This and That, Odds and Ends

I have decided to "downgrade" to the half marathon at Vancouver. While I felt like I had a pretty strong half in San Diego, I just didn't (and don't) feel physically or emotionally ready or in a state of near-readiness for a full marathon in less than 2 months and with the pace of the semester that didn't (and doesn't) seem likely to change. Instead I'll be targeting a sub 2:20 half marathon, which may be something of a challenge for me due to the hills. I've taken something of a reverse taper this week, but will be back with a new plan for the upcoming weeks soon.

I'm also excited that my spouse will be coming with me to Vancouver, and we'll get to spend some time playing tourist, too!

Since we are currently on Spring Break, I hosted a two day mini writing retreat. It was great for a couple of reasons: my house is a lot cleaner than it was earlier in the week and I have made substantial progress on an article manuscript. I'm hopeful that I'll have a complete draft by the end of next week and then can spend some time polishing. I aim to have it sent out to a journal before the end of the first week of April.

My birthday is coming up on Sunday, and I really want to buy myself a pair of adorable open toed booties. Then I look outside at the snow that is likely to be on the ground for another few weeks and think about the mud that is to follow. Living in Alaska is an amazing adventure -- just not for my fabulous shoe collection.... I'm ready for it to be spring, but until then I'll go tubing. Also I'll go back to San Diego here and there in my mind....

Earlier this week I received the happy news that my sister is pregnant with her second child. I'm thrilled that I'll be an auntie again in the fall!

What's new with you?

Vancouver Marathon Training: Week 7 and San Diego Half Marathon Goals

This past week was another doozy. Between grading midterms, attending an all-day diversity workshop, celebrating Mark's birthday, and Fur Rondy, running slipped down on my list of priorities. I have to admit that I'm considering switching from the full to the half in Vancouver, as the demands of higher mileage don't seem to be meshing well with other things (read: work) right now. But I'm putting off making the call at least until after I get back from San Diego. At any rate here's how last week went.

Monday - scheduled rest. Actual rest.

Tuesday - scheduled 4 miles easy. Actual 3.25 hills in my hood. My pace averaged out to 11:18. I probably should have sucked it up and got in the extra .75 mile, but I forgot it was garbage day when I headed out so I had to alter my route a bit as I went.

Wednesday - scheduled rest. Actual rest.

Thursday - scheduled 4 miles speed work. Actual 4 miles. I did 4 x 800 repeats with jogging recoveries. The pacer per mile averaged out to 9:47, and the good news was that I felt consistently strong through the last repeat.

Friday - scheduled 4 miles easy. Actual 20 minute walk. I spent all day at a professional development workshop and then took Mark out for a belated birthday dinner in the evening at Kinley's. Their blueberry lavender creme brulee is where it is at. That is all.

Saturday - scheduled yoga. Actual some walking around and the shortest race of my life. (See the Running of the Reindeer Race Report below.)

Sunday - scheduled 15 miles LSD. Going into this run I felt like I wanted a bit more of a taper for my upcoming half than 15 miles the Sunday before would give me so I decided to run 10 miles instead. My average pace worked out to 11:19 min/miles.

Total scheduled miles: 27
Actual miles: 17.35
Cross training workouts: 0

So what are my goals for Sunday's race in San Diego? My biggest concern is that the heat will have an impact on my performance, but there hasn't really been anything I can do about that here in Alaska. I will really only be able to get in one acclimating run before the race, but I'm hopeful that I can still have a solid performance. My goals are pretty simple:

A) Have fun! Enjoy running on a non-icy or non-treadmill surface and with lots of other enthusiastic runners!

B) Finish in 2:25 or under. Last year I ran three of my four slowest half marathons (all over 2:30), but I know that I have improvement in terms of speed in me still. This is my chance to establish a benchmark for future half marathons.

Wish me luck, dear readers!

Vancouver Marathon Training: Week 6

As with the week before, this past week was pretty hectic. There was too much going on around campus and too many papers to grade to feel like I was able to strike a healthy balance of work, training, and life. I did the best I could, but it meant backloading my mileage and I'm very much planning to rest today.

Monday - scheduled rest. Actual rest. Since this was an exact repeat of the previous Monday, again it worked out pretty well that Monday was a rest day.

Tuesday - scheduled 4 miles. Actual 20 minute walk. I had a breakfast meeting, papers to grade, a lecture to write, and a guest lecture to give in a colleague's class in the evening.

Wednesday - scheduled rest. Actual rest. I considered making up Tuesday's miles here, but I was wiped out when I got home from campus that evening.

Thursday - scheduled 3 miles speedwork. Actual 4 miles speedwork. I did 4 x 800 with jogging recoveries. My pace averaged out to 9:50 min/mile.

Friday - scheduled 5 miles easy. Actual 3.3 miles easy. My pace averaged out to 10:42 min/mile. I followed it up with 20 push ups and some easy gentle yoga.

Saturday - scheduled yoga. Actual 3 miles easy at an average pace of 10:49. In the afternoon we also did a little bit of walking around downtown for Fur Rondy. The highlight was seeing the Outhouse Races.

Sunday - scheduled 12 miles LSD. Actual 11 miles LSD. I slept horribly and woke up congested, so I had initially talked myself into postponing this run until Tuesday, but then realized that the timing wasn't really going to be any better than, so I decided to go ahead and try to log the miles. I told myself to just run 90 minutes and evaluate how I felt then. I managed to keep going until I got to 11 miles, but at that point I was just completely out of juice. My pace averaged to a slow 11:41 min/mile.

Total scheduled miles: 24.
Actual miles: 21.3.
Cross training workouts: 2.

I'm hoping that this week will go a little bit more according to the training plan. What are your strategies for balancing training or getting in work outs when you have too many irons in the fire?

Vancouver Marathon Training: Week 5

Well, this week was pretty hectic with things going on around campus, and I also received stacks of papers from my classes. Between attending events, marking essays, and getting through my usual class prep, meetings, and so forth, I had to be flexible with my training schedule this week. Again, I managed to get in most of my miles even if things didn't really go according to plan.

Monday - scheduled rest. Actual rest. This worked out very well because I had a full day on campus, including office hours, teaching two classes, and attending a research presentation, and in the evening I had dinner with some colleagues and a job candidate.

Tuesday - scheduled yoga. Actual yoga and a timed mile. I spent 5 minutes warming up, ran my mile in  8:46, and cooled down. While I was hoping my mile would be a bit faster, I did shave 7 seconds off my time since my last timed mile, so that at least is progress. I followed up my mile with a short 20 minute vinyasa session on my mat and a few minutes in savasana.

Wednesday - scheduled 4 miles easy. Actual 3 miles easy at an average pace of 10:59. I was wiped out and it was a struggle to get in a run at all that day, so I was alright with it.

Thursday - scheduled 3 miles speed work. Actual 20 minute walk. I was feeling a little bit under the weather plus I had limited amounts of time due to the scheduled presentations given by and dinner with another candidate. Some days the whole training thing just doesn't happen according to plan.

Friday - scheduled rest. Actual 5 miles tempo. I did a mile to warm up @11:17, 3 miles at an average pace of 10:07, and a cool down mile at 11:01. Other than some calf tightness, I felt great on this run.

Saturday - scheduled 5 miles easy. Actual snowshoeing. Thanks to our friends who lent us their shoes and poles, Mark and I went snowshoeing on some trails at Prospect Heights on a gorgeous winter afternoon. We only did about an hour, but it was good fun and provided some nice views. I probably would have been tempted to go for longer but I was developing a huge blister on my right heel.

 Sunday - scheduled 10 miles LSD. Actual 10 miles LSD. I was a little unsure how this run would go since I got a massive blister on Saturday's snowshoeing outing. But I bandaged that baby up and the adhesive fortunately held. My pace worked out to an average 11:21 minute/mile, which isn't really anything to write home about. More excitingly, I'm back in the double digits.

Total scheduled miles: 22.
Actual miles: 19.
Cross training workouts: 3.

It's hard to believe, but 5 weeks of training and of the spring semester are already over. That means the San Diego Half-Marathon is just under three weeks away! I'm nervous about how the warmer weather might impact my race day performance, but otherwise I'm feeling pretty good about my readiness. The full marathon is another matter....

Have you ever been snowshoeing? What methods do you use for treating blisters?

Vancouver Marathon Training: Week 4

For what it's worth, another week of running and training is in the books. As with last week, things didn't go quite according to plan, but I did manage to log most of the miles I was supposed to.

Winter blues and greys

Monday - scheduled yoga. Actual yoga. I just did a short 20 minute gentle flow podcast from Yoga Journal.  It was exactly what I needed after the end of what felt like a very long work day.

Tuesday - scheduled 4 miles easy. Actual 5 by the 5th Virtual 5K on the treadmill in 30:36. You can read more about it in its own post below.

Wednesday - scheduled timed mile. Actual rest. Since I ran fast (for me) the previous day, I decided to put off the timed mile for a few days.

Thursday - scheduled 3 miles easy. Actual 4 miles easy. I hopped on the treadmill to watch some Netflix and log a few easy miles. The pace averaged out to 10:55 min/miles.

Friday - scheduled 4 miles easy. Actual rest. I had some things to attend to for a couple of service obligations and it made for a strange day.

Saturday - scheduled belly dance. Actual 3 miles easy. I decided that I really didn't enjoy belly dance all that much. I'm sure it would have been good for my tight and inflexible shoulders and upper body, but I would much rather run, bike, or do yoga instead. So I gave myself permission. I headed out the door for a few miles on a stunningly beautiful winter day. It was icy and a bit windy in more exposed areas, but it was good for the soul. My average pace was 11:31. I followed it up with some push ups, crunches, and a short yoga session on my mat.

Sunday - scheduled 7 miles LSD. Actual 7 miles LSD on the treadmill at an average pace of 11:17. I felt physically okay, but this run was hard mentally and emotionally. I had received some troubling news from a loved one earlier that morning, and the first part of February has, since college, been an emotionally low time for me in general as it marks the anniversary of my father's passing. (Today is the actual calendar date.) I got through the run, but I'm not ashamed to admit that I spent an hour sobbing uncontrollably afterwards.

Total scheduled miles: 19.
Actual miles: 17.12.
Cross training workouts: 2.

I miss my father frequently but I feel it most terribly this time of year, but I'm so grateful that he instilled in me a love of learning, curiosity, intellectual integrity, the habit of keeping some sort of journal, a love of opera, football, Monty Python, and swearing, and even eventually an ability to accept that I am a giant dork and that's just fine. Thanks for indulging me, readers, with a bit of a descent into the maudlin here.

Vancouver Marathon Training: Week 3

I have to admit this week that I thought the wheels were going to fall off a couple of times. For the first time in quite a while, I felt like I was scrambling on multiple fronts and like I was trying to punt and play for field position but doing it poorly. (Are football metaphors allowed in the post-season? Are they allowed when they are atrociously mixed?) I managed to get most of my miles in for the week, and I'm hoping that this next week will proceed a little more smoothly.

Monday - scheduled 3 miles easy. Actual 3 miles easy. After I got home from campus, I hopped on the treadmill and logged an easy work out at an average pace of 10:50 min/mile.

Tuesday - scheduled yoga. Actual yoga. My friend and I broke up our days on campus by heading to a 60 minute Ashtanga class at lunchtime. It was good to get moving and sweat out some toxins. It felt a bit easier to go through most of the primary series this week.

Wednesday - scheduled rest. Actual rest.

Thursday - scheduled 4 miles speed work. Actual 4 miles of speed work. After a couple weeks back at the yoga studio, I wasn't miserably still sore 48 hours after practice. I did 4 x 800s with jogging recoveries. My pace averaged out to 10:00 min/mile. I followed up the run with 25 push-ups and 100 crunches.

Friday - scheduled 4 miles easy. Actual rest. I had a meeting in the morning, was working on campus all day, and opted to go out for dinner and drinks with a friend and another girlfriend of hers in the evening.

Saturday - scheduled belly dance. Actual 9 miles LSD. Since we were planning to host a Super Bowl party on Sunday, I knew it would be tricky to get my run in and do the class prep, cleaning, and cooking I needed to do before I friends arrived for the party, so I did my run on Saturday. Also I have to admit that given the choice between getting in a long run and going to belly dance I will choose running every time. I didn't feel quite as strong as I did during my long run last weekend, but I logged the miles. My pace averaged out to 11:21 min/mile.

Sunday - scheduled 9 miles LSD. Actual 2.5 miles recovery. I hopped on the treadmill for a quick, easy recovery run. Sadly 2.5 miles at an 11:14 min/mile pace doesn't really negate complete gluttony at a Super Bowl party.

Total scheduled miles: 20.
Actual miles: 18.5.
Cross training workouts: 1.

Total chips eaten at Super Bowl party: not quite a googolplex.
Most delicious dish brought by a friend to our party: chocolate, olive oil, and rosemary bread.

Did you watch the Super Bowl? Are you training for any February races?

Vancouver Marathon Training: Week 2

My second week of training for Vancouver is in the books, and I felt like training went pretty well as other parts of life started to speed back up. I managed to make progress on a manuscript, get some lectures written, attend a couple of meetings, and to go to the opera to see a production of Tosca and out to a pub for pizza and beers with a couple of friends. Training-life and work-life balance are good -- if often more elusive.

Before the show: Damn us for not remembering we would need cash in order to have wine at the theater's bar!

What I wore to the opera: replete with sparkles and duck face

Monday - scheduled 3 miles easy. Actual 3 miles easy. Since we had MLK day off from school, I decided to run in the middle of the day as a break from writing. I kept the pace nice and easy at an average 10:50 min/mile.

Tuesday - scheduled yoga. Actual yoga. A friend and I hit up a 60 minute Ashtanga class at our local yoga studio. This was my first ashtanga class in a really long time and I was melting into a puddle by about 10 minutes into it. We did all of the standing poses in the primary series and about a third of the seated ones before winding down in an inversion.

Wednesday - scheduled rest. Actual rest. As with the previous week, I was very sore from yoga and found taking a rest day quite appealing.

Thursday - scheduled 3 miles speedwork. Actual 3 miles easy. I'm hoping that soon I'll be in better yoga shape again and not still feel so sore 48+ hours after a practice. In exchange for keeping the pace at an easy 10:45 min/mile, I followed my 3 miles with some pushups, crunches, and gentle stretching.

Friday - scheduled 4 miles easy. Actual 4 miles with a few faster intervals thrown into the mix. When I got home from campus in the evening, I just really wanted to sit on the couch, drink some wine, and read a novel, but I forced myself to immediately change into running clothes and get in the miles. I wasn't feeling up to 800s but I did do several faster surges. My pace averaged out to 10:29.

Saturday - scheduled belly dance class. Actual belly dance class. This was the second class in the 4 week course that I signed up for, and it was a bit faster paced than the first class and involved some moves that were definitely challenging for someone who spends a lot of time hunched over manuscripts and doesn't have a lot of flexibility in her upper body and core.

Sunday - scheduled 7 miles LSD. Actual 7 miles at an average pace of 11:16 min/mile. The first six miles of this run were pretty awesome and confidence-building. The last mile I was tired and I was starting to feel it in my core. In spite of the sucky last mile, I feel pretty good about my longest run in the past three months and ready to build off of those completed miles in the weeks to come.

Total scheduled miles: 17.
Actual miles: 17.
Cross training workouts: 2.

So I feel like I had a solid week. I got in all the workouts on my schedule, and I ran all but one of my running workouts at a faster pace than their counterparts from the first week of training. Also there was opera. I'll take it.

Vancouver Marathon Training: Week 1

The first week of training for the Vancouver marathon is in the books. Not every run was easy or fast, but I was pleased that I got all my workouts in as it was the first week of classes, which is always a little bit nutty.

Monday - scheduled 3 miles easy. Actual 3 easy miles. Conditions were incredibly icy (such that the first day of classes was actually canceled here), so I opted to kick off training on the treadmill. I watched some Netflix and ran at an average pace of 10:57.

It's petty outside, but very slippery as there's a thick layer of ice underneath a few inches of fluffy snow.

Tuesday - scheduled yoga. Actual yoga. I went to a Hatha class at my studio. I hadn't been to a class since before the holidays and I was definitely feeling it during and after this class. We did several series of poses using the wall for support and then did them again without the wall. I think I managed my most successful half moon pose to date.

Wednesday - scheduled rest. Actual rest. I was glad to take the day off as my whole upper body and my hips were really sore from the previous day's yoga class.

Thursday - scheduled 4 miles speed work. Actual 3 miles easy. I was still feeling sore in my shoulders, arms, and hips, so I opted to switch workouts. I kept it easy, hoping to flush out some of the soreness, and ran at an average pace of 10:57.

Friday - scheduled 3 miles easy. Actual 4 miles speed work on the treadmill. I warmed up and then did 4x800 with jogging 800 recoveries in between each. My target average pace for the repeats was between a 9:20 and a 9:30 pace. I hit the pace for all of my repeats and averaged 9:58 a mile for the workout.

Saturday - scheduled belly dance class. Actual belly dance class. One of the things on my 32 in 32 list was to take a dance class. To that end, I signed up for a 5 week belly dance basics course. Saturday was my first class. As some one who isn't particularly coordinated, it was challenging but a lot of fun. I definitely felt my lower back, abs, and hips getting worked in ways that they don't during running and yoga.

Sunday - scheduled 5 miles LSD. Actual 5 miles run at an average pace of 11:23. I wasn't very comfortable during this run, as I probably should have waited another hour or so after brunch to run it, but I got it done.

Total scheduled miles: 15.
Actual miles: 15.
Cross training workouts: 2.

Today kicks off week two of training. Today is also my mama's birthday! I'm wishing her a very happy 61st!

Inspiration Board and Marathon Training Plans

One of the things on my 32 in 32 list was to create an inspiration board to put above my treadmill. Over the spring and early summer I had saved a number of magazine clippings and issues of Runner's World to use in making it. However, I ended up jettisoning them in the weeks leading up to our move to Anchorage. A few weeks ago I restarted gathering images and this past week finally had enough clippings from magazines - mainly Runner's World but also some Yoga Journal to create a collage of sorts on a pinboard.

Last night I hung the board up above my treadmill along with my two most meaningful medals from races. The medal on the left is from my first marathon, which I also ran to raise money as part of Team in Training, and the medal on the right is from the race where I ran my fastest half-marathon.

I'll probably be looking at this board a lot over the next few months as marathon training with a half-marathon in the mix for some more current race experience thrown in kicks off on Monday. Because I haven't run a full for a couple of years and because of where my conditioning is currently at I chose a Beginning Marathon Program in The Runner's World Big Book of Marathon and Half-Marathon Training and made just a few tweaks to it. This plan calls for running 4 days a week most weeks and gives me the flexibility to attend a yoga class each week as well as the Belly Dance class that I am signed up to take later this month and next. Since several of you have asked about training, I'm sharing my plan here.

Week	Mon	Tues	Wed	Thurs	Fri	Sat	Sun	Total
1	3 mi	Yoga	Rest	4 mi	3 mi	Belly Dance	5 mi LSD	15 mi
2	3 mi	Yoga	Rest	3 mi	4 mi	Belly Dance	7 mi LSD	17 mi
3	3 mi	Yoga	Rest	4 mi	4 mi	Belly Dance	9 mi LSD	20 mi
4	Yoga	4 mi	Timed Mile	3 mi	4 mi	Belly Dance	7 mi LSD	19 mi
5	Rest	Yoga	4 mi	3 mi	Rest	5 mi	10 mi LSD	22 mi
6	Rest	4 mi	Rest	3 mi	5 mi	Yoga	12 mi LSD	24 mi
7	Rest	4 mi	Rest	4 mi	4 mi	Yoga	15 mi LSD	27 mi
8	Rest	4 mi	Rest	Rest	2 mi	Rest	San Diego Half-Marathon	19.1 mi
9	Rest	4 mi	Yoga	6 mi	Rest	4 mi	16 mi LSD	30 mi
10	Rest	4 mi	Yoga	6 mi	Rest	4 mi	18 mi LSD	32 mi
11	Rest	6 mi	Yoga	5 mi	Rest	5 mi	20 mi  LSD	36 mi
12	Rest	7 mi	Timed Mile	7 mi	Yoga	7 mi	14 mi LSD	36 mi
13	Rest	6 mi	Yoga	7 mi	Rest	7 mi	20 mi LSD	40 mi
14	Rest	7 mi	Yoga	7 mi	Rest	7 mi	13 mi LSD	34 mi
15	Rest	5 mi	Yoga	4 mi	Rest	5 mi	10 mi LSD	24 mi
16	Rest	3 mi	Rest	4 mi	Rest	Rest	Vancouver Marathon	33.2 mi

I plan to typically do speedwork on Thursdays and run most of the miles on those days as either part of tempo runs, progressive runs or 800 repeats. I'm also giving myself permission to ditch a few miles here and there during this training if some snow shoeing opportunities come along. I've heard it's a great workout and am keen to try it once we have more snow again.

Have you taken any dance classes? Are you training for a spring marathon or half-marathon?

Things That are New(s)

Since I last posted there have been several new developments around these parts. For one thing, we are seriously considering adopting a second dog. A woman who goes to the same climbing gym as a woman who works at our doggy daycare is having to give up her dog as she is moving out of state. We're still trying to work out a time to meet the dog, who is currently being fostered, introduce her to Bailey, and make sure that we are all compatible, but I'm hopeful that by the end of the month we may have a canine addition to our family.

Another new thing is that I got a long overdue haircut. Scissors had not touched the hairs on my head since May and part of me was trying to keep long hair for a while longer, so I was initially just planning on getting a trim. However, I was bothered many times by my hair on our trip to Louisiana. It kept getting pulled by my backpack, and it was attracting static electricity like you would not believe. I decided to check out an Aveda Concepts Salon here, and I loved the atmosphere and my new stylist. I had her give me an asymmetrical graduated bob, and I immediately felt more like myself.

Late last week I started to feel a little bit anxious about the start of a new term. It's now just one week away, so I spent much of this weekend working on my syllabi and doing some preliminary course prep. Bailey was not much help. She absolutely refused to read about early modern blood transfusion experiments on animals, quickly tired of reading about radicals in the English Civil War, and took a nap to protest that I did not assign any readings about learned pigs.

Finally, I have picked out and registered for a spring half marathon. I will be running the San Diego Half Marathon on March 10th! I'm hoping for a strong performance that will give me confidence going into the second half of my training for the Vancouver Marathon, and I'm definitely looking forward to a few days in southern California as a break from winter in Anchorage.

What's new with you? Do you have any spring races planned?

New Year's Resolution Run Virtual 5K

I started 2013 off as I'm sure many other runners did by getting in a run. Since (to my knowledge) there was no local race for me to run here, I signed up to run a virtual 5K as part of the 5 by the 5th series that the awesome Laura of Mommy Run Fast has created. In case you haven't heard about this yet, this is a challenge to run a race of either 5K or 5 miles by the fifth of each month into June of this year. I plan to run all of them except for May when I'll be running the Vancouver Marathon the first weekend of that month instead.

Having not run much in December due to a nasty sinus infection, finals, and then traveling over the holidays, my only real goals for the first 5K of this series were to run continuously and to give a steady but hard effort. I was also hoping to negatively split so I tried to reign myself in a bit and run the first mile conservatively. My splits were 10:18, 9:55, 9:54, and 1:12. The last 1.12 mile was really hard so it was a challenge to keep up the pace, but I managed to power through and keep putting one foot in front of the other. Since I ran this on the treadmill I did also throw in a few inclines for part of each mile.

My longer term goal with these virtual races is to use them as a benchmark for my 5K pace for my marathon training speedwork and tempo sessions. My current 5K PR is too fast for me to use to establish the pace for repeats, but I'm hoping that I will be close to that 5K time or even faster by the time the series wraps up in June. I'm also hoping that logging a 5K once a month will keep me motivated to consistently work on speed during my upcoming marathon training cycle and take me to a solid marathon PR in Vancouver in May.

Did you start the new year with a run or other workout?