thursday i spent the day at home working on something hard. and it got harder and harder as the afternoon progressed, and i got more and more frustrated. and then at like 7pm i thought... oh. wait. i see what is happening here. i am getting SICK. fuck.
that caused me a lot of oh, fuck: because, 1. i have all the work to do. and 2. i had a 5k race to run saturday morning.
on thursday night, i slept 13 slightly-feverish hours.
on friday, i didn't do a lot. i put up the christmas tree, did some sloooow (hard?) pilates, and had a couple medicinal beverages with a friend. however, i also spent the evening chilling with my other half, who keeps later hours than i do, so i went to bed at 2am.
and so 6 hours later on saturday morning, i had a cup of coffee and thought: ok, i feel good enough to run. not totally fine, but certainly alive enough. i don't have a cold, so my airways were clear, but i had less energy than your typical me. also it was -14C with the windchill, which is colder than it has been -- and it was that kind of deceptive cold where it's sunny and bright and the sky is bright blue with those white wispy clouds, but turns out that air is brittle and the wind is like an ice-whip? yes, that. great.
but! i put on many things. (I REMEMBERED NOT TO EAT OATMEAL FOR BREAKFAST). and i headed out to the one little pretty street of old town lansing. then, i got a bib and a thick red-and-grey santa toque as swag (not bad!), appreciated the dedication of the other 250 people stomping and freezing wearing absurd christmas decorations and snow-witch costumes (seriously, silver pants, calm down), ran a few warm up blocks to be sure i wasn't kidding myself that i could run, ditched my Garmin to run on feel (excellent idea, am pretty sure), experienced the world's wobbliest port-o-potty (think: trying to pee on a surfboard; ok stop thinking that) and lined up in a rather ragged but cheerful pack on the river trail. and then -- let's go!
it was an out and back, and i felt about the same the whole time: uncomfortable, but not going to quit. it wasn't easy, it wasn't deathly, but i mostly held on. the mile markers were hilarious: although i was watchless, i think the 1 mile marker was about right; the 2 mile marker was honestly 100 yard later, and there were no others. um, what. about a kilometer in, after passing a fair number of people who clearly did not take the 'line-up-according-to-pace' message to heart, i was passed by two women, who were moving slightly faster than me but making it look easy. ... in contrast, i'm pretty sure i was not making it look easy.
so! i decided to not lose them. and i spent the next four kilometres between 5 and 10 paces behind them. when i finished about 10 seconds behind them, i felt fairly triumphant about that! i also kind of wanted to puke, but we've been there before. and now the internet results tell me that they were 23 and 22! also, they probably were going for a jog, but nevermind.
i finished in 25:17, which was 18 seconds slower than i wanted. not bad for a slightly sick and tired me! and i feel like the return to a sub-25 minute 5k is definitely within reach. it's crazy how racing helps -- the last time i was out running and tried to pick up the pace for 5k i ran it in like 27:10, and thought -- man, am i filled with concrete? but having those 23 year olds to chase, i guess... and really, it's a pretty excellent toque. so wins all round.
Sunday, December 8, 2013
Thursday, November 21, 2013
still here, still running, and also speedwork?
so, hello.
in the month since the marathon, i have in fact returned to running. for two and a half weeks i was traveling, so running was really my only good way to exercise, so i ran a lot. boston has a river, so i ran along the river (Boston Marathon Citgo sign in the background). western massachusetts has a lot of hills and bike paths, so i ran them too. and new york has many long bridges and huge parks, so i ran for miles at dusk back and forth between manhattan and brooklyn, and around prospect park (like central park, but smaller, and more brooklyn.)
and so now: what am i doing? yeah, i'm running. that's still a thing. i'm enjoying it, often a lot. i often bring my garmin but often i don't. i confess i've been using my marathon playlist most of the time, which means i get these bursts of emotion and energy and lethargy depending on the songs; as the playlist is on random shuffle it can be kind of a rollercoaster. ... i'm not feeling at my healthiest, but i'm trying to get in a good mind space about that and eat better to combat the ughness, and overall i'm pretty happy to be running.
yesterday while running i realized i'm excited again about the prospect of running goals for 2014. ... at new years 2012, i was focused on running 30k in march. at new years 2013, i was already committed to running the marathon in october. so by new years 2014, i want a new plan; i think the right option will be to pick two goal races, one in the spring and one later. i am pretty sure neither should be a marathon; probably they will be chosen for interesting locations and features? suggestions welcome? i have already received some compelling arguments for running Bay State next fall (compelling as in I was offered a place to stay and substantial amounts of post-race homemade pie.)
so: goals. coming soon.
i'm also running 5k in two weekends, and i think i may try running kind of speedily there, see how that goes. ... speaking of which! a speedy runner of my acquaintance commented on my last post-marathon post, reporting that she has gotten into speedwork (again, but for the first time since either college or highschool?), and asking about my own speed attempts?
so, let's pretend this is the kind of running blog where i know things, and i'll pretend along with you.
my usual approach to speed work is intervals. i am happiest doing something like 800 x 4 with 400m recovery. which is not a normal way to do intervals i realize, in that why is the recovery so long? i guess i probably shouldn't even call them intervals -- but you see i'm in the woods on trails, not on a track, so 400m makes more sense there. when i drop down to something shorter than 600 or 400m per interval, i find i'm no good at regulating my speed for the entire interval -- i go out too fast or too slow. whereas i know what pace i can sustain for half a mile. odd?
meanwhile, when i am on a treadmill, i actually really enjoy ladders! especially when training for the 30k two years ago, which had to include a lot of treadmills due to ice on the roads of michigan, i was doing some thing i either read somewhere or made up, where i pick a fairly easy speed, and a somewhat fast one, and i run slow-fast-slow-fast, in a pyramid like this (in minutes) 1-1-2-1-3-1-4-1-3-1-2-1... and then other times i will stick to 1 minute of each, but on the slow minute, i increase the incline a bit, returning to (near) flat each time i go fast, and making it steeper and steeper on the successive slows... basically when i'm on the treadmill i try to make myself collapse within half an hour. usually effective.
... and does this all make me faster? well. my fastest 10k, which was just some weird damn miracle, came 6 weeks after my 30k race. which makes me think that training for distance makes me much faster on the short stretches. does this make any sense? i feel like the internet told me this is a known phenomenon. we will see what happens at my 5k? i would like to run 5 minute kilometres; this is something i have done in the past but i don't think i've been pulling that off recently. we will see. i think i will try a treadmill run tomorrow.
oooh! one more thing? in a pre-marathon fit of online running shopping, i bought these things that are supposed to be compression tights for winter? but i bought them a size too big, so they aren't really compression, just comfy running tights... BUT with *technical fleece on the inside*. and i ran in them yesterday when it was damp and windy and near freezing and they are GOLDEN. it's like running with pillows of love around both your legs! warm pillows of love. so, that's the best thing ever. ... they are only three quarter length, though, because i think you're supposed to wear them under, like, snowboarding pants, so i need to wear kneehigh socks with them to run, so i was wearing my marathon flaming pink argyle compression socks as well, and my other half suggested i looked really badass from head to knee, and then like a deranged scottish flamingo from there to my shoes, but the fashion will have to suffer in favour of comfort, because i felt AWESOME. they might even make running on the tundra more bearable come the new year.
so. back to running.
in the month since the marathon, i have in fact returned to running. for two and a half weeks i was traveling, so running was really my only good way to exercise, so i ran a lot. boston has a river, so i ran along the river (Boston Marathon Citgo sign in the background). western massachusetts has a lot of hills and bike paths, so i ran them too. and new york has many long bridges and huge parks, so i ran for miles at dusk back and forth between manhattan and brooklyn, and around prospect park (like central park, but smaller, and more brooklyn.)
and so now: what am i doing? yeah, i'm running. that's still a thing. i'm enjoying it, often a lot. i often bring my garmin but often i don't. i confess i've been using my marathon playlist most of the time, which means i get these bursts of emotion and energy and lethargy depending on the songs; as the playlist is on random shuffle it can be kind of a rollercoaster. ... i'm not feeling at my healthiest, but i'm trying to get in a good mind space about that and eat better to combat the ughness, and overall i'm pretty happy to be running.
yesterday while running i realized i'm excited again about the prospect of running goals for 2014. ... at new years 2012, i was focused on running 30k in march. at new years 2013, i was already committed to running the marathon in october. so by new years 2014, i want a new plan; i think the right option will be to pick two goal races, one in the spring and one later. i am pretty sure neither should be a marathon; probably they will be chosen for interesting locations and features? suggestions welcome? i have already received some compelling arguments for running Bay State next fall (compelling as in I was offered a place to stay and substantial amounts of post-race homemade pie.)
so: goals. coming soon.
i'm also running 5k in two weekends, and i think i may try running kind of speedily there, see how that goes. ... speaking of which! a speedy runner of my acquaintance commented on my last post-marathon post, reporting that she has gotten into speedwork (again, but for the first time since either college or highschool?), and asking about my own speed attempts?
so, let's pretend this is the kind of running blog where i know things, and i'll pretend along with you.
my usual approach to speed work is intervals. i am happiest doing something like 800 x 4 with 400m recovery. which is not a normal way to do intervals i realize, in that why is the recovery so long? i guess i probably shouldn't even call them intervals -- but you see i'm in the woods on trails, not on a track, so 400m makes more sense there. when i drop down to something shorter than 600 or 400m per interval, i find i'm no good at regulating my speed for the entire interval -- i go out too fast or too slow. whereas i know what pace i can sustain for half a mile. odd?
meanwhile, when i am on a treadmill, i actually really enjoy ladders! especially when training for the 30k two years ago, which had to include a lot of treadmills due to ice on the roads of michigan, i was doing some thing i either read somewhere or made up, where i pick a fairly easy speed, and a somewhat fast one, and i run slow-fast-slow-fast, in a pyramid like this (in minutes) 1-1-2-1-3-1-4-1-3-1-2-1... and then other times i will stick to 1 minute of each, but on the slow minute, i increase the incline a bit, returning to (near) flat each time i go fast, and making it steeper and steeper on the successive slows... basically when i'm on the treadmill i try to make myself collapse within half an hour. usually effective.
... and does this all make me faster? well. my fastest 10k, which was just some weird damn miracle, came 6 weeks after my 30k race. which makes me think that training for distance makes me much faster on the short stretches. does this make any sense? i feel like the internet told me this is a known phenomenon. we will see what happens at my 5k? i would like to run 5 minute kilometres; this is something i have done in the past but i don't think i've been pulling that off recently. we will see. i think i will try a treadmill run tomorrow.
oooh! one more thing? in a pre-marathon fit of online running shopping, i bought these things that are supposed to be compression tights for winter? but i bought them a size too big, so they aren't really compression, just comfy running tights... BUT with *technical fleece on the inside*. and i ran in them yesterday when it was damp and windy and near freezing and they are GOLDEN. it's like running with pillows of love around both your legs! warm pillows of love. so, that's the best thing ever. ... they are only three quarter length, though, because i think you're supposed to wear them under, like, snowboarding pants, so i need to wear kneehigh socks with them to run, so i was wearing my marathon flaming pink argyle compression socks as well, and my other half suggested i looked really badass from head to knee, and then like a deranged scottish flamingo from there to my shoes, but the fashion will have to suffer in favour of comfort, because i felt AWESOME. they might even make running on the tundra more bearable come the new year.
so. back to running.
Monday, October 28, 2013
and then a week later...
i went for another run.
i did a moderate amount of exercise last week, nothing big but not too shabby, tired myself out a few times -- but no running. the night after the marathon, my legs ached enough to bother me in my sleep, and the day after i was obviously not a creature fit for stairwells, but by tuesday i was just 'pretty sore', and so on. my right knee has stayed cranky, and i've iced it a few times, and i laid fairly low. it felt pretty good! ... i have started being moderately less hungry too, which is kind of a relief; i thought i might just be hungry forever.
anyway: this morning, i got up and went for a run.
and do you know what? it really sucked.
... jesus crap, it was unpleasant! i ran for 30 minutes, and i ran about 9 minute miles, and i felt like DEATH. nevermind my right knee, which felt iffy in the first 3 or 4 minutes but warmed up quite nicely -- meanwhile, though, my lungs were angry, my arms were crampy, my hamstrings and calves took turns pretending they were broken, my stomach churned. i wanted to puke, pass out, stop running, fall over, and generally go back to bed.
guys, um, i ran 26.2 miles last weekend. i feel like this should not have been a big deal.
... so what happened? hmmph, well.
the stomach thing was due to predictable oatmeal malfunction. where is my brain on this one? i CANNOT EAT OATMEAL BEFORE MORNING RUNS. you see, i say it in all caps like maybe i'll hear it next time, from across the room in the kitchen. honestly, i bet i thought (in my pre-coffee stupor) that it was safe because i was going to the post office between eating and running. yeah, that twelve minute errand fooled no one, least of all my gut, which felt like it was punching me in the rib cage with those oats as soon as i went faster than a jog. please, PLEASE can i remember this next time.
apart from that, i'm not too sure on what the deal was. maybe i'm still in marathon recovery, although really that doesn't feel the case. i went to zuuuuuuuumba last night (shut up, it's a dance party, i need me some dance party sometimes, so i add a lot of extra uuuuuuuuuus for good measure), and i pushed myself to jump around a lot, and i never felt any of that heavylegs-stopjumping-dammitwoman feeling, when you're really tired from previous exertion or not enough sleep. i felt strong! and this morning i felt DOOM.
meh. you know, sometimes you just have a bad run. it's cool. weirdly, it made me feel kind of pumped to sign up for a race; introspection has actually not yet revealed to me what that's about. well: it made me feel kind of pumped to go run again and have it not suck as much, for starters.
so i signed up for an early december 5k. for participating in this race, i am promised a 'Scrooge Santa knit hat', which doesn't make sense in a variety of ways -- for starters Scrooge hats and Santa hats are mutually exclusive, but then it sounds like they actually mean a toque, which is in fact a third kind of hat... but they can mess up the hats all they want because the race starts at 10am! luxury! pinnacle of civilization! true christmas miracle! i will leave the house after sunrise! ... so, yeah, i'm looking forward to it.
i guess this means i will try doing some speedwork in the next month and a bit. and despite today's atrocity of a short tempo run, that also sounds fun. ... my usual non-marathon-training run schedule is 2 times a week, sometimes 3, so i will make sure i do at least 2 runs a week, plus 4 other days of exercise (it's supposed to be something like 2X cardio, 2X strength, and 3X core, plus stretching all the time.) and also i will continue to try not to eat *all* the things, which is going alright in the last several days.
this also means i'll keep blogging here, sometimes? i think i'll keep it up for two kinds of posts:
1. when i want to write a blog post on my talking to friends blog, but then i realize it's all about running and only the people who would read here would conceivably care, and
2. race reports, of whatever sort. before marathon training began, i was vaguely in the habit of running about 10 races a year: a few halfs and the rest 5 or 10ks in the darker months, and some trail stuff over the summer. november is i think going to be race free, but after that i'll try to get back into that cycle.
and you can continue to read or not read, and that's cool. i think i'm fairly happy talking here into the mostly-void, and just knowing that the writing will take some knots of emotion and info in my brain and knead them out into semi-orderly thoughts on the screen is good enough reason to keep talking. and to keep running. good times, folks. till soon!
i did a moderate amount of exercise last week, nothing big but not too shabby, tired myself out a few times -- but no running. the night after the marathon, my legs ached enough to bother me in my sleep, and the day after i was obviously not a creature fit for stairwells, but by tuesday i was just 'pretty sore', and so on. my right knee has stayed cranky, and i've iced it a few times, and i laid fairly low. it felt pretty good! ... i have started being moderately less hungry too, which is kind of a relief; i thought i might just be hungry forever.
anyway: this morning, i got up and went for a run.
and do you know what? it really sucked.
... jesus crap, it was unpleasant! i ran for 30 minutes, and i ran about 9 minute miles, and i felt like DEATH. nevermind my right knee, which felt iffy in the first 3 or 4 minutes but warmed up quite nicely -- meanwhile, though, my lungs were angry, my arms were crampy, my hamstrings and calves took turns pretending they were broken, my stomach churned. i wanted to puke, pass out, stop running, fall over, and generally go back to bed.
guys, um, i ran 26.2 miles last weekend. i feel like this should not have been a big deal.
... so what happened? hmmph, well.
the stomach thing was due to predictable oatmeal malfunction. where is my brain on this one? i CANNOT EAT OATMEAL BEFORE MORNING RUNS. you see, i say it in all caps like maybe i'll hear it next time, from across the room in the kitchen. honestly, i bet i thought (in my pre-coffee stupor) that it was safe because i was going to the post office between eating and running. yeah, that twelve minute errand fooled no one, least of all my gut, which felt like it was punching me in the rib cage with those oats as soon as i went faster than a jog. please, PLEASE can i remember this next time.
apart from that, i'm not too sure on what the deal was. maybe i'm still in marathon recovery, although really that doesn't feel the case. i went to zuuuuuuuumba last night (shut up, it's a dance party, i need me some dance party sometimes, so i add a lot of extra uuuuuuuuuus for good measure), and i pushed myself to jump around a lot, and i never felt any of that heavylegs-stopjumping-dammitwoman feeling, when you're really tired from previous exertion or not enough sleep. i felt strong! and this morning i felt DOOM.
meh. you know, sometimes you just have a bad run. it's cool. weirdly, it made me feel kind of pumped to sign up for a race; introspection has actually not yet revealed to me what that's about. well: it made me feel kind of pumped to go run again and have it not suck as much, for starters.
so i signed up for an early december 5k. for participating in this race, i am promised a 'Scrooge Santa knit hat', which doesn't make sense in a variety of ways -- for starters Scrooge hats and Santa hats are mutually exclusive, but then it sounds like they actually mean a toque, which is in fact a third kind of hat... but they can mess up the hats all they want because the race starts at 10am! luxury! pinnacle of civilization! true christmas miracle! i will leave the house after sunrise! ... so, yeah, i'm looking forward to it.
i guess this means i will try doing some speedwork in the next month and a bit. and despite today's atrocity of a short tempo run, that also sounds fun. ... my usual non-marathon-training run schedule is 2 times a week, sometimes 3, so i will make sure i do at least 2 runs a week, plus 4 other days of exercise (it's supposed to be something like 2X cardio, 2X strength, and 3X core, plus stretching all the time.) and also i will continue to try not to eat *all* the things, which is going alright in the last several days.
this also means i'll keep blogging here, sometimes? i think i'll keep it up for two kinds of posts:
1. when i want to write a blog post on my talking to friends blog, but then i realize it's all about running and only the people who would read here would conceivably care, and
2. race reports, of whatever sort. before marathon training began, i was vaguely in the habit of running about 10 races a year: a few halfs and the rest 5 or 10ks in the darker months, and some trail stuff over the summer. november is i think going to be race free, but after that i'll try to get back into that cycle.
and you can continue to read or not read, and that's cool. i think i'm fairly happy talking here into the mostly-void, and just knowing that the writing will take some knots of emotion and info in my brain and knead them out into semi-orderly thoughts on the screen is good enough reason to keep talking. and to keep running. good times, folks. till soon!
Sunday, October 20, 2013
The Detroit Free Press Full Marathon. Is A Thing I Ran.
today was one of the more surreal experiences of my life. i suppose i haven't done that many surreal things, so.
the first thing to say is that if you decide you have to run a marathon, i highly encourage you to find a crew member: someone supportive, unquestioning and easygoing who will drive you to detroit, come to dinner with you in ypsilanti (yes! maria! see below why), stay overnight, get up at the insane hour necessary, walk you to the start, hang out on the course for 4+ hours, give you your water bottle at mile 10 when you need it, take it away for you at kilometre 40 when you don't want any other things in your hands ever, and collect you afterwards with a bag of warm socks and many celebratory noises... well, or someone who will provide analogous services. anyway: i chose my dad, and he performed all tasks with aplomb. he also did not make me listen to a single bad country music song on our drive from toronto! so, really i had won before i even began.
right now i feel like i recall the event in great detail, but i suspect they aren't all going to be important details in even a week. so i will try to be brief. and fail.
- i thought it'd be nice to have dinner in ann arbor with my dad the night before, because i lived there for a year and was going to show him around a bit, but just before we left detroit i happened to realize from the internet that there was a University of Michigan football game happening in Ann Arbor? and if you don't know about such things, which would be reasonable, let's just say you don't want to be leaving Ann Arbor on the highway at the same time as the 110,000 other people leaving the stadium do so. (THAT IS NOT AN EXAGGERATED NUMBER. LOOK IT UP.) so instead we drove past some stuff, and then i said... let's ... leave. and so we ate in nearby ypsilanti and it was just great.
- you will recall that every other morning i have run first thing, it's been pretty icky, right? like even friday morning, my very last pre-race run, i got up at the totally not-early-time of 8:30, and i did my 3 miles, and it wasn't till the end that i felt like i was maybe running normally. and i secretly thought: this 7am start time is actually going to be worse than i even advertised. and yet! ... today, i got up at 5:15 (i know), and i ate and coffeed (yes i brought my own kettle and aeropress coffee making system to this event, shut up) and so on, and we walked the 20 minutes to the start, and when we got moving at 7am (i got across the starting line at like 7:12), i had no trouble running at all. it felt totally easy, like i was running at 6pm. i guess adrenaline is a thing? but i didn't feel pumped up. i just felt ... pretty calm and ready, actually.
- as for mental state: i felt really quite shockingly under control for the first 11 miles. mile 11 i thought 'oh my god 15 more miles, surely this will kill me' and then i stuffed that down with ONE MILE AT A TIME, LADY and kept going. mile 13, the half marathoners left us, i had a twinge of WTF AM I DOING, and then got on board again. miles 14-16 i knew would be lonely, and they were (the only part of the course where you feel like you're just running down a street that demonstrates detroit's disaster of a post-apocalypse economy), and i turned on my music which definitely helped, and then miles 16-19 were good again. miles 20-22 felt sloggy, but doable; started wanting to walk but didn't (judicious application of more motivational music.) mile 23 started to feel like i was playing a sick joke on myself, but i knew my dad was waiting at the 40k mark so i told myself i just had to make it to 40k, somewhere between mile 24 and 25, and then it would only be 2k. seeing him my brain said YES DO THE THING, and then i turned the corner where you see the hilariously steep mile up to mile 25, and i told myself BY DO THE THING I MEAN WALK UP THIS HILL and so i walked, and that felt wise but not a defeat, and so when i got the mile 25 sign the hill was not quite over but i started running again, and though my brain really really wanted to, i never walked again. my legs were tired, but honestly they were no more tired at mile 25 then they were at mile 16, so i knew it was my head that wanted to stop and i suggested we just wait a bit. the last half mile, i turned off my music and i ran up this last goddamn hill SERIOUSLY? COULD WE NOT HAVE THIS HILL NOW PLEASE? I WAS LYING ABOUT THE LEGS FROM MILE 16 and i turned left and the finish line was two blocks away and i sped up, just a very little but i did it, and i passed a few people and i WON. ... no, wait, i mean i finished.
about 20 steps from the the finish i thought: huh. wow. i did this. i kind of don't feel anything, but i did it. ... and that felt just fine.
- this marathon seems to me a good compromise: between excited spectators and chill spectators (i kind of like a mix of both, and i liked the sign that said 'hurry! the kenyans are drinking all the beer'; between urban grit, art deco buildings, sunrise from high above the river on the Ambassador Bridge, Belle Island park in the middle of the detroit river, the actually pretty urban detroit waterfront (?!) -- and also the craziness of running through two border crossings meant only for cars, complete with underwater tunnel mile (pro tip: it's humid down there), and the novelty of border guards with megapho nes yelling out support and encouragement to thousands of sweaty people who haven't declared anything. the scenery was really quite varied, and actually i really liked almost all of it. even Windsor! i really liked Windsor! ... it's not a pretty town, i'm sorry to say. but the course was well thought out and the spectators were pretty cool, considering it was like not yet 8am on a sunday morning, and they were out offering orange slices and playing rock and roll on their lawns. meanwhile at miles 16-18, i counted four different houses with people offering us shots of beer, from kegs or bottles. party in the D, they know what they're doing.
- one additionally terrific thing this race does: before every water/gatorade stop, of which there are TONS, they have a sign telling you it's coming up, and on each sign they tell you how far the next one is. i want to hug whoever came up with and followed through with that plan.
- as for my physical state? you know: really, not bad at all . i'm fairly shocked, to tell you the truth. at about mile 23.5 or so, i felt my right knee say: hey, you know, you sometimes have IT band problems, remember? yeah, so, you can't go any faster than this and you might want to actually go slower. i was more careful with form after that, and it mostly stopped hurting in the last two miles due presumably to adrenaline, and now it's definitely sore. there has been ice. but when i crossed the finish line, i didn't cramp, i didn't sob, i just smiled at people and got a medal and a space cape and stuff. and then i walked for ages to get out of the shute crazy area, and then more ages to meet up with my dad (because we were on opposite sides of the runners at this point) and then additional ages back to the hotel ... and i was really ok. eventually we met up with my other half, and i drove us 90 minutes home (other half is coming off a doom migraine) and it was only when we got here that i really wanted to ice my knee. i know i'll be creaky as shit tomorrow, and i would not advise you to look at my right pinky toe if you don't like blisters, but the general effect is not tragic in any way. considering i ran 10k farther than i ever have, this seems faintly absurd.
- oh, i should tell you how i did! you maybe remember my goal was 4:20 or 4:30? nailed it! chip time: 4:25:24. i spent most of the race just ahead or behind of the 10:07/mile pacer, and indeed my overall pace was 10:07 exactly. the internet tells me i came in 99th out of the 310 women aged 30-34, and 1862nd in a field of 6100 or so.
... does that strike you as really quite high in the standings? who are all these 5+hour marathoners? like, more power to them, but i would not have thought i was above average at that pace! at any rate, i feel like i was totally right to be as conservative as i was -- presumably i could have run faster, and hated it way more, instead of only hating some bits of it briefly. also i might have hurt myself in the middle, the worst, or hurt myself but run through it so as to create long lasting injury, the double worst, or i might have made it to the end in one piece and then collapsed, vomited, or experienced whatever other horrible things happen to those people who say they 'leave it all out on the course'. ... i left some of it for myself, which i like because now i can still use it.
- in conclusion. ... are you going to ask me if i'm running another marathon? here's a good idea: don't do that.
it went so well that i can imagine thinking it's a good idea to run another one. BUT I DOUBT IT IS. ... i know myself, and i could easily imagine thinking i should do another one, train better, run it faster... yeah, no, buttercup, bring it down a notch. enough of this for a while. i'm running 15k of a 30k relay in march, and i'll probably run a half in february and/or a hilly 10 miler on boxing day, but right now i am going to focus on eating like a person who doesn't run 16 miles on the weekend, and get back some arm muscles, and stuff like that. i like the idea of running a trail half marathon at the end of next summer (there's a September one in Edmonton where I'll be living again), which i was once signed up for but then had double retinal surgery instead (a surprise lateral move, i think you'll agree).
so! i did it. i have a whacking huge medal, which i could see using as a brass knuckles substitute sometime if ever i'm in a dark alley with my race medals, and a pretty cool shirt, and a bottle of Detroit Mercy Hospital hand sanitizer. and a sore right knee. and a pretty big smile.
it was a pretty good day.
the first thing to say is that if you decide you have to run a marathon, i highly encourage you to find a crew member: someone supportive, unquestioning and easygoing who will drive you to detroit, come to dinner with you in ypsilanti (yes! maria! see below why), stay overnight, get up at the insane hour necessary, walk you to the start, hang out on the course for 4+ hours, give you your water bottle at mile 10 when you need it, take it away for you at kilometre 40 when you don't want any other things in your hands ever, and collect you afterwards with a bag of warm socks and many celebratory noises... well, or someone who will provide analogous services. anyway: i chose my dad, and he performed all tasks with aplomb. he also did not make me listen to a single bad country music song on our drive from toronto! so, really i had won before i even began.
right now i feel like i recall the event in great detail, but i suspect they aren't all going to be important details in even a week. so i will try to be brief. and fail.
- i thought it'd be nice to have dinner in ann arbor with my dad the night before, because i lived there for a year and was going to show him around a bit, but just before we left detroit i happened to realize from the internet that there was a University of Michigan football game happening in Ann Arbor? and if you don't know about such things, which would be reasonable, let's just say you don't want to be leaving Ann Arbor on the highway at the same time as the 110,000 other people leaving the stadium do so. (THAT IS NOT AN EXAGGERATED NUMBER. LOOK IT UP.) so instead we drove past some stuff, and then i said... let's ... leave. and so we ate in nearby ypsilanti and it was just great.
- you will recall that every other morning i have run first thing, it's been pretty icky, right? like even friday morning, my very last pre-race run, i got up at the totally not-early-time of 8:30, and i did my 3 miles, and it wasn't till the end that i felt like i was maybe running normally. and i secretly thought: this 7am start time is actually going to be worse than i even advertised. and yet! ... today, i got up at 5:15 (i know), and i ate and coffeed (yes i brought my own kettle and aeropress coffee making system to this event, shut up) and so on, and we walked the 20 minutes to the start, and when we got moving at 7am (i got across the starting line at like 7:12), i had no trouble running at all. it felt totally easy, like i was running at 6pm. i guess adrenaline is a thing? but i didn't feel pumped up. i just felt ... pretty calm and ready, actually.
- as for mental state: i felt really quite shockingly under control for the first 11 miles. mile 11 i thought 'oh my god 15 more miles, surely this will kill me' and then i stuffed that down with ONE MILE AT A TIME, LADY and kept going. mile 13, the half marathoners left us, i had a twinge of WTF AM I DOING, and then got on board again. miles 14-16 i knew would be lonely, and they were (the only part of the course where you feel like you're just running down a street that demonstrates detroit's disaster of a post-apocalypse economy), and i turned on my music which definitely helped, and then miles 16-19 were good again. miles 20-22 felt sloggy, but doable; started wanting to walk but didn't (judicious application of more motivational music.) mile 23 started to feel like i was playing a sick joke on myself, but i knew my dad was waiting at the 40k mark so i told myself i just had to make it to 40k, somewhere between mile 24 and 25, and then it would only be 2k. seeing him my brain said YES DO THE THING, and then i turned the corner where you see the hilariously steep mile up to mile 25, and i told myself BY DO THE THING I MEAN WALK UP THIS HILL and so i walked, and that felt wise but not a defeat, and so when i got the mile 25 sign the hill was not quite over but i started running again, and though my brain really really wanted to, i never walked again. my legs were tired, but honestly they were no more tired at mile 25 then they were at mile 16, so i knew it was my head that wanted to stop and i suggested we just wait a bit. the last half mile, i turned off my music and i ran up this last goddamn hill SERIOUSLY? COULD WE NOT HAVE THIS HILL NOW PLEASE? I WAS LYING ABOUT THE LEGS FROM MILE 16 and i turned left and the finish line was two blocks away and i sped up, just a very little but i did it, and i passed a few people and i WON. ... no, wait, i mean i finished.
about 20 steps from the the finish i thought: huh. wow. i did this. i kind of don't feel anything, but i did it. ... and that felt just fine.
- this marathon seems to me a good compromise: between excited spectators and chill spectators (i kind of like a mix of both, and i liked the sign that said 'hurry! the kenyans are drinking all the beer'; between urban grit, art deco buildings, sunrise from high above the river on the Ambassador Bridge, Belle Island park in the middle of the detroit river, the actually pretty urban detroit waterfront (?!) -- and also the craziness of running through two border crossings meant only for cars, complete with underwater tunnel mile (pro tip: it's humid down there), and the novelty of border guards with megapho nes yelling out support and encouragement to thousands of sweaty people who haven't declared anything. the scenery was really quite varied, and actually i really liked almost all of it. even Windsor! i really liked Windsor! ... it's not a pretty town, i'm sorry to say. but the course was well thought out and the spectators were pretty cool, considering it was like not yet 8am on a sunday morning, and they were out offering orange slices and playing rock and roll on their lawns. meanwhile at miles 16-18, i counted four different houses with people offering us shots of beer, from kegs or bottles. party in the D, they know what they're doing.
- one additionally terrific thing this race does: before every water/gatorade stop, of which there are TONS, they have a sign telling you it's coming up, and on each sign they tell you how far the next one is. i want to hug whoever came up with and followed through with that plan.
- as for my physical state? you know: really, not bad at all . i'm fairly shocked, to tell you the truth. at about mile 23.5 or so, i felt my right knee say: hey, you know, you sometimes have IT band problems, remember? yeah, so, you can't go any faster than this and you might want to actually go slower. i was more careful with form after that, and it mostly stopped hurting in the last two miles due presumably to adrenaline, and now it's definitely sore. there has been ice. but when i crossed the finish line, i didn't cramp, i didn't sob, i just smiled at people and got a medal and a space cape and stuff. and then i walked for ages to get out of the shute crazy area, and then more ages to meet up with my dad (because we were on opposite sides of the runners at this point) and then additional ages back to the hotel ... and i was really ok. eventually we met up with my other half, and i drove us 90 minutes home (other half is coming off a doom migraine) and it was only when we got here that i really wanted to ice my knee. i know i'll be creaky as shit tomorrow, and i would not advise you to look at my right pinky toe if you don't like blisters, but the general effect is not tragic in any way. considering i ran 10k farther than i ever have, this seems faintly absurd.
- oh, i should tell you how i did! you maybe remember my goal was 4:20 or 4:30? nailed it! chip time: 4:25:24. i spent most of the race just ahead or behind of the 10:07/mile pacer, and indeed my overall pace was 10:07 exactly. the internet tells me i came in 99th out of the 310 women aged 30-34, and 1862nd in a field of 6100 or so.
... does that strike you as really quite high in the standings? who are all these 5+hour marathoners? like, more power to them, but i would not have thought i was above average at that pace! at any rate, i feel like i was totally right to be as conservative as i was -- presumably i could have run faster, and hated it way more, instead of only hating some bits of it briefly. also i might have hurt myself in the middle, the worst, or hurt myself but run through it so as to create long lasting injury, the double worst, or i might have made it to the end in one piece and then collapsed, vomited, or experienced whatever other horrible things happen to those people who say they 'leave it all out on the course'. ... i left some of it for myself, which i like because now i can still use it.
- in conclusion. ... are you going to ask me if i'm running another marathon? here's a good idea: don't do that.
it went so well that i can imagine thinking it's a good idea to run another one. BUT I DOUBT IT IS. ... i know myself, and i could easily imagine thinking i should do another one, train better, run it faster... yeah, no, buttercup, bring it down a notch. enough of this for a while. i'm running 15k of a 30k relay in march, and i'll probably run a half in february and/or a hilly 10 miler on boxing day, but right now i am going to focus on eating like a person who doesn't run 16 miles on the weekend, and get back some arm muscles, and stuff like that. i like the idea of running a trail half marathon at the end of next summer (there's a September one in Edmonton where I'll be living again), which i was once signed up for but then had double retinal surgery instead (a surprise lateral move, i think you'll agree).
so! i did it. i have a whacking huge medal, which i could see using as a brass knuckles substitute sometime if ever i'm in a dark alley with my race medals, and a pretty cool shirt, and a bottle of Detroit Mercy Hospital hand sanitizer. and a sore right knee. and a pretty big smile.
it was a pretty good day.
Tuesday, October 15, 2013
one run at a time
after saturday, i was done my last 'long' pre-marathon run.
after this morning, i'm done my second last pre-marathon run.
there are four real days left.
i have one short pre-marathon run on friday morning.
and then it's all a-happening.
so, my saturday morning run was... eventful! 8 miles. at mile 2.5, my hair elastic exploded. spppprong, sweatyhairtail now slicked to my neck. real cute. ... i had to find the elastic on the pavement and tie it back up, like a parcel, with badly behaved string. it wasn't optimal. whatever!
note: extra hair elastic in pocket on race day.
then at mile 6, i had this little 3 foot patch of brambley grass to cover, between sidewalk and street, and i thought: be careful. go slow, just in case you steeeeeee..... and, i fell in a big hole.
actually i fell into a pipe. my foot went straight down, into an open pipe flush with the ground and big enough around to let my whole foot in with minimal twisting, and i just sort of sat down, and my leg went into this pipe, up to my *knee*. seriously. i have a blue and swollen bruise on the inside of my knee, three days later, from the top of the pipe.
i sat there on the grass with slow-motion adrenaline waves washing over me, thinking ... ok, so my whole left lower leg is in a pipe. that was not the goal for today. but... i don't think i'm hurt? i got up, walked gingerly back to the sidewalk, onto the street, and was running before i got to the other side. i felt fine, just shaken. the bruise and swelling didn't really make themselves known to me till the day after -- but they don't affect my running at all.
note: watch for huge lurking open pipes on the marathon course?
also note: have used up ALL POSSIBLE LUCK before race. no tempting any of the gods now.
yesterday i cross-trained in my parents basement, nevermind how, and this morning i did my last 'speedwork'. and i basically did what i was supposed to do, even! i ran the intervals at just about the proscribed pace, six 1/4 miles at about 8 minute miles, and they might have been a little too fast, but no worries. when i was all done and feeling good, turned out i had miscalculated and i was too far from home after cool down, so the run was more like 5 miles than 4. and in that last mile, i was running nice and easy, but there's a bunch of inclines along the way (damn parents, living at the top of a hill in like every direction) and i really didn't feel like running them.
but obviously i did, because of the banking mentally hard miles project, and because i am apparently going to run a marathon on sunday.
kind of excited? i don't know. mostly i am just slightly alarmed at the prospect of getting across the border on saturday despite government shutdown nonsense, and getting to the starting line via a bit of a walk on the morning of, while 18,000 other people do the same thing. well, and also i just realized that my hotel is in between two parts of the course, and so we will have to get our car OUT of there before the race starts, no? because otherwise what happens at the end?! um, logistics are ridiculous.
anyway. i'm maybe ready. tomorrow and thursday are pilates, core, stretching, stuff like that. i'm probably not too freaked out.
just no more surprise foot-wide deathtrap pipes in the ground, please, universe.
after this morning, i'm done my second last pre-marathon run.
there are four real days left.
i have one short pre-marathon run on friday morning.
and then it's all a-happening.
so, my saturday morning run was... eventful! 8 miles. at mile 2.5, my hair elastic exploded. spppprong, sweatyhairtail now slicked to my neck. real cute. ... i had to find the elastic on the pavement and tie it back up, like a parcel, with badly behaved string. it wasn't optimal. whatever!
note: extra hair elastic in pocket on race day.
then at mile 6, i had this little 3 foot patch of brambley grass to cover, between sidewalk and street, and i thought: be careful. go slow, just in case you steeeeeee..... and, i fell in a big hole.
actually i fell into a pipe. my foot went straight down, into an open pipe flush with the ground and big enough around to let my whole foot in with minimal twisting, and i just sort of sat down, and my leg went into this pipe, up to my *knee*. seriously. i have a blue and swollen bruise on the inside of my knee, three days later, from the top of the pipe.
i sat there on the grass with slow-motion adrenaline waves washing over me, thinking ... ok, so my whole left lower leg is in a pipe. that was not the goal for today. but... i don't think i'm hurt? i got up, walked gingerly back to the sidewalk, onto the street, and was running before i got to the other side. i felt fine, just shaken. the bruise and swelling didn't really make themselves known to me till the day after -- but they don't affect my running at all.
note: watch for huge lurking open pipes on the marathon course?
also note: have used up ALL POSSIBLE LUCK before race. no tempting any of the gods now.
yesterday i cross-trained in my parents basement, nevermind how, and this morning i did my last 'speedwork'. and i basically did what i was supposed to do, even! i ran the intervals at just about the proscribed pace, six 1/4 miles at about 8 minute miles, and they might have been a little too fast, but no worries. when i was all done and feeling good, turned out i had miscalculated and i was too far from home after cool down, so the run was more like 5 miles than 4. and in that last mile, i was running nice and easy, but there's a bunch of inclines along the way (damn parents, living at the top of a hill in like every direction) and i really didn't feel like running them.
but obviously i did, because of the banking mentally hard miles project, and because i am apparently going to run a marathon on sunday.
kind of excited? i don't know. mostly i am just slightly alarmed at the prospect of getting across the border on saturday despite government shutdown nonsense, and getting to the starting line via a bit of a walk on the morning of, while 18,000 other people do the same thing. well, and also i just realized that my hotel is in between two parts of the course, and so we will have to get our car OUT of there before the race starts, no? because otherwise what happens at the end?! um, logistics are ridiculous.
anyway. i'm maybe ready. tomorrow and thursday are pilates, core, stretching, stuff like that. i'm probably not too freaked out.
just no more surprise foot-wide deathtrap pipes in the ground, please, universe.
Saturday, October 12, 2013
running before i fly
i woke up at 8am this saturday morning to eat breakfast and have coffee and have time to digest and wake up before my last 'long' run: 8 miles, starting in about 20 minutes.
really, who am i.
the timing is in part by necessity: when i get back, there will be just enough time for personal maintenance and dog reassuring, and then it will be time to drive to the airport and thence fly to toronto. there is canadian thanksgiving and such to be had, and i will be there a week.
and when i am home again, in a week and a day, i will have RUN A MARATHON.
(srsly. who. am i.)
i had this extensive packing list for last night, with all my gear and clothing options and passport and equipment and so on. i got everything packed and so on (lots of it is laundry, you're welcome mum.) and then i remembered -- oh, wait, i can't actually show up to thanksgiving in running clothes? so i had to do a little extra shoving into the bag.
it only now occurs to me that 8 miles is not that short a run. well, ha! apparently i now (nearly literally) eat such mileage for breakfast. thursday's tempo went pretty well: i stayed at or below the targeted pace the whole time, and it felt comfortably hard (it was also a minute per mile faster than i'll be running the marathon, so good.) and today i'll have a good time, i promise myself.
... a friend of mine just had a baby a few days ago, and it sounds like she kind of broke her tailbone as a result? that's a thing that can happen, apparently. (um and maybe happened the last time she gave birth too? so, it heals... eventually. ow.) anyway. i am trying to keep in mind that nothing i do this week is going to be painful like THAT, so it'll probably be ok.
k, gotta run.
really, who am i.
the timing is in part by necessity: when i get back, there will be just enough time for personal maintenance and dog reassuring, and then it will be time to drive to the airport and thence fly to toronto. there is canadian thanksgiving and such to be had, and i will be there a week.
and when i am home again, in a week and a day, i will have RUN A MARATHON.
(srsly. who. am i.)
i had this extensive packing list for last night, with all my gear and clothing options and passport and equipment and so on. i got everything packed and so on (lots of it is laundry, you're welcome mum.) and then i remembered -- oh, wait, i can't actually show up to thanksgiving in running clothes? so i had to do a little extra shoving into the bag.
it only now occurs to me that 8 miles is not that short a run. well, ha! apparently i now (nearly literally) eat such mileage for breakfast. thursday's tempo went pretty well: i stayed at or below the targeted pace the whole time, and it felt comfortably hard (it was also a minute per mile faster than i'll be running the marathon, so good.) and today i'll have a good time, i promise myself.
... a friend of mine just had a baby a few days ago, and it sounds like she kind of broke her tailbone as a result? that's a thing that can happen, apparently. (um and maybe happened the last time she gave birth too? so, it heals... eventually. ow.) anyway. i am trying to keep in mind that nothing i do this week is going to be painful like THAT, so it'll probably be ok.
k, gotta run.
Tuesday, October 8, 2013
why can't the marathon be at 6pm?
because that is my awesomest time to run.
today i had my last (always scare-quotes-worthy) 'speed work' run. the plan said i was supposed to run 1km at 8:03/mile pace 5 times, and run 400 metres in between each as 'rest' intervals.
can we talk about how speedwork *distances* are always listed in kilometres, even in the US, but then *speeds* are still all in miles? that doesn't help me and my watch work out what we're doing, ok? especially when thinking is hard due to running hard. this is not a time for math problems about trains leaving different stations headed for cleveland and what colour was the bear, etc.
so. you know i'm a little antsy about the speedwork after the racing injury incident near this blog's inception, right? ok, so i fudge. i almost always do one fewer interval than they say, but i always get the mileage about right. so today i thought: i'll do one mile to warm up. then i'll do .6 miles at something fast, and .3 miles to recover, 4 times. and then a mile to cooldown.
i left the house at 6pm, in a somewhat chilly but slightly humid sunshine. the sky was clear and the sun was dappling shit. anyway, i ran the first mile at 9:20 pace, and i thought: oooh, ok, that's not bad.
and then i started the intervals.
and I KILLED IT.
i didn't time each interval (i am not a garmin ninja) i just have the mile splits, but those miles with speed in them were all sub 8 minute miles. and for .3 of the miles i was not pushing! after the first one, i realized i was a little too close to sprinting, but the last three i was both pushing, and yet not going full-tilt. i talked to myself briefly to make sure i wasn't overestimating my lungs, and while i couldn't have held a conversation, i wasn't gasping. i finished my last interval at mile 4.3, then i backed off to about 9:30 miles, and ran home to make 6 miles total. when i looked at my watch at mile 5, i realized that had i been in a race, i could definitely have run a 50-minute 10k today; my PR is 49:30 on a course that i am SO SURE was short. as it was, i ran 6 miles in 52:30, and i would have happily run another 6 (though not at that speed, granted.)
anyway, the point is that i'm pretty much a champion... when i run at 6pm. now let's just explain to the good people of detroit that they need to move the marathon 11 hours later, and everything will be sweetness and sunshine.
today i had my last (always scare-quotes-worthy) 'speed work' run. the plan said i was supposed to run 1km at 8:03/mile pace 5 times, and run 400 metres in between each as 'rest' intervals.
can we talk about how speedwork *distances* are always listed in kilometres, even in the US, but then *speeds* are still all in miles? that doesn't help me and my watch work out what we're doing, ok? especially when thinking is hard due to running hard. this is not a time for math problems about trains leaving different stations headed for cleveland and what colour was the bear, etc.
so. you know i'm a little antsy about the speedwork after the racing injury incident near this blog's inception, right? ok, so i fudge. i almost always do one fewer interval than they say, but i always get the mileage about right. so today i thought: i'll do one mile to warm up. then i'll do .6 miles at something fast, and .3 miles to recover, 4 times. and then a mile to cooldown.
i left the house at 6pm, in a somewhat chilly but slightly humid sunshine. the sky was clear and the sun was dappling shit. anyway, i ran the first mile at 9:20 pace, and i thought: oooh, ok, that's not bad.
and then i started the intervals.
and I KILLED IT.
i didn't time each interval (i am not a garmin ninja) i just have the mile splits, but those miles with speed in them were all sub 8 minute miles. and for .3 of the miles i was not pushing! after the first one, i realized i was a little too close to sprinting, but the last three i was both pushing, and yet not going full-tilt. i talked to myself briefly to make sure i wasn't overestimating my lungs, and while i couldn't have held a conversation, i wasn't gasping. i finished my last interval at mile 4.3, then i backed off to about 9:30 miles, and ran home to make 6 miles total. when i looked at my watch at mile 5, i realized that had i been in a race, i could definitely have run a 50-minute 10k today; my PR is 49:30 on a course that i am SO SURE was short. as it was, i ran 6 miles in 52:30, and i would have happily run another 6 (though not at that speed, granted.)
anyway, the point is that i'm pretty much a champion... when i run at 6pm. now let's just explain to the good people of detroit that they need to move the marathon 11 hours later, and everything will be sweetness and sunshine.
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