Ilanarama!

Today I raced for the first time since the Reach the Beach relay in September 2019. I had planned to run the Canyonlands Half Marathon on March 14, 2020, but that was the weekend that the pandemic officially came crashing down on the US; the race was canceled only a few days before. Most races since then have either been canceled or reinvented as "virtual races", which I have no interest in because I'm not capable of sustaining a race effort without other runners ahead of me to (maybe) catch and behind me to (hopefully) not let catch me. But now racing is on the scene again, and I figured it was time to dust off the shoes and blow out the cobwebs.

It's not as though I haven't been running, but I haven't been running a lot. I've been maintaining 25-ish mpw, though recently I bumped it up to 30, and in mid-April I started doing track workouts about once a week. For me that's really not enough mileage to feel comfortable running a longer race, so I had originally planned to skip the Narrow Gauge 10-Miler, which I've run three times in past years. But then I saw they were also holding a 5K, and so last weekend, ignoring the fact that I really hate 5Ks, I impulsively registered.

This year's race started and finished on the college campus, only a little over a mile from my house. In past years the 10M started in town, ran up the ~350' mesa to the college and around campus, then back down to the finish; the change in start location meant that the racers started off going around the campus and then downhill, and had to climb back up over the last two miles, which IMO sucks and is another reason I didn't want to do the ten! Fortunately, the 5K stayed up on the mesa and so there were no huge climbs or descents. Not that it was flat - nothing around here is flat - but it wasn't bad.

At least, not in terms of elevation change. In order to make the distance (and be moderately flat) the 5k course was a lopsided figure-8 with about 3/4 mile of gravel road and dirt-and-gravel trail, both of which were sufficiently pockmarked with shallow depressions made by past puddles to require a bit of care to not twist an ankle. The race also started and ended on a grassy field with steep but short banks between it and the (higher) roadway.

I rode my e-bike to the start, did a short warm-up on the dirt and gravel portion in order to check it out in advance, and lined up not far behind the hotshots at the front. And we were off! I controlled my pace on the early downhill, and then passed the kid ahead of me (literally, it was a 10-year-old with her dad!), about a half-mile in. I could see a very fit-looking woman ahead, so that put me in second. Shortly after we got back onto pavement around mile 1.25 another woman caught up with me, a local runner of about my age, but I put on a burst of speed and managed to keep her from catching me. (She finished about 25 seconds behind me, whew!) Just before the 2-mile marker a different woman passed me, putting me in third place where I remained for the whole race.

I crossed the finish line at 25:46, with 3.17 miles on my Garmin, for a pace of about 8:08 - considerably slower than my marathon PR pace, and about the same as my average pace over the 16 miles of my 3 legs at RTB a year and a half ago! Oh, well. I took solace in knowing I was the fastest woman over 50, as the two ahead of me are both in their 40s. (Interestingly enough, the top five male finishers were, in order: 15, 12, 68, 12, and 64! And all of them faster than me, sigh.)

I'm toying with running a half at the end of August, which should give me enough time to get my mileage up and rebuild some more speed. And then - in September, I'm running Reach the Beach again!

My running's been sporadic over the last two years, after my herniated disc injury, much lower mileage than it used to be, and alas much slower as well. But after a spring and early summer more devoted to mountain biking than to running, I've started to get serious again.

Though I've run a dozen races post-injury, I didn't really train for any of them, and of course that shows in my race times. In 2013 I set non-downhill 5K (21:43), half (1:35:55), and marathon PRs; post-injury my best 5K was 24:12, my best half just under 1:44, and I haven't dared run another marathon.

But I'm a competitive person. I like to race because I like to do well - and I don't like not doing well. I registered for The Other Half Marathon, one of my favorite races and the course on which I ran my half PR (these things are probably related :-) with the idea that I'd have 12 weeks after our Weminuche backpacking trip to train. I wrote an "unplanny plan" - a skeleton layout of weekly mileage goals, long run goals, and key workouts - and started doing it. And now I'm halfway there!

I'd been running 20-35mpw most weeks, with occasional weeks of 10 miles or less when I was doing other things or sick, so I decided to start out with three weeks at 40mpw, followed by three at 45 - though the second week of this included most of Labor Day weekend and our Rio Chama raft trip, so my actual mileage that week was only 38. I also started incorporating speedwork: first strides and hill sprints, which I'd done occasionally in the previous month but now do weekly, and then formal intervals, followed by tempos.

Now I'm about to ramp up to 50mpw for the rest of the cycle, and I feel pretty good about it. The more I run, the more comfortable I feel running. I also find that consistent mileage (which I haven't had in a few years!) improves my fitness quickly. And I got a reminder of that when I ran a 5K this past Saturday morning.

I was a bit handicapped by the loss of my Garmin. Well, I didn't really lose it; the strap broke when I took it off my wrist after Tuesday's run. I ordered a new strap kit from Amazon that was supposed to arrive on Friday, but somehow it ended up getting sent to the wrong transit center, causing a delay. (It's still not here. The tracking page says Wednesday. So far it's gone from the Garmin warehouse in Phoenix AZ to two different places in California, and is now in Salt Lake City...)

The day after my strap broke I had a 2x2 tempo run (after my usual two-mile warm-up: 2 miles tempo pace, 2 minutes easy, 2 miles tempo pace, where 'tempo' = 'more or less hoped-for half-marathon pace') and I thought maybe I'd try it by feel, so I put what was left of the watch in my pocket and set out. Unfortunately I couldn't feel the watch buzz at the first mile mark, which meant I wouldn't be able to tell when my intervals started and stopped (okay, I know this route so I pretty much know where 2 miles is, but still) so I took it out and held it in my hand as I ran.

My next run two days later was an easy run, so this time I did just keep the Garmin in my pocket the whole time. And what do you know, my pace - retrieved after the run - was pretty much my usual easy pace. By then I had gotten the notification from Amazon that my strap wasn't coming in time for the race. I decided that it would be good practice in racing by feel, since I knew I wasn't in PR shape so if I failed, I wouldn't be too upset. My goals for the 5K would be: a) get a new valid HRmax, b) pace reasonably despite not being able to look at my Garmin (I kept it in my pocket), c) come in 1-3 and get an award (no age groups), d) break 24 minutes.

I ran the 2.4 miles to the race as a warm-up, with my Garmin in my pocket; checking it later, I was a little on the fast side but not bad. The race itself was a typical small Durango race, though with both a 5K and a 10K starting together, so I had to look around and see both who else was lining up near the front, and which course they were running, according to their bibs. One of the fast women I know was out of town, according to her husband Steve who was there (he won the men's 5K) and I didn't see anyone else that looked definitively faster than me, so I was feeling pretty confident as we took off.

I knew I couldn't keep up with Steve, nor with the other fast men who were at the front, so I didn't try. Instead I attempted to keep a hard-but-not-brutal pace and not let any women pass me. The course went gently downhill for the first mile, then there was a short uphill followed by a steeper downhill to the 5K turn-around. Unusually for a small local race, they'd gotten three bands to play along the course, which was fun and motivating, especially since after the guys had taken off I was pretty much running by myself. Every so often I'd glance over my shoulder but never saw anyone there other than one guy who passed me about a half mile in.

When Steve passed me going the other way we yelled cheers and encouragement at each other. At the turnaround I saw there was a woman maybe ten seconds behind me, but after I glanced around at the next curve she was gone, so I figured she was running the 10K. The second half of the course was net uphill, since it was an out-and-back, and I concentrated on holding what I thought was a reasonably fast pace without blowing up.

Since my Garmin was in my pocket I had no idea what pace I was going, and so I was pleased to see the finish clock reading just under 23 minutes as I approached; I sped up to try to get a 22:xx but the seconds ticked over inexorably, and the clock read 23:06 as I hurtled myself past the finish line and then tried to catch my breath.

As far as my pre-race goals, I'll give myself 2.5 out of 4. On the negative side, my heart rate data was not as unambiguous as I would have liked, with no real legitimate max, but I think I am fairly comfortable saying that it supports the numbers I've been using for HR training. My pacing felt okay while I was doing it - I didn't feel like I was dying halfway through - but my splits were terrible, though part of that's likely due to the down-and-up course profile.

On the other hand, I smashed my sub-24 goal. Still nowhere near what I used to do but my best 5K in two years. Oh yeah, and I won. First overall woman, 4th or 5th person. Which basically means that the fast women didn't show up, but hey, I got two $50 gift certificates, one for each of the running stores in town, so that's a $70 profit on my entry fee investment!

Now I'm looking ahead to the half marathon in six weeks. While I'd like to run under 1:40 again, this 5K result is not as good as I'd need for that; plus, while my tempo workouts are indicating I'm in better shape than I was before my last half, they're not supporting the sub-1:40 either. Of course, I still have six weeks. But I'm okay with not hitting that goal, which is arbitrary anyway. I mostly want to improve on my last half time of 1:43:46, and if possible, beat the time of 1:41:44 which I ran my first time on this course.

I'm getting nervous about the Imogene Pass Run, which will be a week from Saturday. I have not managed to get either the mileage or the long runs that I did last time I ran it, two years ago, so I am probably not going to PR, or place in my (new) age group. Oh, well. My own fault. I think I can come in under 3:45, anyway, and maybe around 3:40, five minutes off my PR.

In fact, I haven't actually done any long runs since CIM. A couple of half marathons and a couple of 13+ runs have been the max, so on Sunday I decided I'd better run on some steep trails for at least 3 hours, which I figured would be about 14 miles. In fact those 14 miles ended up taking me 3:14, with a lot of walking involved, but I know I'll be walking a lot at Imogene, so that's okay. ( And I got some excellent views! )

Imogene will only be the beginning. I've got big plans for the fall - for some value of 'big', anyway. First up will be a 5K the following week, on September 13th. It's a benefit for the local Alzheimer's association, as one of the local runners (and a guy I know through both running and politics) has developed this disease, and his wife has organized this race. I've signed up both me and Britt. I'm hoping to do well in this race as I have been doing coached track workouts lately - more on this later, probably in another post. I doubt I can PR since my PR is a downhill race, but if I get a "loop course PR" I will be content.

The following week is the Animas Mug Run, a trail 10K-ish which I ran once, back in 2009. (I actually drank my tea out of the mug today.) I'd like to run it again, just because it's a cool race.

Then three weeks later - on October 11th and 12th - it's time for the Durango Double. For the past two years it's been a trail 25K/50K on Saturday, and road half/full marathon on Sunday, but this year there is a new race director, a new format of trail half Saturday and road half Sunday, and new (and I think better) courses. I did the trail 25K/road half combo two years ago, and enjoyed it a lot. Last year I volunteered, but this year I'll be running again.

The main reason I volunteered rather than ran last year was that The Other Half, the Moab half I run every October, was scheduled for the following Sunday, rather than two weeks later as it was in 2012, and that was my goal half (and I ran a PR, so, yay!) But this year, as last year, the races are a week apart - too close, I think, to be able to run a quality race at TOH...

...so I'm thinking about a 50K instead. Um. I know this sounds crazy! But the Dead Horse 50K will also be in Moab, on Saturday October 19th, and as this is the opening weekend of hunting season here and Britt will be otherwise occupied, it's a good weekend for me to do a race. This is a new race, but the company that's organizing it is an established one, and they put on many ultras including the well-regarded Red Hot 55K which several of my friends have run. The course is near Dead Horse State Park on the Gemini Bridges mountain bike route and other nearby jeep roads, and the course profile looks relatively easy - for an ultra, anyway!

The thing is, it is probably easier to run an 'easy' ultra (that is, just complete the distance at a comfortable-ish pace) a week after the double than it is to race a half, and if I can't give a good effort at TOH I don't want to do it. And then I'd be out there for the weekend, anyway, and could cheer my friends on at TOH, and go out for dinner with them as usual, etc. Anyway, I haven't yet committed, but I'm strongly tempted.

I haven't even looked at November.... ;-)

Tomorrow morning is the Journey of Hope 5K, a "family run/walk" to raise money for free mammograms for women in need. Hope-fully (see what I did there?) there will be a few actual runners there to race against, and it won't just be a huge mass of people in pink walking together - not that I object to people walking 5Ks, but I would like to be able to use this as a fitness gauge, and that means I need 1) other people near my pace to try to beat, and 2) no people walking in front of me and getting in my way. If the course is similar to the 5Ks I have run before in this subdivision, it will make a loop on a bike path and then return the same way, so there will be people going in both directions. But if it's as big an event as it seems to be from last year's photos, they probably will try to route it as a single large loop - I hope (as it were) so!

So, a 5K. Those of you who have read my journal for some time know that I HATE 5Ks. That's probably because I almost always go out too fast, and then I am miserable for the entire second half while not really running all that fast. This time, I'm going to try to keep my pace under control early, and aim for more even splits than usual - while still trying to run fast, of course.

My PR is 21:03, but that was on an extremely downhill course and though I'm thinking about trying hard to beat it on a flat course sometime, I don't think it's going to happen on marathon training; lots of miles, but most of them easy. I ought to be able to beat my flat(-ish) course PR of 21:43 from February, though. (These races were on a different course - I haven't run in this subdivision since 2010, when I ran a 22:44 5K best.)

( Numbers geek overthinking and planning that will probably be abandoned in the first quarter-mile, ahoy. )

This morning I ran a 5K I'd been wanting to run for years, but have never managed to be around/healthy for: the "Fastest 5K in the West" put on by our local college, Fort Lewis, as a fundraiser for their cross-country teams. And by "fastest" they mean "ludicrously downhill". The first 1.5 miles of the course are pretty much flat, but the next half mile drops about 50 feet toward the access road on the edge of the mesa on which the college sits. Then it plunges off the edge, dropping 250 feet in 3/4 mile of switchbacks, after which it mostly levels out again to the finish.

There were about 60 starters, and we lined up on the college's dirt track, as the course began with a loop and a quarter before angling off toward the mesa rim road. I was briefly caught behind a slow guy but managed to slide out and inside, staking my place in about the #15 spot and the 4th woman, behind a wiry blonde I thought to be about my age (later I found she is 10 years older than me!) who looked pretty fast. I didn't look at my watch at all, just kept pace with the people around me. We looped the track and then hit the access path, which had a short, steepish uphill right around .5 miles; the blonde slowed down and I shot past her and another guy, putting me in 3rd. We hit the rim road and started stringing out along the edge, and I passed another guy, which put me directly behind the first and second women but still a ways back. I looked at my watch for the first time about .7 miles in and was shocked to see my pace was 6:35 at that point, but hey, if I could keep it up...

Passed the first mile marker with a 6:49 split. The course took a right turn and began to drop, fairly imperceptibly at first, but I often run on this road in the other direction which is most definitely uphill, so I knew we were going down! Two women passed me here, including the one who eventually won, and I was in 5th for a short time, but then I passed one of them again just as the road started to head down in earnest.

I missed the second mile marker, but my Garmin has my second split at 7:00 flat. I was not looking at my watch here as well as it took all my concentration not to trip over my own feet! There's a single really steep and sharp hairpin switchback which forced me to slow down a little, but then it was just easy curves and a solid downhill the rest of the way into town, where the road finally flattened out through the neighborhoods. I was pretty much just keeping my relative spot - the three women ahead of me were visible but not close, and nobody passed me.

I looked at my watch again at the third mile marker and it was funny, because I saw 20:25 (for a third split of 6:36, OMG!), and my brain thought, "well, a tenth of a mile takes about a minute, so I should come in around 21:25, yay, a PR!" Then I went around the corner and was shocked to see the finish clock at only 20:55! I had kind of forgotten that I'm a bit faster than 10:00 pace when I'm racing, duh.

I crossed the line at 21:03 for a 41 second PR(!!) over my February 5K - I suspect most of the difference is due to the course, as the other one was an out-and-back with an uphill second half. But maybe I'm a little faster, too. I don't care - I'm taking the PR!

It took me longer than I expected to ramp my running back up after Houston; that calf cramp in mile 23 when I unwisely accelerated to HMP must have been the sign of a strain or tear, because it kept hurting during my runs, sometimes acutely. I took more time off than I had planned, and did a lot of fairly slow running, but I'm finally back up to around 50mpw - not as much as I had wanted, but it will do. Now it's time to start adding some speedwork as I focus on shorter distances, leading up to the Canyonlands Half in March and the Steamworks Half in June.

Which means - gulp - running a 5K. The 5K distance is a good one for beginners who are just trying to cover the distance faster than their usual training run, but once you get to the relatively competitive level, you realize that the 5K is a diabolical, awful distance, because you have to run FAST. I like marathons. Marathon pace is only a bit faster than your easy pace, because you have to conserve your energy and judge your fatigue. A 5K, though, is balls-to-the-wall (ovaries-to-the-wall?) puking territory. Which I am not so good at.

I get a lot of ribbing by fellow runners for having a 10K PR (43:06) which is considerably faster than twice my 5K PR (22:14). The thing is, that 10K is net downhill and at an elevation ~2500 ft lower than here. (I only justify driving almost 3 hours to run a 10K by the fact that it gets me a guaranteed entry to the Canyonlands Half. I cannot justify the drive for a 5K!)

My 5K PR is from two years ago; last year I ran the same course 12 seconds slower, partly because I lost sight of the runner ahead (it was a tiny race, fewer than 40 runners) and I'm better at chasing than I am at time-trialing on my own. The 5K on Saturday should have at least 150 runners. But it is a slightly harder course, because it starts downhill and ends uphill rather than the other way around as the other course did, and I have been doing almost zero fast running, so I'm not expecting a PR. But that doesn't mean I'm not going to TRY.

The real reason I'm running it is because, as I said, I'm not very good at time-trialing on my own. I'm lousy at running "5K pace" unless I'm actually running a 5K. This should be a good workout, whether I PR or not. Because the Canyonlands Half is coming up in (*gulp*) three weeks, and that is a race I really do want to PR!

So, I ran a 5K on Friday night.

Before I whine (and I am going to whine, so consider this a Whine Warning) I feel obliged to acknowledge that most of you reading this are not competitive runners. Some of you have run 5Ks and would be very happy indeed to run them as fast as I do. And yes, my time is a course PR for me. So I should not complain. But complain I shall.

I plugged the time of my awesome half-marathon into the McMillan calculator (Warning: the site plays music but it goes away when you hit "calculate") and it told me that my equivalent performance in a 5K would be 22:34. Now, I had run this particular course twice before, both times around 24:25, and I am far more of an endurance runner than a speed runner, and some recent workouts had confirmed for me that there was no way I could possibly keep a 7:16 per mile pace going, so I wasn't really aiming at that. But I thought a 23:30 would be reasonable, and my pixie dust goal was to break 23 minutes.

5Ks are popular because most people who are capable of walking can usually finish them in an hour or so, and most beginning runners can run them continuously, as a first race. To really race them well, though, means running at basically top speed, just sub-barfing. I don't enjoy running 5Ks. It's too painful.

I did not break 23 minutes. I barely broke 24, coming in at 23:57, miserable and breathless, and passed by another woman in the last 100 yards. But worst of all, I was beaten by a woman pushing two kids in a double stroller. She came in 4th, with the beautifully symmetric time of 22:22 (which is why I remembered it). I came in 7th.

Strollered by a doublewide. I am mortified.