about living here, about racing in Oakland in a few weeks, and about working my bootay off to realize that 3:15 this year, is indescribable.

 

Palpable, even.

 

Just a month before we moved, I wrote, and I can’t believe I’m quoting myself on my own blog, “As in running, sometimes the biggest risk is in stagnation. Remove the comfort, dispose of the familiar, kick out the crutches beneath you, and see what the hell happens.”

 

Little did I know that kicking out the crutches would help bring me to peace.