The Longest Run of the Training Cycle

This past week my training schedule called for the longest run of this season's cycle. We planned to run about 3 hours and 45 minutes, but I ended up clocking about 4 hours and 5 minutes all told. Partly this was because I didn't stop my watch at any of our water and fueling stops (the clock doesn't stop during races so I don't pause my Garmin during breaks) and part of this was because I had a bit of a meltdown in the final couple of miles.

Earlier in the week my TNT team changed up our normal Tuesday night practice to do the Urban Challenge, a scavenger hunt style run being put on by one of the local running stores. We definitely pushed our pace more than usual in our efforts to get as many raffle tickets from the venues on the map as possible. Most of the places just handed us our tickets but a few places made us work for them -- one place made us dance, and one place required either 5 burpees or 5 jumping jacks followed by 5 push ups. After the race, they had a beer garden set up for some refreshing beverages for purchase while they called out the raffle winners. None of us had any of the winning tickets, but it was still a lot of fun.

That being said, I definitely felt sore the next couple of days. Since I'm on a relatively conservative training plan, I haven't been doing regular speedwork during this cycle. The good news is that I am feeling pretty healthy body wise (knock on wood) and while I've had a few aches and pains here and there I haven't been dealing with IT band issues or shin splints or groin pain or an aching piriformis. The quicker paces of many parts of Tuesday night's run did mean that my quads had been sore and my hip flexors were still feeling a little janky by the time Saturday rolled around.

Even so, I was determined to get through this Saturday's long run. My friend Christy and I had been texting all week (about being sore and about other running things, including camelbaks, fueling strategies, and anxiety about the time and distance of this longest training run). It was her longest run to date, and she tackled it like a rock star. I ended up being the one who hit the wall and fell apart.

The first two thirds of the run were pretty good. It was hot (for Alaska) and there was absolutely no shade where we were running for miles at a time. The sun was beating down on us the whole time and since we are so close to the solstice it was already up high by 8am. I was sticking to my fueling strategy of taking calories every 40-50 minutes, even though that meant some of them were consumed when we turned around at the Anchorage landfill (delightful!), and I was mostly just enjoying the day. I was hot and not exactly comfortable, but things were going okay. And I had good company. We were chatting and singing Prince songs to each other.

Things went okay until they did not.

I could feel myself starting to bonk a little bit and decided to take a GU a bit ahead of schedule. This one did not go down well. I couldn't even finish it. The rest of the run my stomach was alternating from feeling wobbly to roiling. Around mile 16, I also felt like I was starting to broil, and it took all my willpower that wasn't being used to keep putting one foot in front of the other to not suck down the entire remaining contents of my camelbak. But I got through it. My friend Heather, who is one of our coaches, stuck with me when I opted to switch to a 3:1 run walk interval, and she only let me take an extra minute of walking once. Her positivity (she cheered me, serenaded me, and distracted me) kept me from totally losing it. I only cried for a minute instead of for two solid miles. She got me to the end of the run. All told I logged 19.5 miles.

And at the end of the run, we had bubbly.  I could only have a few sips because my stomach was still off. But by brunch I was feeling less disastrous and was able to have coffee and a bit of food. No more fruit smoothie GUs for me.

I can do this. I will do this. But I'm ready for some tapering.

First TNT Meeting

Some of you may have heard there was an earthquake in south-central Alaska early Sunday morning. It was a 7.1 just about 150 miles from our home. At around 1:30am we were jolted awake by the shaking, which went on for a couple of minutes. Mark, Bailey, and I rushed into our kitchen and got under our table. Our furniture was rattling, the house itself was shaking, and our chandeliers were swaying. Fortunately, we seem to have come out unscathed with just a few fallen photos and crooked paintings. I was grateful Sunday morning to see so many friends around here post on Facebook or text to share that they were okay and their homes undamaged.

On Saturday morning (before the big quake's frightening adrenaline rush) my marathon training kicked off with the first Team in Training group run for those of us running summer races for the Alaska and Washington Chapters of the organization in the Anchorage area! After getting up a bit earlier than I might have wanted on a Saturday morning (especially the morning after my wedding anniversary) and fueling and caffeinating, I drove to the designated meeting point. Parking turned out to be more of an issue than I anticipated and I was starting to get worried I would miss the start and have to try to find my teammates out on the trail, but fortunately I eventually found a spot. As it turned out, I wasn't the only one having problems finding a place to park so the meeting started a few minutes late. Also the first session included some introductions and an overview of some protocols before we headed out on the run (or walk or run/walk).

We did a pretty short out and back of 40 minutes on the trails, which were in pretty good condition. According to my Garmin, I did 3.7 miles in 40:26 with splits of 10:47, 11:02, 11:12, and 7:25. I ended up running most of the time with a couple of other ladies on the team and chatting about typical running stuff (races done, dream races, our running histories, work, and school). After our run, we all reconvened over coffee and snacks (huzzah!) and had a more in-depth information session about our training and fundraising season. The coaches distributed our training schedules and went over some other training information with us and the mentors talked a bit about the organization and fundraising and shared some personal connections and stories.

We took a few pictures as a group and some of us (possibly mainly me) goofed around for a bit. Everyone was really nice, and I'm glad that this time around I should be able to take better advantage of the support, coaching, and camaraderie offered by TNT than I was able to when I ran the Columbus Marathon for them in 2009.

When I registered, I pledged to raise $2500 for LLS by marathon day (June 18). If you are interested in sponsoring me, just click here to get to my donation page. I have a widget over on the side of the blog that will take you directly there as well. I am incredibly grateful for all donations! I'm really looking forward to our next team run in a couple of days and to some of the clinics the organization puts on over the coming months. Have you ever run a race for charity? Do you prefer group or solo runs?

The Week in Workouts: October 21-27

This past week was the height of midterm grading season, so things have been busy around these parts. I did, however, manage to get in some quality workouts last week.

Monday - gym. I did 20 minutes of weights and then 25 minutes on the elliptical.

Tuesday - 3 mile run. This was a windy and hilly run through my neighborhood, but I was happy that I got out there. My pace averaged out to 10:47 min/mile.

Wednesday - about 25 or 30 minutes of cycling. Mark and I headed out on our bikes instead of hitting the gym since it was a nice afternoon, but our ride was cut short due to some mechanical issues with Mark's wheels. It was a bit of a bummer, but at least we got out in the fresh air for a bit.

Thursday - active rest. I got in about 30 minutes of walking around campus. I had planned to run in the afternoon, but since I opted to go to a volleyball game in the evening with a couple of friends I decided to postpone my run to the weekend.

Friday - rest. I did some housecleaning, but I didn't get in a workout.

Saturday - 2.5 mile run at a 10:26 min/mile pace. I was feeling good and would have extended it by another mile if I had known that the football game I wanted to get back in time to watch was going to have its start delayed.

Sunday - rest. I had a late night out on Saturday with friends that involved a delicious meal out, a visit to a haunted house with some legitimate spook to it, and martinis. The martinis hadn't really been part of the plan, and I was a bit sluggish all day. This sluggishness was magnified by the malaise that often accompanies grading midterms and papers.

If I want to hit my mileage goal for the month of October, I still need to run 5 miles before the end of the day on Thursday, so my workout goals for the upcoming week are to cover those running miles and get in at least two cross-training workouts. I'm also aiming to start using my makeshift standing desk a bit more when I'm working at home. What are your workout goals for the week? Do you have any fun Halloween plans?

The Need for "Speed"

In March I really slacked off, and I didn't do a single workout focused on speed. (Perhaps it would be more accurate to say "speed" as regular readers know that I'm not fast even at my fastest paces.) The first week of the month I was in taper mode; the second week of the month I was in recovery mode; the third week of the month I was still feeling a bit on the tired side. I think the tiredness that third week was from a combination of still feeling some lag after the half-marathon, feeling rather hungry a fair bit of the time as I adjusted to my first week of counting points on Weight Watchers Online, and the return to early mornings and classes. However, the rest of the month I just let myself be lazy.

I really felt it, too, when I did my virtual 5 by the 5th run last Tuesday. I not only ran my 5k eleven seconds slower than I did in February, I was sucking air pretty much the whole time from the effort of trying to run faster than normal. I'm going to sound like Captain Obvious here, but it really drove home the importance of regularly integrating speed into my weekly running routine if I truly want to post faster race times.

Back at the beginning of March, I was thinking that I needed to find some new speed workouts as I had been doing a lot of 800 repeats, but it looks like I'm back to close to square one with those. I know their going to be challenging, but I'm actually kind of looking forward to the renewed novelty of running 800s here again in a couple of days.

Do you regularly integrate speed work into your training? What are some of your favorite workouts focused on speed?

The Plan for the Vancouver Half

I'm just under seven weeks away from the BMO Vancouver Half Marathon. I feel really good about my decision to switch to the half, especially as it will help me more fully enjoy the trip to Vancouver as a break at the end of the semester and as some time with Mark before I hit the road for some substantial research trips this summer.

Looking forward to being back in NYC!

This is my plan for the next few weeks:

Week	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday	Sunday
1	30 m walk +/ yoga	3 mi	Rest	4 mi	3 mi	30 m walk +/ yoga	10 mi LSD
2	30 m walk +/ yoga	4 mi	Rest	4 mi	3 mi	30 m walk +/ yoga	12 mi LSD
3	30 m walk +/ yoga	4 mi	Rest	5 mi	3 mi	30 m walk +/ yoga	13 mi LSD
4	30 m walk +/ yoga	5 mi	Rest	4 mi	3 mi	30 m walk +/ yoga	12 mi LSD
5	30 m walk +/ yoga	5 mi	Rest	5 mi	3 mi	30 m walk +/ yoga	15 mi LSD
6	30 m walk +/ yoga	4 mi	Rest	4 mi	3 mi	30 m walk +/ yoga	9 mi LSD
7	30 m walk +/ yoga	3 mi	Rest	3 mi	Rest	Rest	Vancouver Half- Marathon

Again, I plan to work in speedwork on Thursdays and to hopefully run outside at least once a week if possible. Right now it's particularly treacherous as we've been having daily melting and refreezing so a lot of surfaces are slicker than glass right now, so I'm erring on the side of caution. I'd prefer to avoid breaking a leg or bruising my ass if possible.

In other, semi-related news I have decided to quit using the online journaling system I was (not actually recently) using and to join a friend of mine in her quest to lose some weight with Weight Watchers Online. I joined it on Monday. I had been considering doing this for a few weeks in spite of my feelings about the antifeminist tendencies of dieting and the dieting industry. And to be honest I don't really care about the number on the scale -- although it is higher than it has been in years, even higher than right after I'd finished my dissertation -- so much, but I am really bummed that I have found that I can't fit into most of my pants and some of my skirts right now or at least not comfortably. I'd like to remedy that. I'd also like to feel a little lighter on my feet while I'm running as I think that might help me to speed back up to my PR times from 2009.

Without asking you to become the food police, readers, what are your thoughts on keeping myself accountable with the program 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.

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?

Halloween Half Marathon Training Week 5 and Changing Plans

Confession: I have decided to bag the half-marathon I was planning to run in Ohio at the end of next month. Earlier this week some of the insanity of my plan to leave an academic conference for part of a day in order to run a half-marathon 90 miles away started to sink in and make me reconsider the situation. There were a number of factors that I had glossed over when I concocted this plan in the summer. For one thing, I didn't anticipate the hassle or the cost of getting to the conference. I will have very long days of flying on either side of the conference and a four hour time change will also be involved. Another issue is the added cost of car rental and parking when I'm already spending a lot of money (almost $1800) to participate in this conference. There are some other professional reasons, as well, that played into my final decision making process. So I'm not running the half-marathon for which I have been training.

However, I do still plan on running a 10K here next weekend and - unless we already have wintry weather conditions - the trail half-marathon here in the middle of next month. So that means the half-marathon that I had intended to use as a training run has become my only 13.1 of the season and that just three more weeks will be left in this training cycle.

This past week was relatively solid and has given me confidence that I will be able to complete the trail half in 3 weeks and possibly even post my fastest half-marathon time of the year.

Monday - scheduled 3.5 miles hills. Actual 3.5 miles hills. I hopped on the treadmill and gutted this one out. My thighs were burning the entire time.

Tuesday - scheduled yoga. Actual yoga. I went to a 90 minute open vinyasa class. We did a lot of warriors and lunging poses.

Wednesday - scheduled 4 miles easy. Actual rest. It was day one of what a friend euphemistically refers to as the "lady holiday" and I felt pretty blah.

Thursday - scheduled yoga. Actual rest. We were a little bit late getting home in the evening and my month of unlimited yoga had expired, so I ended up taking the evening off from working out.

Friday - scheduled rest. Actual 3.5 miles with hills but at an easy pace. It was such a beautiful morning that I had to get out and run. Conditions were perfect and I just enjoyed being out there. (I stole this picture snapped at the beginning of my run from my 365 Blog.)

Saturday - scheduled 11 miles LSD. Actual 2.5 miles with hills but at an easy pace. I struggled on this run because the wind picked up right before I went out, and I was feeling emotionally turbulent as well as I was working through coming to terms with my decision not to run the half in Ohio.

Sunday - scheduled 3 miles recovery. Actual 11 miles LSD. The amazing sports psychologist I was working with before my injury last year won the Omaha Marathon on Sunday morning and another friend was running a half-marathon in the DFW area. Whenever things got tough, I thought of them and kept putting one foot in front of the other. My average pace was just over an 11 min/mile.

Total scheduled miles: 21.5
Actual miles: 20.5
Cross training workouts: 1

Because I'm running a 10K on Saturday, I'm deviating from my original training schedule a fair amount this week. Here's my plan for Week 6:

Monday - scheduled 3 miles recovery.

Tuesday - scheduled yoga.

Wednesday - scheduled 4 miles 800s.

Thursday - scheduled yoga (short home practice).

Friday - scheduled rest.

Saturday - scheduled 10K race.

Sunday - scheduled 3 miles recovery.

Have you ever made a decision that you thought made sense only later to realize it was really pretty foolish? Are you training for any fall races? How's it going?

Halloween Half Marathon Training Week 4

This past week has not been a particularly strong one in terms of training, as meetings, a bit of a cold during the week, and another crazy storm that took down another one of our trees this weekend have presented some additional challenges to getting in workouts.  

Monday - scheduled 4 miles tempo. Actual 4 miles with an easy mile to warm up, two miles at my estimated 10K pace, and an easy final mile. My average pace was 10:23, which is still a lot slower than I would like, but this was my first tempo run in a while.

Tuesday - scheduled rest. Actual rest.

Wednesday - scheduled 4 miles easy. Actual rest. On Wednesday I had a headache and sinus pressure that got worse as the day went on. Instead of running in the afternoon, I took a decongestant and a nap.

Thursday - scheduled yoga. Actual rest. When I woke up my throat was sore and I was just feeling crummy so I took another easy day.

Friday - 3 miles easy. Actual rest. I was starting to feel a bit better but I had some scheduling conflicts that meant the only time that I could have run was in the evening. However, M. and I had planned on going out to dinner and a movie. Since we hadn't been on an actual date since the wedding we attended over two months ago, I decided to prioritize that over running.

Saturday - scheduled 8 miles LSD. Actual 6.5 miles LSD. My legs were fresh so that was good, but my lungs tired out pretty easily. I was happy with getting past the 10K mark after such a lackluster week of running.

Sunday - scheduled yoga. Actual 3 miles easy. We were still under a wind advisory so, rather than getting on the road for a yoga class, I hopped on my treadmill for a short recovery run.

Total scheduled miles: 19
Actual miles: 13.5
Cross training workouts: 0

Up next for Week 5:

Monday - scheduled 3.5 miles hills.

Tuesday - scheduled yoga.

Wednesday - scheduled 4 miles easy.

Thursday - scheduled yoga.

Friday - scheduled rest.

Saturday - scheduled 11 miles LSD.

Sunday - scheduled 3 miles recovery.

After such a crummy week of training, I felt like I needed a little bit of a boost in motivation so I signed up for a local 10K here in a couple of weeks. It will be my first 10K in almost a year.  I'm excited to see how it goes and to get a sense of what my actual 10K pace is right now. I'm also really looking forward to getting back on my mat this week.

A happy and sweet new year to all my Jewish and Jew-ish readers! Happy Monday to everyone else!

Halloween Half Marathon Training Week 3

I'm happy to report that another week of training is in the books, and, in spite of weather insanity, it was actually a pretty good week. It involved my first run in the double digits since May and plenty of good cross-training.

Monday - scheduled 3 miles hills. Actual 80 minute hike with M. and Bailey. We wanted to spend some time together out of the house and even though it was a little drizzly we decided to go explore a trail that's not too far from our neighborhood.

Tuesday - scheduled yoga. Actual yoga. I went to a 90 minute Vinyasa class at my local studio. With the wind starting to whip and howl, we spent a lot of time doing grounding poses that really activated our legs.

Wednesday - scheduled 4 miles easy. Actual 3.8 miles easy. After our power came back on, I took advantage of it by hopping on the treadmill.

Thursday - scheduled yoga. Actual rest -- unless you count spending about 30 minutes picking up twigs and small branches and mowing the front lawn. The fact that it wasn't raining meant that I really needed to take advantage of the opportunity to mow what was starting to become a savannah.

Friday - scheduled rest. Actual 10 miles LSD. I had a weird day of working while waiting so at the end of it I decided to just try to get my long run out of the way. It wasn't a great run but it wasn't a bad run either.

Saturday - scheduled 10 miles LSD. Actual yoga. Since I had done my long run the day before, I had free time Saturday morning to go to my studio for a 90 minute Hatha class.

Sunday - scheduled 3 miles recovery. Actual 2.5 miles with some hills at an easy pace with my new bear bell courtesy of the amazing Kyria. This was a fabulous run on a stunningly gorgeous day. The sky was blue and the air was crisp. I felt like I could have gone forever, but I needed to get back to do some cleaning around the house and food prep as we had a couple of friends over to watch football in the afternoon.

Total scheduled miles: 20
Actual miles: 16.3
Cross training workouts: 3

Up next for Week 4:

Monday - scheduled 4 miles tempo.

Tuesday - scheduled rest. (Originally my plan called for yoga here, but I'm taking the opportunity to meet with a new potential friend for a drink instead.)

Wednesday - scheduled 4 miles easy.

Thursday - scheduled yoga. (Originally my plan called for rest here, but I'm hoping to swap here.)

Friday - 3 miles easy.

Saturday - scheduled 8 miles LSD.

Sunday - scheduled yoga.

So I also need to start thinking about how I'm going to Zombify myself for the trail half that I'm running for training in just a few short weeks. I'm kind of thinking Sean of the Dead-ing it with black pants, a white shirt with some red splatters and a red tie since a Pride and Prejudice and Zombies get-up might not be ideal for running. Any thoughts?

Chicago Marathon Training: Week 4

This week's training wasn't perfect, but I did log some quality miles and get some good time on my feet. I'm looking forward to trying for a PR at my half-marathon at the end of the week (more to come on this soon) and getting into some higher mileages in the next few weeks.

Week 4

Monday - schedule 6 miles progressive. Actual 6 miles, but not progressive.  It was during this run that I realized that I really do have to have a cup of coffee before my runs - especially when I am hitting the pavement at 5:15 am.  My brain and body were weirdly out of sync.  Whenever I would tell myself to speed up, I would speed up way too much.  My pace was erratic hitting 8s and 12s that had nothing to do with the inclines/declines throughout the run.  That said, this run awarded me one of the most spectacular running views I have had in a while: cresting a hill with mist rising off the river, a crescent moon in the dark blue early morning sky, and people in my running group up ahead along the path.

Tuesday - scheduled 0 miles - active rest. Actual 3 miles easy after my weight work out.  I just didn't feel like doing the elliptical or stair climber.

Wednesday - scheduled 4.5 miles tempo.  Actual 4.2 miles tempo.  I hadn't done a tempo run in a while, and it had kind of slipped my mind that they could be challenging.  I pressed through and finished the run and followed up with some yoga.

Thursday - scheduled 0 miles - active rest. Actual 0 miles. I had planned to move my Friday run to Thursday and actually got up at 4:30 am to make a 5:15 run with my group.  When I woke up, though, I had a sinus headache and a bit of swelling on the left side of my face, so I opted to go back to bed.

Friday - scheduled 5 miles easy. Actual 0 miles.

Saturday - scheduled 12 miles LSD. Actual 11 miles.  My period arrived late Friday night with the delightful symptoms that accompany it.  I had planned to do 13.25 miles because there wasn't a good 12 mile route where the group was running, but I decided to downgrade to 11.25 since I wasn't feeling all that great. On the positive side, there were over 30 people at the group run on Saturday, so there were a couple of women running just my pace and I had company the entire time. The miles just fly by as we chatted about our training, the races we had done, the ones we wanted to do, blogs that we like, and so on.

Sunday - scheduled 0 miles. Actual 0 miles.

Coming up for Week 5

Monday - scheduled 6 miles with 5 at goal half-marathon pace.

Tuesday - scheduled 0 miles - active rest.

Wednesday - scheduled 5 miles easy.

Thursday - 4 miles easy.

Friday - scheduled 0 miles.

Saturday - URBAN WILDLAND HALF-MARATHON.

Sunday - scheduled 0 miles.

Is anyone else running Chicago?  If you are running a fall marathon or half-marathon, I would love to know which one you have on your schedule and why you chose it!

Chicago Marathon Training: Week 3

Like many runners throughout the US, I've been dealing with hot and humid weather conditions for my runs this past week. While it may not be the Texas hot of my youth, it's been pretty miserable, and I just keep having to tell myself that this will pay off in the fall and when it's 80F and 80% humidity at 5:15 am that running an 11 minute mile is more like running a 10-10:30 minute mile under more favorable conditions. If you haven't yet, check out Frayed Lace's excellent post breaking down how heat and humidity can effect running performance.

Week 3

Monday - scheduled 6 miles progressive. Actual 5 miles progressive. I met up with my running group and some were doing 8 miles, some 6 miles, and some 5 miles. Because it was so miserably hot and humid, I decided to only do 5 miles and start slowly but run progressively.

Tuesday - scheduled 0 miles - active rest. I headed to Y with a friend for 30 minutes of weights and 25 minutes of the elliptical machine.

Wednesday - scheduled 3 miles - hill work. Actual 4 miles on the treadmill including a mile warm up and cool down and 4x400 hill intervals.  I followed my run up with some yoga.

Thursday - scheduled 0 miles - active rest. I had originally intended to go to the Y and lift, but I didn't plan. I did, however, get in some Carrie Bradshaw style cardio as I carried shopping bags around for several hours.

Friday - scheduled 5 miles easy. Actual 5 miles "easy".  It was hot and humid, so even though I was trying to keep the pace nice and slow, I was still expending more effort than I wanted to be to maintain it.

Saturday - scheduled 12 miles LSD. Actual 10 miles LSD.  I met my running group at 5:30 am for its weekly long run.  People were doing a variety of distances and we were cautioned to run smart on another really humid morning. I had originally hoped to do 12 miles with a few of them at half-marathon race pace, but due to the humid conditions, I decided to scale back to 10 miles and to just run easy. Even so, this was not a good run for me, and I was burping up GU from mile 7 to 9. I just tried to stay positive and concentrate on finishing the miles.  

Sunday - scheduled 0 miles - rest.  Actual 0 miles.

Up next for Week 4

Monday - scheduled 6 miles progressive.

Tuesday - scheduled 0 miles - active rest.

Wednesday - scheduled 4.5 miles - tempo run.

Thursday - scheduled 0 miles - active rest.

Friday - scheduled 5 miles easy.

Saturday - scheduled 12 miles LSD.

Sunday - scheduled 0 miles - rest.

Chicago Marathon Training: Week 2

This week didn't go exactly according to plan because my running group was meeting on Thursday for the long run and I ran a local 5K on Saturday.  It was a cut back week anyway, so the I wasn't too far off my mileage mark, though.  I had 19 miles on the schedule and ran 16.57 miles.


Week 2 

Monday - scheduled 4 miles easy.  Actual 4 miles progressive.  I met my group at the Y.  Most of them were doing 5 miles, but I decided to stick with my schedule and only do 4.  I ran the first two with a really nice woman and then she continued on and I turned back.

Tuesday - Time Trial - 1 mile.  Actual 2 miles.  I walked for a few minutes and then jogged a half mile to warm up.  Then I ran an 8:28 mile and cooled down with another half mile of jogging and then a few minutes of walking.  There were thunderstorms so I did this on my treadmill.  I think on fresh legs and outside I would have been a bit faster.  Still, I haven't tried to run a mile as fast as I could for time in recent memory, so I'll take it.  Followed it up with some yoga. 

Wednesday - scheduled 3 miles - hill work. Actual 0 miles. Because I knew I would be doing my long run the next day I decided to make Wednesday an active rest day and did 30 minutes of lifting and 25 minutes on the elliptical machine.  

Thursday - scheduled 0 miles - active rest.  Actual 7.45 miles @10:58/mile average pace.  I met the group at the local Y at 5am for my long run of the week.  I was wishing I had a head lamp because I couldn't see much for the first mile or so, but then it started to get light.  I got absolutely drenched in a downpour that started during the last mile or so, but it was kind of exhilarating.  I did put some mental strategies to use during this run because I was kind of struggling the first couple of miles.  It might have been a combination of running in the dark and running on my own but I was feeling some negativity.  The good thing was that I caught it early and was able to refocus on positive things and putting "I will" thoughts to work.

Friday - scheduled 4 miles easy.  Actual rest day.

Saturday - scheduled 7 miles. Actual local 5k.  I met up with my friend AP to run this one.  We both had a goal of breaking 30 minutes and we both achieved it.  It was challenging because it was already pretty warm out and the humidity was around 80% and there were a couple of decent inclines to tackle.  We did it, though!  I finished in 29:26 and got a nice, new, shiny PR of 41 seconds!  

Sunday - scheduled 0 miles. Actual 0 miles.  I had been planning on doing the 4 easy miles from Friday here, but I was having some stomach issues and decided to just take the originally scheduled rest day. 

Up next for week 3 (I am slightly tweaking my program to more closely match my running group's on the days that I run with them):

Monday - scheduled 6 miles progressive

Tuesday - scheduled 0 miles - active rest

Wednesday - scheduled 3 miles - hill work

Thursday - scheduled 0 miles - active rest

Friday - scheduled 5 miles easy

Saturday - scheduled 12 miles LSD

Sunday - scheduled 0 miles - rest

Sports Psychology and Mental Toughness

On Tuesday afternoon I had my first appointment with Dr. Cindra Kamphoff, a sport psychologist who has a practice  called The Runner's Edge.  Dr. Kamphoff helps runners reach their potential by developing their mental toughness.  During our first session, which lasted about 90 minutes, she asked me a number of questions about what was going well in my running, what wasn't going so well, how I saw myself (as related to my running) on both good days and bad days, and about my long-term and short-term running goals.  We also discussed mental roadblocks that I had been experiencing during my runs - both during training and during races - and began to discuss some of the strategies that I could use during my training to overcome them.

I tried to be very honest about some of the barriers I'd been coming up against and how negative thoughts and self-doubt have been impacting my running.  It's not that I slam into a wall in every run, but I do every couple of weeks.  I want to become more optimistic and confident as a runner.  Dr. Kamphoff and I walked through some of the feedback loops I've been experiencing and discussed ways to counter negative thoughts  and to reframe situations so that I have fewer self-doubts and more control over my thoughts and feelings.

For example, we talked about how I have a tendency to compare myself to other runners and get upset that I'm not faster or that I don't look a certain way and how that can sometimes tank a run for me.  She gave me some ideas for trying to reset my focus on positives and affirmatives, concentrating on how many miles I've run since becoming a runner, why I love to run, and telling myself that I am getting faster and that I will continue to get faster.

Toward the end of the session we prioritized the things that we would focus on in our next sessions, in particular visualization techniques and mentally mapping out races and runs so that I can get better at pushing through pain and fatigue and continue developing my self-confidence as a runner.  We'll be in email contact about once a week and we'll meet again about a week before my next half-marathon and sometime in late September/early October before the Chicago Marathon.

It was a great session, and I left the meeting feeling very excited about my goals, running, and working on being aware of my thoughts and reframing them.  I am feeling more and more confident that by continuing to work on my mental focus and by running with a local group a couple of times a week that I will PR at my half-marathon next month and that I will PR with a sub 5 hour time at the Chicago Marathon in October.

Let the Marathon Training Begin

After I found out that the marathon class that I had signed up for at the Y had been canceled, I spent a couple of days sulking and pouting.  Then - powered by lemon blueberry cupcakes - I came out of my funk and started poking around the internets to find a marathon training program. I wanted a training schedule that only called for four or five days of running because I want to lift weights at least once a week and do some yoga a couple of times a week, too. I only have so many hours to work out a week, and I don't think it's good for me to spend all of them running. Ultimately I picked a Runner's World program designed for a sub 5 hour marathon. Most weeks it calls for four days of running and at least one day of active rest. Once a month it calls for an additional day of running to do a timed mile.  Like many marathon training plans, it is a 16 week program. Since the Chicago Marathon is only 14 weeks away and since I had ran a marathon last month and a 10K less than two weeks ago, I decided to come in at week three of this program. My only doubt about this plan is that it calls for pretty much all of the easy runs - not just the long runs - to be run at a pace that is slower than marathon race pace. I would love some feedback from more experienced runners because I'm not sure I have the patience to run all of my 3-6 milers at around a 12min/mile pace.

I also decided that I want a more tactile journaling experience for logging the miles during this training cycle. So I bought myself a binder and a notebook and have been creating a marathon journal for Chicago. In it I'm keeping track of what my training schedule calls for and what I actually did, of course. What makes this different from just logging my training on daily mile or another program, though, is that I'm also creating motivational collages, jotting down things that inspire me, etc. I think I'll like having everything all in one place this time.

Next week I have a scheduled session with a sports psychologist who is a marathoner to talk over my goals. She specializes in the mental component of training, and I believe that following my training program and working with her on visualization techniques and so forth will allow me to achieve my goal of not only showing up at the start line of Chicago, but completing the race in under 5:00:00.

Week 1 Training Schedule (for simplicity's sake I'm calling this week 1 instead of week 3):

Monday - 4 miles easy

Tuesday - rest

Wednesday - 4 miles - hillwork

Thursday - active rest (lifting and x-train)

Friday - 4 miles easy

Saturday - 9 miles

Sunday - rest

Are you currently training for a marathon or half-marathon? If so, what kind of training program are you using? What do you see as its pros and cons?

Training Time

The past few weeks have been a bit nutty for me because of travel and two brand new preps, but I've done a pretty decent job of keeping a solid base going with my running.  But now, with a half-marathon, a mere seven weeks and three days away, I need to start getting a bit more serious about my training.  I decided to take Hal Higdon's Intermediate Plan as a basic template, make some tweaks and adjustments, and to jump into long runs at around week 4.  Because my goal for this race is a new half-marathon PR (2:14:32 from 2009) or at least a time under 2:20, I've been trying to force myself to do a bit more speed (for me) work, and I wanted to make sure that was in the training schedule.

So here is my training plan for the Earth Day Half-Marathon I'll be running on 17 April.

Mon - Tempo	Tues	Wed - Fartlek	Thurs	Fri - Long	Sat - Recovery	Sun
3.5 mile	rest	3 mile	Yoga	6.5 mile	3 mile	Yoga
3.5 mile	rest	3 mile	Yoga	7 mile	3 mile	Yoga
4 mile	rest	3.5 mile	Yoga	8 mile	3 mile	Yoga
4 mile	rest	3.5 mile	Yoga	9 mile	3 mile	Yoga
4.5 mile	rest	4 mile	Yoga	10 mile	3 mile	Yoga
5 mile	rest	4 mile	Yoga	11 mile	3 mile	Yoga
5 mile	rest	4.5 mile	Yoga	12 mile	3 mile	Yoga
3 mile	rest	3 mile	5 mile	Yoga	Rest	Race

This time around I've decided to try doing my long runs on Fridays.  If necessary I can switch things around and do them on Saturdays, but I tend to spend most of the day working from home on Friday.  The other reason I'm choosing Fridays is so that I can more easily get in two 45-90 minute yoga practices a week.   I might occasionally cross train at the gym on Saturdays instead of doing a recovery run, and I might also try to meet a friend at the gym some Wednesday mornings to lift in addition to doing some speed work on the treadmills there. But this gives me the basic template.

Because I am a giant self-professed nerd, training plans get me really excited.  Are you a fan of plans?  Do you have a race that you're currently training for?  What plan are you using?

Coming to Terms with Tough Decisions

So, as you may recall, I have been training for the San Antonio marathon that will be taking place in just a little over two weeks.  You may also remember that after two pretty good months of training in August and most of September, I hit a rough patch with my training this month.  I had 140 miles on my training schedule, and I have come nowhere close to logging that kind of mileage.  Floods, visiting in-laws, grading midterms, and 60+ hour weeks of working have all taken their toll on my training program.  For about a week now I have been considering running the half-marathon instead of the full in San Antonio.  I ran a full marathon last year.  Training for that one was tough - emotionally, physically, and mentally, but I didn't have nearly as many other obligations then as I do now. 

This morning I realized that I can either feel miserable and stressed about running the marathon for the next sixteen days or I can go ahead and admit to myself that right now a full marathon is not in the cards for me right now.  So that it what I am doing.  When I line up in San Antonio, I am not going to do it for the full.  Instead I'm going to run the half. 

This was a tough decision, and part of me feels like a failure.  I'm still coming to terms with the fact that I cannot always do everything that I want and accomplish everything that I try to.  Fundamentally, though, right now I need for running to help me relieve stress not for it to add even more anxiety to my life.  So instead of focusing on 26.2 miles, I'm going to try to beat my most recent half-marathon time (2:33:46 officially).  And I'm going to have a great time visiting my beautiful sister and her husband in San Antonio.

October Goals

Even though I'm disappointed by the fact that I didn't accomplish all of my September goals, I am hoping to make October a great success.  October is one of my favorite months!  I love the foliage!  I love Halloween with the requisite costumes and candy!  And this October I'm running in a half-marathon and a Halloween Fun Run 5k!  I have all sorts of plans!

My fitness goals for the month:
*My marathon training schedule has 140 miles on it.  I want to run each and every one of those miles.
*I am running a half-marathon on October 23rd.  I want to a)finish it and b)finish it in under 2:20:00.
*Do core work 3 times a week.
*Continue to commute by bike at least once a week as long as the weather permits.
*Stretch/yoga after every run - I'm trying to keep those injuries at bay.

My writing goals for the month:
*Finish the co-edited manuscript project or at least get a draft of it out to my co-editor and the publisher.  This is an on-going writing project from months back, and I really want to get it off my desk.
*Write my research talk that I'm presenting toward the end of the month
*Revise and resubmit that journal article for publication.  This is a carry over from last month.
*Write the syllabi for my two new classes that I'm teaching next semester.  I need to order books for the classes ASAP too.

I'm only setting four writing goals this month since I am in the thick of the semester and have tons of grading to do over the next 10 days and because of that whole 140 miles on the docket thing.  Plus, I have the pressure of figuring out a Halloween costume that I can run a 5k in to deal with too!

What are your goals for October?  Are you running in any races?  Do you have any major projects that you're hoping to accomplish?

September In Review

I set some rather lofty goals in September, and I have to admit that I was hit or miss in accomplishing them.

My fitness goals were:
* Run 111 miles
* Continue to do core work 3 times/week
* Bike to campus at least once a week, as the weather allows (yes, I'm a fair weather cyclist due to lack of rain gear)
* Stretch and/or do some yoga after each run
* Eat more fruits and vegetables

I only ran 89 miles.  Part of the lost mileage was due to cutting a long run short due to flooding.  The other major issue with my training was that it was difficult to get some of my mid-week runs in.  I need to cowgirl up this month and consistently hit the pavement on Thursday evenings instead of coming home and sitting on my duff at the end of my teaching week.

I did a good job with all of my other fitness goals.  Sure, there were a couple of weeks where I only did two core workouts and one week when I didn't bike into campus because of weather and scheduling, but I have been crosstraining much more consistently this time around. Last week I biked in twice even though it was ridiculously windy.  I've also been better with stretching and reaching for more fruits and veggies. 


My writing goals were:
* Spend at least five hours a week working on manuscript transcription edits ✔-     Although I hadn't managed to get 5 hours per week in every week in September, I was making good progress on this project in the second part of the month. Then I had to wait to hear from my co-editor and the publisher on a formatting issue, so this project is still in the works.
* Revise and resubmit a journal article for publication - I didn't even get to this goal at all. 
* Write the plan for how I will meet my institution's required criteria ✔
* Update CV, teaching philosophy, job letters, etc. ✔
* Get together an outline for another article for publication or a conference paper abstract. ✔   I am giving a research talk at a forum at the end of this month, so I've started work on this talk, with the idea that I'll get feedback and a workable draft of an article out of the process, but I'm nowhere near done with the talk itself, but I've put together a basic outline.

I did have a couple of unexpected things that I had to turn out very quickly in September, so in the end my writing month wasn't as unproductive as it might seem.  It definitely wasn't as good as it could have been, though.


How was your September?  What goals did you accomplish?  How did your training go this past month?