ilanarama: me, The Other Half, Moab UT 2009 (marathon)
[personal profile] ilanarama
Of running, that is. Although the week's awesomeness was enhanced by Britt arriving on Thursday; he's been out of town on a work thing for the last two weeks, and I have missed him. (And not just because having him gone means I have to kill ALL the spiders and wash ALL the dishes.) We spent the afternoon cutting firewood on his folks' ranch, then joined them for a lovely Thanksgiving dinner.

But I want to talk about running. As some of you know, I was unable to run between early April and early August due to a stress fracture of the second metatarsal. In the second week of August I began to run again, very slowly and only every other day at most, and carefully increased my mileage until by mid-September I was running 5 days and around 40 miles per week. I held around this level through The Other Half Marathon in mid-October, at which point I planned to ramp up again to around 60 miles per week.

It didn't quite happen that way. It took me longer than I'd expected to recover from the half, so I ran only 23 miles the following week. I had about a week and a half of good running after that, but then my left foot started hurting in a suspiciously similar manner to the way it had felt when I sustained the stress fracture; I panicked, quit running entirely (although I kept up my exercise with pool running and biking), and saw my doctor. Fortunately, it turned out to be a minor soft-tissue problem, probably due to worn-out shoes, and after a six-day layoff (and a course of strong anti-inflammatories) I was running again. (In new shoes.)

And I haven't quit. I did a short test run, took the next day off, ran again - and now it's been 15 days in a row, the most consecutive days by a long shot that I've ever run (I think my previous record was 9). I don't actually feel like I NEED a day off - some of these runs are quite short and slow. Last week I ran 56 miles - and this week I finally hit 60. (In fact, I ended up with 61!)

So, my awesome week. Monday I ran 4 miles easy. Tuesday I ran 10.5 miles easy, but somehow relatively fast. Wednesday I ran 8.3 exceptionally hilly miles on the trails, incredibly slowly. (I felt pretty tired, actually; I think I ran TOO fast the day before, even though it was still within my easy range. My easy range on pavement at the moment is between about 9:30 and 8:45 pace; over the past month or so it's been noticeably dropping, that is, at the same heart rate I'm running faster. Which is yay!)

On Thursday I did a little speedwork, 6x0.5 miles with 2-minute jog recoveries. I have a 10K coming up next weekend, and I wanted to do a workout similar to one I did shortly before the same race last year, to assess my relative fitness. Last year I ran 4x0.5 miles averaging 7:15 pace; this time I ran the first four reps deliberately trying to hold between 7:10 and 7:15 pace, and averaged 7:11. Then I let myself go for the fifth, hitting 7 minute pace - and totally blew up on the 6th with 7:30 pace. Ah, well. Still, a good workout - and a good sign for the race.

Friday I ran a slow and easy 6.3, and on Saturday I ran 5.7 on the trails, over easier terrain than Wednesday's run but still the usual big hills and technical footing. Then today, Sunday, I ran 18.6 miles of SHEER AWESOME.

My last long run, last Sunday, was 16.4 miles, so I was a little concerned about bumping it up another two miles and started nice and slow. It was a beautiful day, sunny and calm, and I ran in a skirt and short sleeved shirt, with arm warmers and gloves I put in my waist pack after four miles or so. I let myself speed up a little at that point, and at the turn-around at 9.3 I let myself go even faster. My marathon goal is 3:30, which is an 8 minute mile; a common recommendation for long runs for marathon training is to aim to run them between 10 and 20% slower than marathon pace. 10% of an 8 minute mile is 48 seconds, so I strove to run the second half of my run at 8:48 - and I did. Actually I averaged 8:47, which made me really happy, especially considering the route I ran has a lot of rolling hills, my heart rate stayed steady in my easy/long range, and I felt strong and comfortable throughout.

In fact, this run was similar, in HR and pace, to my last 20-miler before what would have been my spring marathon, had I not had to bail due to the stress fracture. I feel like I'm finally back to my pre-injury fitness level - hooray! Best of all, I still have another five weeks of training time before my taper.

Next Saturday is the Winter Sun 10K. It amazed me last year how fast I was able to run it; the combination of the downhill course and the lower elevation meant that I could sustain paces I just can't run in training here. So I'm still a little dubious that I can run it EVEN FASTER. But...maybe I can. I'm feeling good, I'm feeling fast, I'm feeling strong. And I could really use even a measly PR, since so far this year I am 0 for 4 in my PR goals. So, I'm going to give it a really good try. And we'll see what happens.

(no subject)

Date: 2011-11-28 01:46 am (UTC)
melusina: (Running onefootinfrontoftheother)
From: [personal profile] melusina
This is an awesome post! I'm so excited for you that you've recovered so thoroughly and you're feeling so strong. Best of luck on Saturday!

(no subject)

Date: 2011-11-28 02:02 am (UTC)
zulu: (sga - teyla/sora)
From: [personal profile] zulu
Hooray! I'm glad you're feeling good!

(no subject)

Date: 2011-11-28 06:19 am (UTC)
blnchflr: Running (running)
From: [personal profile] blnchflr
You've really progressed, wow - congrats :o) !

(no subject)

Date: 2011-11-28 03:18 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] elizabethclor.com
I love how you listened to your body and stopped running immediately when you had that foot pain. And now your mileage is way up there! I'm so happy to see you running strong and healthy again.

(no subject)

Date: 2011-11-28 05:11 pm (UTC)
starfishchick: (Default)
From: [personal profile] starfishchick
I'm so glad to hear how good you're feeling!

(no subject)

Date: 2011-11-28 07:16 pm (UTC)
starfishchick: (Default)
From: [personal profile] starfishchick
Not at all what I meant!! :)

(no subject)

Date: 2011-11-28 05:27 pm (UTC)
peglegpete: (Default)
From: [personal profile] peglegpete
Rock on!

(no subject)

Date: 2011-11-29 02:09 am (UTC)
sophinisba: Gwen looking sexy from Merlin season 2 promo pics (merry!)
From: [personal profile] sophinisba
This was awesome to read! I'm so happy that things are going so well for you.

(no subject)

Date: 2011-11-30 01:22 am (UTC)
ext_794226: (Default)
From: [identity profile] smalltownraces.blogspot.com
Nice running, Ilana! I can't believe you are back up to where you left off. Also, it's interesting to read the injury and rehab "in a nutshell". Fifteen days in a row- we are matched for longest streaks :)

All indicators are GREAT! A PR could be in it for you and what a fun thing that would be!!

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ilanarama: me, The Other Half, Moab UT 2009 (Default)
Ilana

June 2025

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My running PRs:

5K: 21:03 (downhill) 21:43 (loop)
10K: 43:06 (downhill)
10M: 1:12:59
13.1M: 1:35:55
26.2M: 3:23:31

You can reach me by email at heyheyilana @ gmail.com

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