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October 2018 training recap

October 2018 training recap

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…and here we are, early November, with CIM less than a month away, and not too much left of the year 2018, either, as a matter of fact. I know I say this with every monthly recap and probably with every marathon training cycle, too, but damn. Time sure is going by quickly.

October was one of those months wherein if I could have four of me, it’d make things easier, but alas, the laws of nature as yet still prohibit that, so here we are. The month was rife with lots of good stuff, things that had been in the pipeline for months and that had finally come to fruition. That’s not me being purposefully vaguesauce; it’s just me not wanting to bore y’all to tears over the inner-trappings of all things Girl Scouts, PTA, and the like. (You’re welcome).

in the throes of our sleepover at the Oakland Zoo (which was awesome and I’d highly recommend it, local GS families)

It’s always so gratifying to spend weeks and weeks, if not months and months, planning something and then have it all come together. I think that’s part of why I like marathons: because they necessitate so much planning and so much in the way of contingency plans. You’ve got your Plan A or Goal A, of course, but then you also cover your bases and get down to Z, too, if need be. The flip-side, of course, is that if things don’t go well on marathon day, it’s pretty difficult to easily turn around and do another one, but the build-up is an excellent practice in delayed gratification. Plus — which kinda makes no sense whatsoever to me — even when the training goes by fast, it forces us to slow down and take in the miles as we experience them. I think that’s a great lesson that we can apply to daily life. Remember to breathe and to take time to look around every once in a while.    

Getting recognized for swimming a mile for charity

 

C as Beetlejuice with our neighbor and friend, Vivi

 

Princess Poppy (or Lady Glittersparkles), with a tiara, wearing a Sofia the First pendant, in my prom dress from 2001 or 2002

 

BB8 & Maleficent with a little Juju avocado on the side

Aside from the all the many “life” stuff that October brought, it also brought running hot and heavy, to the tune of around 220 miles. The month was filled with lots of quality miles, some solid, hard workouts, and a *lot* of racing between the Aggies XC Open, the Water Dog 10k, the East Bay 10k, and the Oktoberun half marathon. While not all of these races provided a reliable glimpse into my marathon fitness (due to one reason or another), they did, however, all give me great excuses to see friends from near and far whom I otherwise don’t see. Color me thrilled. I was really lucky to shoehorn these races into pretty packed weekend schedules all month long, too, and for that I am super grateful (S/O to my husband here; this really is a team effort).

cheesin’ hard somewhere on a downhill during the Water Dog 10k (thanks for the very nice and complimentary pics!)

 

when in doubt, throw your hands in the air and hug it out

 

Aggies XC open

 

As we head into November and arguably the thickest part of the CIM training block, I can’t help but be inspired by how people use running and goal races — such as CIM — in their lives in very different but very meaningful ways. Obviously, people begin running at different times in their lives, ranging from childhood to adulthood, and for many different reasons, anything from “I got dumped and I needed to cope” to “I lost a bet” or whatever else. I’m always so intrigued to hear people’s “whys” and what they do, the decisions they make, to keep going with their running day after day. I mean, after all, it’s exponentially easier to quit than it is to keep going; that’s true for just about everything. The gamut of emotion underpinning all of these experiences related to running is deep and rich, and it makes me both appreciate and view my own running “journey,” if you will, differently than I otherwise would. It’s enlightening.  

I was reminded of this sentiment last month when I was volunteering with Wolfpack at the Rock n Roll San Jose half marathon. It was a warmer-than-usual day (and it’s a hot course in the first place), so I think by and large, most runners suffered a bit more than usual. I was hanging on a corner around the 8 mile marker, and toward the end of the race, perhaps around the 3-hour finisher group, a woman dressed in purple walked over to me. At first, I asked if she was okay — since the EMTs were also on that same corner with me — and as we got into conversation, she told me that she follows me on IG (small world) and knew my stroke story from earlier this year. We got to talking, and I learned that just recently, just a week or two earlier, she had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and would be starting her chemo and radiation at Good Sam the following week, just days after RNRSJ.

Suffice it to say that when she showed me her chemo port near her clavicle, it took my breath away. I was so grateful to be wearing dark sunnies. She was young for that disease, probably early-to-mid 40s, and said that she had been in great shape training for RNRSJ when she got the diagnosis. Doing — and finishing — the race was going to be her last hurrah, of sorts, before she began chemo and really began dealing with her illness in earnest. I was so impressed with her candor the whole time she was talking and her absolute bravery toward this disease, a type of cancer that typically has a pretty dire prognosis. She could have been anywhere else that morning, doing literally anything else, yet there she was in the thick of a road race. She was struggling to finish the race but at least wanted to show up and try because not trying wasn’t an option for her. My heart goes out to her, and I obviously am hoping for the best for her as she deals with the insidious disease that is cancer.

This story exemplifies something that I find so powerful about our sport, too. When we’re on the starting line, preparing to compete, we have no idea what it took for all of our peers around us to get there, to stand next to us on that day. Even if we’re all on the line because we have similar goals we want to destroy — like a PR, a BQ, or whatever — we have no idea about the stories and experiences that our peers are bringing with them to the starting (and eventually, the finish) line, the fuel they’re throwing on the fire that’s propelling them from Point A to Point B. Everyone’s journey is different, of course, but everyone’s dealing with something. Sometimes, it’s a little easier to jump to conclusions and understand, even if only a little, what’s making someone compete, particularly if that person is wearing a singlet for a specific charity or advocacy group.

What’s more often the reality, however, is that when we toe the line at a race, we put on our singlets and encase ourselves in a cloak of relative anonymity. Our running and racing becomes about something that is greater than ourselves, greater than us as individual humans. We can both run towards, and away from, something if we so choose. At its heart, running allows us to suffer, yes, but it also allows us to see through, and make sense of, our suffering. I don’t know of many other sports that offer its participants that type of experience. It’s pretty impressive that something so basic and innate can be something so (mentally and physically) transformative.

…and therein lies the beauty of our sport.

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Reading: Oh man, have you read Bad Blood yet? I started it and finished it in early October, and holy crap. It’s pretty incredible. After I finished, I found myself going down the youtube rabbit hole to watch interviews that Elizabeth Holmes had done over the years (partially because I wanted to hear her voice, which is … yeah), and man. What a wild story. After that, I shifted gears and read The Power and left feeling somewhat… uneasy. If you’ve read either, please let me know your thoughts. I was so intrigued by both.

Listening: My husband turned me on to the “In the Dark” podcast, and I finished season 1 over the course of the month during my easy runs. I didn’t listen to “Serial” in its entirety, but that’s what it reminded me of. Season 1 was really hard to listen to at times, due to the content, but it was really well done. My usual IVF podcast of choice is still going strong, and of course, like most of the world, I binged on the “A Star is Born” soundtrack because I love Lady Gaga. (Still haven’t seen it yet, however). Oh, and “Sample of my Pasta” (Bad Lip Reading) and “IDOL” (BTS) are both huge in my house right now and have piqued my kids’ and my interest in k-pop.

Anticipating: Well, I’m writing this on Election Day, so…

Watching: Nothing comes to mind, per yoosh. I started watching “The Tick” on Amazon as a silly show that I can watch with the kids, and it lives up to that expectation. Otherwise, I haven’t seen much. (Now that I say that, I realize the fam and I went to see “Small Foot” this month, and I fell asleep during the back half of the movie. -_- )

Family: Last month, I wrote a lot about my eldest’s swim program going up in proverbial flames. She has since decided to commit to a different program, and fortunately, all seems to be working out well. She participated in a “swim a mile” charity fundraiser in Oakland after a Girl Scout overnight we had with our troop at the zoo, and she loved it. She also participated in a two day swim meet in October and will do it again before the end of the year. Otherwise, the kids and the fam are all doing well.

Racing: Like I mentioned, October was pretty stacked in the racing department. I always say that it’s always a good time of year to be a runner, but like I said last month, the fall racing season is just magical. In November, I’m only planning to do the XC championship meet up in SF before CIM in early December, so ye olde racing sched should be a little quieter this time around. Hard to believe that there’s just a little XC meet left and then it’ll be the big day.

again: when in doubt, throw your hands up

Less than a month now til CIM!  

2018 Oktoberun Half Marathon Race Report – Redwood City, CA

2018 Oktoberun Half Marathon Race Report – Redwood City, CA

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My restrictive schedule over the past few weeks made sneaking in a half marathon tune-up race, ideally about a month out from CIM, pretty challenging. There are definitely many HM options in the Bay Area at this time/all times of the year; it’s just that very few of them worked for me because of other, non-running commitments I’ve had on my weekend calendar (all good things though!). 

Plus, to be honest, HMs intimidate me, and especially in the throes of marathon training. That intimidation isn’t enough to completely turn me off from doing them during training, but it does make me less-than-enthusiastic to register for them. Typically, I often don’t perform better than GMP, in terms of my time, and of late, my HMs have been beset by other annoying externalities that negatively affect my performance (such as the weather, a challenging course topography, and the ever-popular GI issues mid-run). It’s certainly not the end of the world, but it’s definitely annoying.

Eventually, I came upon Redwood City’s Oktoberun half marathon, scheduled about 5 weeks out from CIM, on the last Sunday in October, and somewhat miraculously, it worked with my schedule. From what I could glean about the course, and from what I remembered from reading my peers’ RRs from previous years, the course would be flat and fast, and the whole shebang would be a fairly no-frills, inexpensive experience. That’ll work! RC is just about 26 miles up the peninsula, about halfway between here and SF, which was also convenient.

race logo. in case you were wondering.

 

Coach Lisa’s plan for the day was that I’d run the first four miles around GMP and then run HM for the remaining nine, with the option to pick it up at the end, depending on how I felt. I’d take SiS at about miles 4-5 and then again around 9-10 and would supplement with fluids as often as my stomach could handle it. By approaching the race as a long run workout, I didn’t feel any pressure to necessarily “race race” or perform, which was great. Instead, I merely had to focus on executing the workout as prescribed. (There’s probably just a slight difference in semantics between “performing” and “executing,” but to me, the difference is substantial).

After a super easy warm-up mile, singular, and then chatting with the many friends I saw that morning (Robin, Margot, Sesa, Jen, Angela, Claire and Patrick, and more I’m surely forgetting, sorry), we were off. It was pretty perfect racing weather, and I was feeling really good from the start. I caught up to the 1:40 pacer, who — delightfully — was my buddy, Sarbajeet. We hadn’t seen each other in a while, so it was great to catch up with him and talk about CIM plans, how he’s going to Boston for the first time in 2019, family happenings,  and all types of dorky runner stuff that just makes my heart sing. Staying with him for the first four miles was also excellent because it helped me to stay honest about my pacing and to better follow Lisa’s plans for the day. I felt comfortable and had no problem running my mouth while keeping GMPish, which was encouraging.

Aside from maybe the first (and then final) mile of the course, most everything else was on the Bay Trail and/or through little HOAs that abut the Bay Trail. It seemed that very little of the “Redwood City” race was actually in the city, proper, and with no redwoods to be seen, and that we instead spent a lot of time alternating between running next to 101, running through HOAs, and then running on sections of the Bay Trail that were pavement, dirt, or loose gravel. I imagine it’s way less money for the race to get permits when they set up races in this way — as opposed to shutting down entire swaths of a city — but it can get monotonous at times. Fortunately, I couldn’t recall ever running on those sections of the Bay Trail (and had spent very little time in RC before), so I was trying to take in the scenery while doing my workout. If nothing else, it was nice to be away from cars and roads open to vehicular traffic.

running by water … guess who took this picture?!

Soon after I split from Sarbajeet and his pace group at mile 4, I downed an SiS gel and concentrated on hitting the HM pace range targets that Lisa had set for me. It meant dropping from a 7:33/7:40ish to 7:09/7:16ish, and more than that, it meant not being an idiot at mile five of a HM. I think part of the reason I have historically struggled with this distance is because I go out like I’m doing a mile time trial or something (note to self: a HM is not a 5k or a mile; don’t run it like one) and then I just taaaaaaaank and finish completely demoralized. At this race, I was determined *not* to do that and found myself really focused on staying in each mile and thinking about how the mile *felt* versus what I was reading on my watch. I was hopeful that I could do what Lisa told me to do.

A quick aside: for reasons inexplicable to me, during this training cycle for CIM, I have found that I’m looking less and less often at my watch, even during workouts and races. Instead, I’ve been relying more on my perceived effort and using that to guide me to work harder or to ease up. I find this especially interesting because it wasn’t as though I ever really clock-watched all that much during races or workouts in the first place, before this cycle. Now, however, I almost feel like I could ditch the watch altogether because I’m barely referring to it mid-run for pacing feedback (though admittedly, I think I’ll always wear something just to have the data points later down the line). If anything, I glance at it during races/runs/workouts to check on the time of day or on the mileage, but I’m barely looking at the paces most of the time. I’m not sure what to make of it. 

chasing down someone about half my age and not be able to see at all (thanks sun)

Anyway, the nine mile workout portion felt pretty good overall, and I was completely surprised to see Lisa pull up alongside me on her bike around mile 6 or so, just shortly after I began the harder running portion of the race. We chatted briefly before she left, and by about mile 7ish, runners did a quick U-turn and began their journeys back to downtown RC. Along the way, I gave and received so many side fives from friends on various portions of their outs/backs that strangers were visibly and audibly laughing at me over it, which was fantastic. (There really is nothing like a solid side-five shared with friends mid-race). It was especially curious when Robin and I side-fived and my hand had dirt in it afterward — ohmygosh did she fall mid-race?! How did she fall?? Is she ok!? How is this going to affect her PR attempt?! — but aside from trying to Sherlock about this mystery dirt presence for a few miles, the side-fives were awesome little pick-me-ups that stayed with me for a while. (Note: Robin did fall, and she was fine. Her words. And I think she still eked out a PR like a boss. Cray).

TFW when your coach/teammate/friend/inspo pulls up alongside you mid-race, rather unexpectedly (PS where’s your helmet?!?)

By about mile nine, my legs were beginning to feel tired and sorta powerless, like every footfall I took into the dirt/gravel mix took way more energy to propel myself forward than it should. I felt like every step I was taking was just making me sink more and more deeply into the ground, which made for an interesting strength workout mid-HM. Must! Pick! Up! Legs! Come! On! Hamstrings! I had a lot of moments with myself over this — convincing myself that it was in my head, or that I was tired from the cumulative fatigue of training, and that I wasn’t tapered at all (by design) for this race, since I had just done a workout a few days prior, all that stuff — and just kept keeping on. What else are you going to do in a race, ya know? You can stop, yes, but you still have to get back to the finish line somehow. You could slow down, sure, but it’ll still just take longer to get back. The fastest way out is through. I tried to just keep grinding and began playing the “30 minutes of running left, that’s like 1 minute 30 times; I can run for 1 minute 30 times” mental BS that we all surely subject ourselves to when we get tired. It works!

the scenery was pretty, for the most part anyway (save for when we were adjacent to 101). 

When I wasn’t playing that fun game, by about mile 10, once we were back near 101 and getting closer to RC, I began playing the I wonder if I can catch that person ahead of me wearing ________ game, which made the time go by even faster (and which helped me pull ahead of four-five people in the back 10k of the course). I didn’t dare look at my watch at all for the final 3-4 miles because I wanted to keep continuing with the effort, regardless of what my watch would tell me. During this fun game, I tried to focus my energies on catching the people furthest away from me and played a game that (I think) Deena wrote about in her autobiography, wherein you imagine that there’s a rope tied between you and the other runner up ahead and you have to pull yourself closer to that person. Again: whatever works. That seemed to do the job.   

distracting myself by pulling a Lisa and doing finger guns

My mental math attempts were for absolute shit at the end of the race, but since I was ahead of Sarbajeet, I knew that *barring catastrophe* I’d finish in a sub-1:40. It was hard to run tangents perfectly in the race due to how the course was set-up, so my watch was (acceptably) about .1 ahead of the mile markers. I didn’t recall seeing any other pace groups between 1:30 and Sarbajeet, and as I was getting closer to finishing, I thought that I may be able to post about a 1:38, which for me, in the thick of marathon training, and as a workout, would be solid. I was thrilled to get closer to the finish line (and hear Claire and her family just steps from the finish line) and realize that my math was worse than ever and that I was actually going to finish in 1:36. Yeah!

hooray for a solid HM! that deep eyebrow furrow means GAME ON (PC, this and all previous: Lisa)

Because of all those externalities I mentioned earlier, I seem to run a good-for-me half marathon every couple years, so I was delighted that it happened at the Oktoberun. The other two half marathons I can remember running this year were met with very different outcomes — Silicon Valley half as the first big distance run that I completed post-stroke, when I was building up my endurance again; and the half in Ohio this summer that was super hilly and super humid — so it was nice to run the Oktoberun half, even as a workout, and get a little better idea of my fitness. 1:36 is a bit off my PR (1:33/1:31*), but given the conditions surrounding the day (doing it as a workout, on untapered legs, in the thick of marathon training, yadda yadda yadda), I was ecstatic. Plus, I didn’t shit myself mid-race, so that’s pretty awesome too (especially for me during HMs).  

After another super easy cool-down mile, singular, because I was being lazy, and then chatting again with Robin, David, Sesa, Margot, and Claire’s family, I hauled back to the south bay for day two of my eldest’s swim meet and gloriously made it before her first event. I had a really positive experience at the Redwood City Oktoberun and would recommend it to folks who are looking for a tune-up before CIM and who want something low-frills. The course is super flat, though I think it can be challenging to run ultra fast in parts just because of the varying terrain (pavement, gravel, dirt). It’s not an enormous field or rife with spectator support or anything like that, but if those elements aren’t important to you, then it’d be a great fit. It definitely has that nice little “community race” vibe to it, and it benefits RC’s public schools, which is nice to get behind. I think I’d do it again if I wanted to do another HM in advance of CIM next year (and especially compared to more expensive or farther afield options).

friends! with Sesa and Margot post-race. Seeing them mid-race was lovely (PC: Sesa)

I don’t ask for much in races these days — just an accurately measured course that’s safe — and I think this one delivered. This was my last race as a 34 year-old (woot!), and now, only one more race — XC champs — stands between CIM and me.

One month to go!