Ilanarama!

It's been gorgeous weather here - sunny, dry, and (relatively) warm. Not good news for the ski areas, agriculture, the spring rafting season, or the summer fire season, but it makes for nice running. (Um, apologies to all my friends in the midwest and northeast?)

Monday - 9.7 miles with 12x(90sec hard, 90sec jog). The hard bits averaged 6:44 pace, overall avg 8:30 pace.

Tuesday - 5.3 trail run, slow and creaky. Avg pace 12:30 which is about 75sec slower than usual!

Wednesday - 8 miles at 9:08 pace. Felt achy; I think I was still not yet recovered from Monday's hard workout, which is why:

Thursday - 7.2 miles, failed tempo. First three miles were with Britt, comfortable, starting at 9:12 pace and getting slightly faster each mile. Next half mile I did strides, bringing my pace to 8:23. The plan was 4 miles @7:15-7:25, but after just a few tenths of a mile my stomach started cramping. I slowed down and folded the waist of my running tights down, to not press on my stomach, and eventually it went away, but that mile averaged 8:04, way off plan. I started to accelerate again, and this time my legs started hurting. After half a mile I gave up and slowed again...and I kept slowing. I just hurt all over, from my toes to my hips. I cut my run short and even walked up a hill on the way home - my pace in the last 2 miles of my run was almost 10:30 on average! Overall pace of 9:17 hides a multitude of sins...

Friday - skiing! Sunny warm day, conditions not all that great but adequate.

Saturday - 9.1 miles trail running. I decided to check out 'Snakecharmer', a new mountain bike trail running down from Raider Ridge; my plan was to run up it, with it hopefully being a better route than climbing 'Babyhead Hill' which is so steep I have to walk most of it. It was still quite steep, but more pleasant, and then I was up on the beautiful ridge.

As many of you know, on Saturday runners were asked to participate in 'Meg's Miles' (#megsmiles, https://www.facebook.com/events/489458451159627/) in honor of Meg Menzies, a Virginia runner who was struck and killed by a (possibly drunk) driver while running last week. Runners were encouraged to log miles on a Googledocs spreadsheet, mark their locations on a map, and take photos of their run and post them to the Facebook event or the Twitter hashtag. I took my new smartphone (I have a smartphone now! It's a Nexus 5! I am still figuring it out!) and took a couple of shots:



Yes, it's the dorkiest selfie ever. Look at the mountains, not at me!

I don't yet have an armband for carrying the phone - I'm not planning on carrying it on most runs, anyway - but it was a perfect opportunity to test the Gregory Pace 3 hydration pack I got as an award for being the female masters winner at The Other Half. I was dubious about the way it strapped high across the chest with no waistband (though waistbands tend to be uncomfortable while running) but it was awesome - fit tight to my back and didn't bounce even as I ran on rough trails. The only thing I didn't like was that the bite valve tasted icky, but I'm sure that will go away with time.

Anyway, my average pace was almost 13 minute miles, but according to my mapping software the total elevation gain and loss was almost 1100 feet (the biggest part of which was 665 feet in 1.5 miles!), so.

Sunday - 7 miles easy with a few strides in the middle and 8x12sec hill sprints at the end. 9:00 average pace.

Total was 46.4 miles, a little less than last week but I got two trail runs in. Next week I'll try to push closer to 50, though I won't be able to run Tuesday morning as I'm judging a middle school science fair.

(Look! A post that's not about running!)

Britt had driven our Sportsmobile camper van out to Bakersfield CA just after Thanksgiving, to do some work on a solar project his company has out there, so our plan after CIM was to road-trip home over the next week and a half. As it happened, both of us came down with bad colds in Death Valley, so we high-tailed it directly home from there after only a half-day of exploring. But we had a lovely micro-vacation up until then!

( Lots of photos, some text )

Here it is, the much-belated (due to roadtrip vacation home) CIM race report. To compensate for its lateness, it is ludicrously long. Grab something to drink, put your feet up, clear your calendar and dive in. Or alternatively, scroll through to the summary and look at the pictures. :-)

( Training )

( Pre-race )

( Actually running the darn thing )


( Post-race )

December 1st, so I'm using my Santa-hatted mountain icon (made for me by blnchflr). And also, ONE WEEK TO CIM! Yay! Yikes!

The first thing I want to say is to reassure those of you who read my most recent post that after several days of rest and aggressive self-massage/foam rolling/icing, my mysterious calf injury seems to have retreated. I'm pretty sure it's related to my ongoing peroneal tendon issues (the ankle bone's connected to the knee bone, as it were) and possibly even to the iliac crest pain I've been having lately. I'm also pretty sure it's not going to be a problem for the race, hooray. And three days of rest during taper is not going to destroy all the training I've put in. (However, the three pounds of fat I have put on...maybe!)

Okay, on to the (abbreviated) week:

Monday - 6 miles easy (9:07 avg pace) with 8x10sec hill sprints. I think this is where I did whatever bad thing I did to my calf, because it was tight that night and the next morning.

Tuesday - 9.9 miles with 3GMP, 3 min easy, 3HMP. Looked like this: 8:53, 8:24, 7:43, 7:44, 7:39, 8:14 (3 minutes), 7:18, 7:21, 7:20, 9:07, 9:15 (.5 mile). Overall pace 8:01, a real solid workout. (This is partly to brag, and partly to remind myself that see? I'm in great shape for my race! No excuses! I can do it!)

Wednesday through Friday - no running. I walked 3 miles on Wednesday and I did my core exercises on Wednesday and Friday, and foam-rolled and massaged my calf twice a day.

Saturday - 4.2 miles easy at 8:30 pace. Yeah, when you take 3 days off, you can run faster. I was tempted to keep going but this was a test. The peroneal tendon at my ankle hurt when I started but loosened up with the run.

Sunday - 10.4 miles easy but hilly, 8:36 average pace. Felt fine other than the same initial pain in the PT, hooray.

Total 30.5 miles, about 2/3 of what I'd planned for the week but it's really no biggie at this point.

While I was sitting on my butt not running, I indulged in a bit of retail therapy and ordered a new Garmin 610 to replace my 305, which has experienced a recent dramatic decline in battery life. Possibly wearing it while hiking all day in England contributed, but anyway, it's three years old and I bought it when it was already nearly obsolete. In fact, I bought my 305 almost exactly three years ago, when retailers were deeply discounting older GPS watches as the new ones were being rolled out for the Christmas shopping season, and that's why I got the 610 - the 620 is now the hottest newest, and so the 610 is on sale all over the net (as is the 210 in the wake of the 220, and so on). I even splurged for 2-day shipping, so it is supposed to arrive Tuesday - good thing, as I got low-battery warnings from the 305 today on my run only an hour in! I just hope I can figure out how to use it before the race.

But even if I can't keep track of out how fast I'm going, you guys can. Online tracking for CIM is up and available at http://rtrt.me/cim - my bib number is 7873. You can set up alerts or just check the website periodically. There will be timing at 5.9M, 13.1M, 20M, and the finish. Also, I've set it up (I think!) so that my splits will automatically post to Facebook.

One week! Aie!

Last big training week, last long run. Now I just need to keep from getting injured, not catch Britt's cold, and avoid eating ALL THE PIE at Thanksgiving.

Monday - 5.4 recovery at 9:33 average pace and a nice low heart rate.

Tuesday - 8.2 miles trail running at 11:13, felt slow and creaky at first but loosened up. 8x10 sec hill sprints at end.

Wednesday - 12.3 with 8 at GMP which averaged 7:42 (7:48, 7:47, 7:39, 7:42, 7:41, 7:39, 7:38, 7:45). Felt really good, HR where I wanted it. Overall pace was 8:03.

Thursday - 6.5 easy in drizzle, 8:53 pace.

Friday - 10.7 in rain. Started out easy but then I threw some strides in, and it just got me going faster, ending with 8:30 average pace.

Saturday - 6.6 hilly (over the mesa) avg 9:03, which I managed to time during a lull in the day's drizzle.

Sunday - I woke up and it looked like this:



Wet snow on the ground, light snow falling. I headed out ready to turn back if it was miserable, but it was surprisingly pleasant. It was just warm enough that the snow on the paved surfaces melted immediately (except for on bridges, which were slushy). I did have a sinking spell during miles 6-8 (my slowest), during which I decided several times to turn around early, and then talked myself out of it. At the turn-around, I realized I'd made the tactical error of running with the wind at my back on the way out, meaning that the wind was in my face on the way back...but somehow I actually felt better, and ran faster in the second half, and really enjoyed the rest of the run. Total 16 miles, 8:41 avg pace (8:51 out, 8:32 back).

Total of 65.7 miles. I really do feel like I'm peaking and ready for the race. Even though my mileage has been consistent - I haven't yet really dropped into a taper - my paces have been noticeably zippier recently, at no higher heart rates than usual. Cross your fingers that nothing horrible happens to me in the next two weeks!

Or, miles what I have run lately. A lot of them. I am...really looking forward to taper.

Monday - 9 miles trail running averaging 11:16 pace. I felt slow and creaky, but that's actually a fairly typical pace for this route, only slightly slower than usual.

Tuesday - 9.9 miles as 2 easy, 3x (2GMP, 2 min easy-but-not-too-easy), then easy home. I faded a little toward the end but overall it was a good run: 9:00, 8:37, 7:45, 7:43, 8:24 (2 min), 7:42, 7:45, 8:32 (2 min), 7:47, 7:48, 9:28 (2 min), 8:59. It's pretty hard for me to maintain MP outside of a race, particularly while my mileage is high, so I'm not too worried. The one thing that did worry me was my HR seemed on the high side for these paces.

Wednesday - 8.3 miles easy-ish. Or rather, I started easy, but as I got into the groove I allowed myself to speed up, as long as my HR stayed in the easy range. 9:28, 9:11, 9:02, 8:52, 8:32, 8:27, 8:28, 8:31, 9:11 (.3). Overall average pace 8:50.

Thursday - 9.1 miles on the trail, with 6x10 sec hill sprints near the end on the community ski hill (where I have never actually skied). Avg pace 11:01.

Friday - 6.4 easy with strides, avg pace 8:50.

Saturday - 6.8 easy-ish, or what I call the hard end of easy; avg pace 8:33. Ended with 6x10 sec hill sprints on the last hill home. I have slacked on my hill sprints in the last few weeks and so I did two easy sets this week, but wow, I shouldn't slack, they are fun!

Sunday - My last 20-miler of the cycle! Well, to be honest I haven't actually done ANY 20-milers, and this one wasn't 20, either; it makes a very nice 19.3 mile loop to run up one side of the Animas Valley, cross at Trimble road, and run back down the other (I try to alternate clockwise and counterclockwise) so that is what I do. And did. This was a 'hard long run' aiming at 2 miles warm-up and the rest between 8:10 and 8:30 pace (that is, my GMP+5-10%). (For me, this is a hard long run! But a lot of my friends with similar PRs run that kind of pace all the time.)


Anyway, this was a solid workout for me to cap a solid week of 68.8 miles, again (barely) setting a new mileage high. Next week will have more MP miles, a shorter LR, and a slightly lighter mileage load; I'm going to aim at 60+ but not many +, as it were. Then 40-45 the following week, and 20ish the week before the marathon.

The California International Marathon (CIM) is five weeks away now, so it's time I start thinking about a marathon goal. I'm not a fan of starting out with a goal (other than a vague one like 'New PR', which coincidentally has been my vague goal from the beginning) but I like to start running some goal marathon pace (GMP) miles as the race approaches, and I want to have a pace plan heading into the race.

A little under two years ago, I ran the Houston Marathon in 3:29:13 on about 49mpw. Six weeks before, I ran the Winter Sun 10K in 43:06, which sounds really fast except that it's a downhill course, with 58ft gain and 375ft elevation loss. Converting to a flat course (using the Runworks calculator) suggests that without the downhill advantage, I would have run about 44:02. (The Winter Sun is also at a lower elevation than here - and at a higher elevation than Houston, which is at sea level, but I'm discounting altitude effects because both this race and my recent half marathon, which I'm using as a tune-up, were in Moab at roughly the same altitude; and CIM is only a few hundred feet above sea level.)

Runworks will calculate a predicted marathon finish time based on a shorter race, but I don't like most online calculators for this as they tend to be quite optimistic. (When I was a newer runner, I matched these calculators pretty well, but I think that has changed now that I've become better at running faster - and running shorter races. Just by way of example, plugging 44:02 back into the calculator suggests I should have run Houston at 3:23. Which - I might have been capable of a slightly faster finish than I ran, but not that much faster!)

I prefer the calculator spreadsheet made by Greg Maclin (who incidentally is the guy I ran most of Houston with) that can be downloaded from his website at http://mymarathonpace.com. This has a tweakable setting for 'aggressiveness', and by putting in the 44:02 and selecting the 'Moderate' setting, I get a 3:29:47 prediction - just a tad slower than what I actually ran. (If I don't tweak for the downhill and just put in my time directly, my time comes in about 80% of the way to 'Fairly Conservative'. But I believe that the downhill-corrected time more accurately represents my ability at that distance, at the time.)

So, that was not quite two years ago. Now I'm running about 60mpw, and I ran a half marathon at 1:35:55. Plugging that into Maclin's calculator, on the 'Moderate' setting, I get just under 3:25. On the 'Fairly Aggressive' setting, I get just under 3:22. If my endurance has improved (and it should have, with the additional mileage) maybe I can split the difference here and make 3:23.

But wait, there's more! The Other Half was kinda hilly, right? In fact it climbed about 350 feet and descended about 450 feet. Runworks tells me I would have run a 1:35:07 on a flat course, which, maybe. When I plug that in to Maclin's calculator, I get 3:20:15 to 3:23:15 depending on setting.

My 'BQ Babes' - the virtual running partners I've had since I first signed up on the Runner's World Online forum back in 2008, who I now mostly interact with on Facebook, tell me I should go for sub-3:20. I...don't think so. It would be awesome, but I think it would be a stretch. But I do think 3:23 is a reasonable goal. (At least I think so until I do the math and realize that's 7:45 pace! Yikes!)

Today's workout was a bit of a test of that goal: 12 miles with 7 miles at GMP. And it wasn't bad, despite the rather hilly route (I don't have much of a choice on this unless I want to do short laps on the river rec path) and the gusty wind: my first 5 GMP miles averaged 7:43 pace, and even with two more slower miles (due to hills and wind, not due to me being tired, I think) my overall average was 7:46, perfectly acceptable as a test. My HR was pretty stable, around where it belonged. So a 3:23-ish is feasible.

So. A goal is sub-3:23, B goal is sub-3:25, C goal is a PR (sub-3:29:13). Now I just have to get to the start line uninjured and in the best running shape I can be.

It was so much work writing up my Other Half race report that I never got around to writing up my week's runs! So you get two for the price of one this week. :-)

Taper week plus recovery week equals fewer miles, but that's okay. I wanted to be sufficiently rested going into the race, but I also didn't want to stint on miles since my ultimate goal is my December marathon, and that means keeping my mileage relatively high and relatively consistent. So I 'front-loaded' my week, running more early in the week and less later.

( October 14-20: 57.7 miles )

( October 21-27: 55.2 miles )

Coming next week: 65-ish miles ending with a 20-ish mile run, and also, cutting firewood. Also, rain/snow is forecast for midweek. Happy Halloween!

I'm kind of afraid to write this post, because the last two races I wrote up my goals and plans for turned out much different (and for 'different', read SLOWER) than I'd expected. But I'd never run those races before, and my expectations were a bit different than reality. And I've run The Other Half four times now - my default profile photo is from that race - and I have a pretty good idea of what I'm getting myself into.

( So, what am I getting myself into? Analysis, plan, goals, and other nattering, ahoy! )

No matter how the race shakes out, I am looking forward to it. I enjoy the solo drive out to Moab, listening to audiobooks and NPR; I enjoy meeting my running friends from other cities, who I only ever see at races, for Mexican food and margaritas the night before; I enjoy the after-race party, with many pints of Moab Brewery beer. I will enjoy these things even more, of course, if I'm also celebrating a PR and an AG win, so cross your fingers for me!

I ran 64.8 miles last week, a new high for the cycle (though not an all-time high), including the Journey of Hope 5K which...did not go as planned. ( I am 0 for 2 in race selection, apparently )

( Recap of the rest of the week )

Actually, I have a lot of things I want to post about. In addition to heart rate nattering, I want to talk about racing weight (and why some people gain weight when they run, and others lose it, and what my weight has been doing this year), and about my core routine and hip strengthening exercises, and of course about race strategies and goals for my upcoming half marathon. So, um, watch this space!