Browsed by
Tag: PR

The barn and the (burned) boats

The barn and the (burned) boats

The past seven days have been really tough—and obviously, not just because I’m battling typical, run-of-the-mill taper tantrums and taper madness. Figuring things out and processing my sentiments after what transpired at Boston has been really, really challenging, and while I still haven’t come to any sort of peace with how I’ve tried to make sense of the tragedies that unfolded, I suppose—am hoping—that I will, in time. It is heartbreaking, my being was bruised and my soul shattered, and I felt as though my (running) family and I were all personally and communally violated on Marathon Monday, but here we are. Ultimately, I know that, in the end, the enormity and spirit of my running family far surpasses anything that tries to come between us.

A and me in our Boston blue for #chicagolovesboston and #bostonstrong
A and me in our Boston blue for #chicagolovesboston and #bostonstrong
outside a federal government branch office in Lincoln Sq.
outside a federal government branch office in Lincoln Sq.
The little one rockin' the unicorn
The little one rockin’ the unicorn

We will endure.

That’s all we know.

In other news that’s inconsequential in comparison, my marathon—Eugene, baby!–is less than week away! Last week, I found myself more terrified and anxious than excited and confident, but as race day creeps nearer, I’m leaning more toward excitement—though still, of course, with a healthy dose of fear and intimidation.

By no means am I a numbers gal—hellooooooooo, humanities—but dailymile makes it pretty easy to run the numbers on my training. With four days of running remaining before the 26.2 jaunt on Sunday, I can say that I’ve clocked more time training—and more importantly, more miles—for Eugene than I have before for any of my previous 18 marathons.

Catch that?

I’ve run more miles—over 600—training for Eugene’s 26.2 mile lovefest than I have for any of my previous 18 marathons.

Jump back, Johnny; that’s a big deal.

Added to my uptick in mileage for Eugene has also been an increased focus on ancillary work, like running-specific core work and bodyweight-based at-home strength work, as well as an intense, sometimes pretty humbling focus on speedwork wherein I handed my ass to myself each week (typically before sunrise, and more often than not, in pretty horrendous Chicago winter weather) and was elated if I either a) hit my target pace one time (out of the five or six times that I should have) or b) came within five-ten seconds of hitting it.

Another variable in this Eugene training cocktail that I did differently was incorporate social media into the mix. I just began using dailymile in 2013, and I really only started using twitter at the end of 2012 (but for all intents and purposes, in 2013), and I’ve found that connecting online with a bunch of other like-minded people—in my case, crazy runners—has been deeply gratifying and motivating.

It’s funny, really, because I don’t personally (as in, in real time) know very many of the runners I support online via blog comments, tweets, or dailymile motivations, even though many are Chicago-based, but I’ve come to really appreciate the feedback that I get from them, much as I do the feedback I get from my RT training partners. (and a big shout-out to my readers and respondents here! Ya’ll rule. Lotsa love. xoxo)

Call me crazy, but I think social media has helped me up my game this time around.

Additionally, or maybe most importantly, I haven’t really committed to a training plan in a very long time; if I’m being honest, it has been about… oh… three years (since I did Boston ’10). I had my own reasons for “doing my own thing,” but post-Houston, a fire was lit under me somehow (and by whom, I don’t know, hence my use of the passive voice) that inspired me to seek out training plans in a way that I haven’t in years.

The ultimate result, as I’ve written about, was using Pfitzinger’s up-to-55 miles/week plan (with some slight modifications), and I found myself coming to training each week excited—though slightly and healthily intimidated—with what laid before me. I was like a sponge—or maybe a rubber band—ready to soak up as much of this “new” way of training as I could… while being flexible and just “going with it”… to see what my body was truly capable of doing.

It often, if not usually, far, far, far surpassed my own expectations… and that feeling is to. die. for.

To say that my past twelve weeks of training for Eugene, nearly fresh off my Houston Marathon PR, has been equal parts incredibly rewarding and super refreshing is an understatement.

I don’t mean to be hyperbolic here, but dare I say that going into my race on 4/28, I’m a different marathoner than I was on 1/13 in Houston.

I am really looking forward to racing in Tracktown, USA, in just a few short days. I feel well, my body feels healthy, and perhaps most importantly, my mind is getting to **that place** where it’s beginning to believe everything that I’ve (and my training partners) been telling it for this training cycle. I am still slightly intimidated and nervous to publicly announce that I burned my boat and am aiming for a sub-3:30 finish, but like I’ve been brainwashing telling myself, there’s no reason this can’t happen.

I am totally ready to do this.

I will surely re-read this post roughly a thousand times before I publish it, and wonder if I’m jinxing myself or if I should be superstitious or if I should sandbag myself some and just say that I’d be happy with a sub-4 finish (or just to finish the race, in general), but I’ve gotta be confident.

I can do this.

These twelve weeks have brought me new 10k and 8k PRs, more mileage (and way faster mileage, for the matter) for a marathon training program than ever before, a re-commitment to ancillary work that’s so critical for runners (but so easily ignored by most, myself included), and a great sense of camaraderie with the running community in ways that mimics that which I feel when I’m in a formal, meet-twice-a-week-for-runs group program.

Training for Eugene, in some ways, reminds me of when I trained for my first marathon in 2007, and I fell in love with running for the first time. In other ways, it makes me think of post-May 2011, after I gave birth, and I began running again on the day of my six-week postpartum visit, when I got the “all-clear” to begin running again.

I’ve never really had an on-again, off-again relationship with running, but I guess you can see we’ve renewed our vows a couple times now. 😉

Anything can happen on race day, and nothing is guaranteed. I know this. Years of racing and marathoning experience has taught me as much. I’ve controlled that which I can control, though, and I’m happy with what has happened in my training. If I successfully gain entry in Club-Sub-3:30 on Sunday, all the better.

The hay is in the barn.

…and I am so ready to go to town with that hay, barn and all.

PS: runner tracking is up on the Eugene race site. Check it out!

 

 

Shamrock Shuffle 8k race report

Shamrock Shuffle 8k race report

I can’t say the word “shuffle” without thinking of this stupid song; I’ll be glad to have this out of my head in the next 24 hours.

Anyway, here are the promised goods for today’s 8k race report. A little background information might be in order for all my non-Dailymile readers, so here goes. Saturday was my final “long long” run for Eugene–21.3 miles on the lakefront, some of it with Jack, and the last bit of it at sub-marathon pace–so going into the SS, I had some tired legs, though not particularly super sore: just sleepy (àpropos for me anyway these days, since we’ve transitioned A from her crib to her daybed… lil stinker figured out how to climb out, so now my toddler awakens me in the middle of the night by yelling “maaaaaaaaaaaa-ma” and insisting that we do a few rounds of “shake your hands” or “baa baa black sheep”).

When I ran the SS in ’12, I had also run my last 20 for Urbana-Champaign the day before, but I had also not run for 5 days prior after dealing with my second sinus infection in four weeks. Combined with not physiologically being 100% for the race, I made a really dumb, novice-y mistake: going out too quickly and therefore enduring a slow, painful, and will-killing death march for 3.97 miles of the 4.97 mile race.

This time around, I was determined to race more intelligently, like I knew what the hell I was doing.

My girl and I had a good time at the expo on Friday at Navy Pier. We didn’t particularly have anywhere to be, so we had fun just strollin’ through it, and of course, the vendors ate her up. She, apparently, was far less unnerved by this expo than that of Houston’s. Maybe it was the lack of Texan accents…?

The little one hard at work; btw, the red mark on her cheek is the remnants of a temporary tattoo, not a marker mistake:)
The little one hard at work; btw, the red mark on her cheek is the remnants of a temporary tattoo, not a marker mistake 🙂

Come race morning, I woke up to some GI issues–a recurring theme this week, for some reasons I’m still hypothesizing–but I felt fine nonetheless. Once I got downtown, I eventually did an easy mile-and-change warm-up, plus some strides, before I got through the sea of humanity that was the SS participant field and put myself in the A corral.

Interestingly, my fast training partner, Jack, who ran faster than me here last year, got relegated to the B corral because, essentially, of gender parity issues. I get it, I do, but it seemed problematic in more ways than one that some fast men were in the second non-elite corral and starting behind women who are slower runners than these fast guys; I haven’t heard if there were any collisions, but from what Jack said afterward, the release of the B runners seemed to be executed pretty well.

Seconds before we started running, I realized that I didn’t start as far back as I thought I had placed myself in the corral–my attempt to start rather conservatively–but I still felt pretty confident that I wouldn’t do anything stupid.

Well, my watch assured me I wouldn’t. Or, at the very least, it wouldn’t tell me if I did.

The first two miles of the course mirror that of the Chicago Marathon, and just like last year, my Garmin pretty much flaked out within the first… oh… half-mile. We run under a series of bridges and overpasses that connect Randolph and Wacker Sts. to Lake Shore Drive, and my watch hung in there for a couple minutes but then quickly informed me it had “lost satellite reception” for the following… oh… .3 of a mile. (This will be something I’ll have to deal with and worry about more this summer, when I’m training for Chicago. For today, it was just one of those “you’ve got to be kidding me” moments).

I felt like I had gotten into a pretty comfortable rhythm and pace early on, by about mile 1 or 1.5 (though I had no idea what my pace was because of my watch issues), and then I noticed that the course seemed different; I didn’t recall running on Wabash last year or zig-zagging around the Trump Tower before picking up State St.

Turns out there was a bridge-jumper threat that necessitated that the race go into contingency mode.

My first few spectators I was trying to spot were going to be near mile 2, but I didn’t see any of them; instead, I saw a former Team in Training teammate-turned-coach around mile 2.5, which was a nice pick-me-up. Once we ventured all the way west before looping back around and coming down Harrison, I began counting the minutes until I would see C and A at the 4-mile turn, but alas, I didn’t see my family anywhere either 🙁  Spectating, in and of itself, can be a challenge; add a toddler to the mix, and the 50-50 odds seem to go down to about 20-80. I did, however, spot Jack’s wife, Guerline, right before our turn up “Mt. Roosevelt” (also on the marathon course), which brought a spring to my step.  Finally, as I was about to run up Roosevelt, I heard another voice yell my name, though I was pretty sure I had made up hearing it and didn’t even turn my head to look… and it was my loss, since I missed seeing another friend (sorry, Ken)! I think I need some spectating-on-the-run practice.

By the time I finished, the clock read in the 35:xx, so I was pretty sure that I had PRed at the distance and at this race, in particular, but again, I had no idea. My watch indicated I had run 5.4 miles–whatever–once I finished, and just a few minutes later, I saw Mort come in with a friend he had paced and then Jack, who reported that he had run a steady, watch-less run that he was happy with.

Everyone was a winner today.

It was a beautiful day for a race–40s, overcast initially but then sunny, and I was comfortable in a hat, shades, racerback singlet, shorts, and armwarmers. I ditched my snazzy $1.50 gloves right after I crossed the starting line, and strangely, the singlet + sportsbra combo I used this morning gave me some weird chafing issue in my armpit: strange only because I wore the same bra and singlet (though in a different color) in the Houston Marathon’s nasty weather and was totally fine.

Something to evaluate for Eugene in the coming weeks.

Once C, A, and I rendezvoused, we took advantage of the generosity of some very obliging runners making their way back to the CTA to have a little photo session. Gotta love these sunshiney days in Chicago in April (and bonus, where we’re standing is just a half block away from where I used to work).

C was very excited.. trying to make A smile
C was very excited.. trying to make A smile
Our selfie shot
Our selfie shot
Hanging with my girl post-shuffle! She's my biggest (littlest) fan :)
Hanging with my girl post-shuffle! She’s my biggest (littlest) fan 🙂

The Shuffle is one of those races wherein I’d advise against really *thinking* about it. For a long time, I tended to think that it was overpriced for the distance–which it is–but I think there is something cool about the race–or maybe the experience of the race, that makes it worthwhile.

There are just so many runners (approximately 40k) that, no joke, by the time I finished and was strollin’ over to gear check, there were runners in their corrals who hadn’t even started their race yet. It’s a super fun atmosphere, and people really go all-out for it: dudes decked out in full-body green paint and green ‘fros, costumes, lots of glitter and sparkle, but also some serious, serious speed.

It’s a fun combination.

And for comparative purposes, let’s see my splits, according to the SS, versus those of my flaked-out watch:

*official* results: 6:52, 6:37, 6:49, 6:43, 6:41 (.97 mi) = 33:31, 6:45 average.

–Overall: 851/33,219; 140/19,231 females; 59/5,020 age division

my messed-up Garmin: 6:40, 6:19, 4:59 (WTH?!), 6:16, 6:28, 6:40 = 33:31, 5.42 miles, 6:11 average. [This is just comical…]

Today’s race was a solid confidence booster for Eugene. Of course, I don’t plan on running 6:45s for 26.2 miles, but it was really refreshing and encouraging to know that after running 21.3 the day before (at around an 8:18 pace on average), I can still turn my legs “on” a bit and take them for a ride for 8k. This also makes me really optimistic that I can go sub-20 in a 5k this year.

Hard to believe that Eugene is just 21 days away now. Pretty freakin’ exciting.