Category Training

Yesterday was sprints, in the cold and rain.  I wore my new Marmot PreCip for the first time yesterday and it actually wasn’t bad.  My hands were freezing for the first mile or so but then it was just noisy as the rain beat down on my hood.

I wasn’t expecting anyone else to be stupid enough to be out in that weather but surprisingly there were a total of 8 people out in the 4 and change miles I ran.

I’d forgotten to sync my watch so I went back a day and started what I thought was the right workout but instead of 4 sprints at 4 minutes with a 90 second recovery I had 3 sprints at 5 minutes with a 1 minute recovery.

That’s with a 10 minute warmup and cooldown.

We started a new marathon plan this week which gives us the needed taper after our just finished marathon plan before our first marathon next weekend at Little Rock.

9 days and counting until we try to run 26.2 miles.   On the plus side what was going to be cold and rainy for the marathon as of 3 days ago is now sunny and hot as of today.

Plenty of time for things to change though and I’m honestly not sure which I prefer.

Today I had the choice of running in the rain and 39 degrees or finding some place to run indoors.  So of course I chose to run in the rain.  Right before our Greenleaf 30K trail run it looked like we would be running that in the rain so I picked up Marmot PreCip jackets for myself and the RW on sale.  They were on sale for a ‘reasonable’ amount.  Given what running gear costs.

Anyway I ordered a 2XL size for myself as I wanted some extra room so I could wear my hydration vest and layers under it and it is just about the right size.

Running for 45 minutes in a constant light rain and I had no problems with water penetration.   The rain rolled off it the whole run which was nice.

Breathability was decent for something that was waterproof.  It was also kind of cold but with a 45 minute run including some 5/1 sprints at no time did I feel ‘hot’ nor did I feel like moisture was building up under it.

The 2XL on me (6′-3″) was long enough to keep the water that was rolling off it dropping down onto my thighs leaving my nether yaya dry(ish) which will help with preventing chafing in such conditions.

With the weather forecast right now predicting our first marathon will be in the same type of conditions, wet and cold, it looks like the PreCip will be of real value.

Now if I could only figure out how to keep my feet and socks dry…

We had 2 races today, back to back 5K and 10K, which we did in place of our taper long run.   I was coming into today with some arch pain in my right foot and some ankle and knee pains in my left and right.   I was trail running, which I forgot (i.e. was too lazy) to write about, but long story short I landed on a rock that shifted under me which caused a fairly nice spike of pain in my right arch of my foot.

It’s cooling down a bit now but it was indeed an issue during the races.

FOr the 5K we went for a PR and I’m happy to say we got it.  I cut 2:08 off my 5K PR time to get a 27:44.   My RW cut less time off since her last PR was better than mine but she still got a 27:3x I believe.   In the last quarter mile she ran off and left me as is usual.   For a change of pace (get it?) we went with a 5 minute run, 30 second walk.   And it worked for me, cutting 2 minutes off a 5K is pretty significant.   The ‘wife’ decided she didn’t care of it afterwards.   But she’s better than me especially in the short distance so she can do whatever she likes.   Me I may next time go with a 6 / 30 and see what I can do.  Respectively we placed 8th and 6th in our age groups out of 60+ plus so that was pretty decent for me.

With the 10K we just practiced our marathon pacing.   I don’t even know where we finished.

Marathon is less than 2 weeks away….

On the heels of my (our) first 20 mile paved trail run I decided it was a good time to make an introduction, as a soon to be occasional contributor to this blog. Having accompanied Trex (my Running Husband, not to be confused with my Dear Husband) on a good number of the runs documented on this blog I suppose it is only fitting that you hear the other side of the story, or at least another perspective.

First and foremost I am a #runner. I am very much an athlete, having run, swam, and even played Roller Derby; but I find I have returned most often to running, probably for the practicality of it. This past year I have once again fallen in love with running as an outlet and inlet for my mind and body.  Yes yes I am one of those people.

I, unlike Trex, actually enjoy running (while running). Yes, physically it is very hard, and my brain and body offer up the normal responses to tell me ‘This sucks! You really really should just give up right now’; but I find enjoyment in the physical mental process to conquer my own version(s) of the Blerch or LAD – whom I haven’t yet named, so stay tuned.

I struggle, like every other human on the planet, with motivation and discipline issues, and what I have found, repeatedly now, is that finding a running partner (like Trex) has been exceptionally beneficial to overcoming my personal tendency to stray from the (running) path.  While I do occasionally enjoy solo running and the benefits of this, over the course of my life I have always had companions to run with and just feel it is way more fun if it is a shared experience. Yes I did in fact call running fun, a fundamental difference between myself and the Trex–we generally don’t much agree on much, and certainly don’t agree on the definition of what we find to be fun. But nonetheless I appreciate the company so I don’t complain–much.

Now about our first 20 mile run….

I am not going to lie, it was hard. I mean really effing hard. The kind of hard that, for me personally, I would rank up there with child birth in terms of the mental fortitude required to keep moving once my body had hit it’s physical limits. And to toot my own horn, I have had two children at home without the assistance of drugs to numb the pain, so I have earned the right to make that comparison.

Since the 20-mile run is an achievement milestone on the journey to a marathon, as it is for most runners on that path, I fully expected it to be it’s own challenge. Being the longest distance we will run before the Full, it was a good test to see how we would hold up at our planned marathon pace. In short I feel we passed the test, but not easily, and not without sweat and (for me) tears (at the end, when Trex wasn’t there to see).

Since Trex handled the technicalities, having already crunched the numbers and tallied our distances and times and projected how we can make our planned times at LR, that leaves the feels to me….  As I already said this was effing hard, but it was also a lot of fun….right up until that last couple of miles, and even then I enjoyed being done.  We managed to keep our spirits high and the energy positive, and I am super proud of this run and what we accomplished.

The +‘s:

• The weather held, not too unbearably cold.
• Mentally I think I (we) was (were) in a good place for this run having completed the 30K the weekend before.
• I feel I (we) gained extremely valuable insight into pushing through walls.
• We stuck to the workout schedule we built with some flexibility and managed to maintain a good run/walk pace.
• Good Carb/caffeine fuel intake during run keep energy and mental strengths in the green.
• Escalante’s first long run performed well, no dead toenails or blisters. Super comfy on my feet.
• Overcame the physical wall between mile 18-20 to finish on pace target.

The –‘s:

• Too much food at rest stop.
• Not sure if Escalantes will be cushion enough for my joints through 26.2 miles. Leaves me to debate on what to wear.
• Encountered pre-cramping at mile 18-20. Made it difficult to stay positive.
• Physically felt spent at mile 19-20, did NOT feel I could have run even one more tenth of a mile past 20. This has left room for doubt about how the hell I will manage to run 6 more miles.

Lessons learned: (The hard way)

• Check your watches the day before to make sure you remembered to sync your workouts
• Don’t overeat or drink too much at the break stops… molasses cookies, and fig newtons are a weakness.
• Charge/check HR belts
• Don’t linger too long at stops.. It causes muscles to lock up and you eat too much.
• Don’t over tighten laces and or use straight laces. After the fact I have Extensor Tendinitis in my right foot thanks to my pulling the laces too tight when my shoe came untied. This injury is still bothering me 5 days later and probably needs another day or so to be completely healed.

All in all, as I said, I feel like we achieved this milestone with flying colors, but there is a niggling feeling of doubt planted in my brain that I am going to have to wiggle loose and dislodge in order to be mentally ready for 6.2 more miles.  But I am fully prepared to give it my all and try like hell to finish the next milestone on this journey for the sheer fact that I am stubborn and strong willed and hate to lose (even to myself).  Type A all the way

It was an interval day, 10m warmup then 4 x 8 min zone 4 + 90sec recovery then 5-10 minute cool down.   Today was harder than usual, we were doing sub 10’s during the z4 sections and it was difficult.

RPE was a good 8 or 9 for me on this one and at this speed and timing it’s usually more 7ish.

But after doing 20 minutes on Sunday I imagine its carryover.

Nothing interesting really, it was supposed to be an easy day after our long run but the weather was supposed to be bad so we switched to stairs and did 6 sets of 10 flights up and down.   We didn’t want to push it after the 20 mile run and after the calf pain RW had afterwards.

Today was our first 20+ mile run.   We parked a car at the 8 (12) mile lap and then drove to the start.   Our big thing this run was to work on our pace which is a 9 minute run, 1 minute walk and a 11 min warmup.    Our 11 minute warmup is 12-12:30 pacing.  The remaining sections are negative splits by 15 seconds for each 1/3rd of 26.2 miles.  i.e. if the first 9 miles is an 11:45, the next 9 is 11:30 and the last 9 is 11:15.

The averages are over both run and walk.  The pacing is designed to have an average of around 11:27 per mile over the course of the marathon.   This gets us just under a 5:00 marathon which is our primary goal.  Our secondary goal is a 5:15 and our tertiary goal is just to finish before the race ends.

It’s important to have attainable goals.

We did 20.2 miles in 3:47 which leaves us enough time to do another 6 and break 5:00.   Maybe.

One problem is that as is our usual thing we hit the 90% point of a run , regardless of distance and things go pear shaped.   Around mile 18 to 19 it just got really hard (duh).

My RW did an amazing job and I really wanted to trip her to slow her down but I didn’t.   She’s had problems with our last few longer runs, the last 17 mile we did and the last 19 (20) mile we did on trails but this time she just kept on going.

Afterwards we were both mostly okay but we had a superbowl party at a dear friends house and basically ate like pigs.

It’ll be interesting to see how things keep going as we’re about to go int our taper stages.

Today was threshold day of 25, 20, 25.   Not a big fan.  But it’s a run day so I run and I’m on a schedule and so I do the planned activity.

Cold, windy, not fun.  🙂

Today was technically a day off so we decided to do stairs.   We went next door to the 12 story building and went up and down the stairs a few times.  (Un)surprising how you use different muscles to go up stairs than you do to go up hills and just run flats.

Didn’t do more than 25 minutes just to avoid serious strain since we’re going to be doing our last long run on Sunday of about 20 miles in preperation for our marathon in Little Rock.

Nothing really exciting here.  A set of 6 1K intervals with a 90 second recovery between them after a 15 minute warmup and with a post 10 minute cool down.

Stupidly windy, like 30mph so coming back sucked balls against that wind.