Ilanarama!

It is March! And just as this is the month when winter turns the corner and heads toward spring, I feel as though my fitness is, finally, doing the same. (And what's funny is that I just noticed I used almost the same phrasing in my first post in January, talking about starting over with the new year! Me and calendar metaphors...)

( To recap a little: )

In November, I ran 17.6 miles. In December I basically didn't run at all. In January, as I was (in the words of my previous post) "preparing to begin to start from scratch," I ran 65 slow miles. In February, I ran 84 slightly less-slow miles. I am hopeful (see me knocking on this wood, here? Knock! Knock! Knockity Knock!) that in March I will finally get back above 100 miles!

I'm still a lot slower than I used to be, but it's been really interesting watching my pace vs heart rate improve. My easy pace heart rate is around 128-140 bpm; my average for a run is usually right around 136. Back in September and October, before I was injured, I'd run my easy runs at a pace between around 8:55-9:35/mile. In January, when I started running again, to keep my HR at the right level I had to run at around 10:30-11 minute pace - though running felt hard enough physically that I often ran even slower.

By the third week of February (a bit more than a week after the injection) I had my first run in which I averaged under 10 minute miles (a blazing 9:53 pace!) The next week most of my runs were 10 minute pace or under, and the next week - well, that's this week. And so far I've kept up the trend! \o/ Monday's run was the fastest yet at 9:42 pace (though the run included a half-dozen strides - short accelerations - which make the overall pace faster). Today was a slower but still sub-10 pace. And you know, I look at 9:53@133 today and compare it to 9:53@136 two weeks ago and it looks like improvement.

I've also been watching my weight come down; very very slowly, but it's coming down. I weighed around 115 in October, not the lowest I've been recently but a weight I'm happy with. Once I stopped running, it climbed, and I stopped weighing myself in mid-December because numbers above 120 depressed me.

( The weight goes up, the weight goes down - at least, it's starting to! )

In less than three weeks I've got my first race of the year, the Canyonlands 5-miler that is concurrent with the half marathon I usually run. I don't expect I'll be very fast, but as most of the fast people run the half, I am likely to get a medal for top-3 AG, and possibly even win it. Then, in just under seven weeks: the Boston Marathon. I'd pretty much resigned myself to spectating, but I have a few friends who are injured and planning to run/walk at an easy pace, and I'm thinking that might be doable. I started my distance running with run/walk, and I know that this technique can be used to extend endurance and run farther with low injury risk. This past Saturday I ran (and walked) 10 miles, even though my longest run up to now has been 6.3, and felt fine. So I'm going to try to ramp up my long run with walk breaks, and see how things go.