VCM Training Week 9: More than Halfway

Week 9 (3.25.13 to 3.31.13):

Monday: 5 mile tempo run on TM- built up to 7:35 pace for middle mile  (weights)
Tuesday: 40 minutes weights and core strength (5 miles)
Wednesday:  1 Hour Spin Class (CT cardio)
Thursday: 4.76 miles at 8:00 mm pace (5 miles)
Friday: rest (rest)
Saturday: 16.01 miles at 9:13 pace (16 mile long run)
Sunday: 1.92 miles and 1 hour 15 minutes of intense frisbee (5 miles)
Total:  30.69 miles of running

Having gotten behind on blog posts again, it didn't occur to me during Week 9 that I was halfway through my training plan. Instead, I was just going through the motions of my daily workouts and having a blast. I had two wonderfully speedy midweek runs and I hauled my ass to the gym for a 6AM spin class with my favorite instructor for the first time.

To top off the fun week, I got to run 16 miles under the wing of my marathon runner friend Nikki which took some of the stress out of it. The night before, I went to bed feeling kind of like I do the night before a race. I was giddy, nervous and excited. We ran an 8 mile out and back to and around Haines Point. The only time I'd ever run there was during the Run for the Parks 10k in October and I loved it. I've since done two more of my runs there. It is flat, scenic and peaceful.

Nikki and I do short runs together fairly frequently but hadn't run longer than 5 or six miles together in years. The last long run I did with someone else was with Hadley in August 2011 and, before that, the last was the National Half with Nikki in March 2011. So, at about mile 8, it became clear that talking wasn't going to come easy for the whole run. For the second half, I let Nikki do more of the talking and, a few times, asked to just run quietly. At mile 12, I got a pretty bad cramp, something that hasn't happened to me at all during training. I'm sure it was from many miles of chatting and running which I think is kind of cool. It's interesting what a different workout it is for your lungs and I like to think of it as good training for when I want to cheer back at spectators on the marathon course.

Around mile 14, my legs were just dead. Every step felt like wading through mud. But we pushed on and finished 16.01 miles just below Woodley Park at a 9:13 pace. Another nice thing about this run is that I hardly paid attention to my garmin. Until the last few miles, when I had to keep checking to make sure I wasn't doing something like a 20 minute mile, we just cruised along at a comfortable pace. It was less hilly than many of my other runs so that accounts for some of it but I was really proud of our comfortable pace for 16 miles. Probably still faster than Hal Higdon would advise we go but whatever.

Some Things About Boston

Last week, I planned to publish a bunch of catch-up posts about VCM training and my trip to California. But I didn't want to say anything more about running before I said something about Boston. I started to write about it two different times and got stuck. It seemed like nothing I had to say mattered and I couldn't come up with the right words. So I read what other people had to say instead.

Instead of trying a third time, I'm just going to share with you some articles and blog posts that moved me over the last week.

Emily's powerful thoughts and analysis - A DC running and tri blogger who has run Boston twice.

A story about the dad of a guy I went to high school with who was aiming to break a record for most consecutive Boston marathons run.

A Vermont running blogger who was spectating in Boston a few hours before the attack.

Runner's World - The Boston Bombings: A Loss of Innocence

An article about the winners and how their victory means so little in the face of what happened.

A first-hand account from pro distance runner Lauren Fleshman.

A blog post on the Vermont City Marathon blog with a note from the race director.

There are, of course, so many more. This is something that will affect the running community and the country for a long time. But it has shown how much good there is in people in the face of such un-explainable evil. People will persevere and people will keep running. And we'll think about the people of Boston and those who lost their lives every time we run.

VCM Training Week 8: Lessons in Intensity

Week 8 (3.18.13 to 3.24.13):

Monday:  40 minutes weights (weights)
Tuesday:  4.15 miles at 8:01 pace (4 miles)
Wednesday:  Hill repeats: 8 x 240 meter uphill sprints- walks downhill between each (CT cardio)
Thursday: 4 miles tempo with .5 miles at 8:49, 8:19, 7:35, 6:53 and back (4 miles)
Friday: rest (rest)
Saturday: 14.21 miles at 9:30 pace (14 mile long run)
Sunday: 45 minutes frisbee (3 miles/frisbee)
Total:  28.06 miles of running

At the beginning of week 8, I found myself googling hill workouts and learned a valuable lesson on the intensity of various runs during marathon training. The main take-away was something that I remember reading in Born to Run last year: that most people do their slow runs too fast and their fast runs too slow. According to Hal Higdon, long runs should be done 30 to 90 seconds or more per mile than their marathon pace. The problem with this, for me, was that I had no idea what my marathon goal pace should be. But I knew it certainly wouldn't be a 9:00 minute mile or faster, which I had been maintaining on most of my long runs.

So I started off the week with a more specific plan. I pushed myself harder than I had been on all three shorter runs and I did my first set of hill repeats. I hadn't done these since my high school soccer days but doing them by myself on a concrete sidewalk was very different than doing them surrounded by my team on a grassy hill in cleats. They were hard and I felt like I might vomit at the end of each. But I felt strong and ready to do another by the time I had walked down the hill to my starting point. I ended up doing 8 repeats of 240 meters/.15 miles with a one mile warm up and a half mile cool down.

The best part of this whole "intensity" lesson was what it did for me mentally. Alleviating the pressure to push myself and do my long runs as fast as possible made them much less scary. This couldn't have come at a better time, as week 8's long run began a series of "longest runs I've ever done" which were very scary for me. I incorporated a fair amount of rolling hills into my long run, something I'm aiming to do in anticipation of Vermont's mountains, and finished 14.21 miles at a 9:30 pace. I still think this is faster than my marathon pace (I would be shocked to be able to keep such a pace on race day) but it was still significantly slower than I've done my short runs so it seemed like a compromise.

I finished this 14 miler the happiest I've been at the end of any long run. Something about the fact that it was the longest run I'd ever done (and was the first of these) made it very emotional. I finished 14.2 miles on a sunny Saturday morning with many people walking around my neighborhood and I felt like I would cry happy tears. I was on some kind of runner's high and it felt wonderful.

Wedding Planning

The spot where loved ones will watch Josh and I get married, weather permitting...

One of the reasons that I have been posting infrequently since Bike America is that I am spending a lot of time planning my wedding. With such a long engagement, I've been able to spread aspects of planning out over time which has made most of it fun and exciting. Though I still have plenty of time and haven't hit a point of feeling overwhelmed by it, there are still a million and one things to do in the way of planning. So it has taken over a lot of my free time.

When I first got engaged, it never crossed my mind to blog about wedding planning. It doesn't have much to do with fitness and sweating. But it does have a lot to do with style, something I strive to incorporate into this blog from time to time. So...because I love reading about weddings on other blogs and would like to provide inspiration if there are any interested future brides, because I think I'll blog more if I'm free to write about this thing that's consuming a lot of my life anyway, and because, to be honest, this blog is really designed for me to share my life with whoever is out there reading, I've decided to begin blogging about planning my wedding. Stay tuned for details.

VCM Training Week 7: Running on Tired Legs

Week 7 (3.11.13 to 3.17.13):

Monday:  4.61 miles at 8:15 pace (weights)
Tuesday:  30 minutes weights/abs and 45 minute spin class (4 miles)
Wednesday:  4.55 miles at 9:13 pace (CT cardio)
Thursday: rest (5 miles, weights)
Friday: 12.0 miles at 8:54 pace (rest)
Saturday: 45 minutes soccer (12 mile long run)
Sunday: 3.76 at 9:20 pace (3 miles/frisbee)
Total: 24.92 miles of running

When she was helping me tweak my marathon training plan, my friend Nikki said, "you want to train yourself to run on tired legs". If that's the point of marathon training, then week 7 was the perfect week.

I decided to take last Friday off to get some rest after the busy week prior. Switching my long run to Friday would allow me to play soccer and cheer for the half marathoners on Saturday. That meant cramming my weekday workouts into three days instead of four. I ran on Monday and felt strong. Tuesday, I tested my muscle strength with a lifting/ab session at lunch and a spin class after work. The combination of the best spin class ever and a weird ab workout that worked my legs more than my abs resulted in some very sore quads on Wednesday morning. With all the running, biking, and sport playing I do, my quads almost never get sore. So when I went running on Wednesday after work, my legs were heavy and slow.

I rested on Thursday and felt good on Friday morning. My legs were a little sore but they didn't slow me down much. My big mistake of the run was the route I mapped. It took me down Mass Ave from 16th Street to the Capitol building. I've run down this stretch of Mass many times and it's often busy but it has never been as bad as it was at 10AM on Friday morning. I had to stop constantly at lights which made it hard to get in any running groove. My clock time was 1:46:56 and my overall run time (including stops) was 2:01:27. Most of that 15 minutes of stopping happened between miles 3 and 5. Not only was this hard mentally but I don't think it was good for my muscles. Stopping so much made my muscles tighten as lactate surely built up from the lack of movement.

After mile 6, I barely had to stop at all. But I spent the second half of the run making my way uphill away from the mall. And I ran up my favorite long hill (Mass Ave between Dupont and the Cathedral) around mile 10 which was definitely a test of running on tired legs.

Elevation chart from Friday's long run.

On Saturday, I played a very intense game of soccer which was 4v6 in the first half and 5v7 in the second. My team was the one playing down two players. We lost 3-1 and spent basically the entire game playing hard defense. There was a lot of sprinting and it was a good workout.

I woke up Sunday morning and remembered what a unique workout soccer is. As is always the case after my first time playing in a while, my groins, butt and many muscles in my legs were sore. On my Sunday afternoon run, my legs felt heavier than they had all week. I was initially frustrated by my slow pace. Then I remembered Nikki's words of wisdom and decided that I was doing exactly what I should be- running on tired legs. The sore muscles only mean that my legs will be stronger on May 26th. That knowledge will make every hard workout a little easier in the coming weeks.

RNR USA Spectating

If you live in DC, it is very likely that you or someone you know ran the Rock and Roll DC marathon or half marathon on Saturday. Nearly 30,000 people ran the race. The past two years, I was one of those runners but, this year, I never signed up for it for a few reasons. I didn't want to pay the outrageous registration fees that are a product of the corporate rock and roll buying it out last year. I also know that it might not have been smart to push myself too hard, which I surely would have been tempted to do, while training for my first half marathon.

I had many friends racing, though, so I got up early and showed up at mile 6 to cheer. This year, the course ran within a mile of my apartment so Josh and I rolled out of bed, walked south and arrived in Woodley Park around 8AM, just as the first runner sped by. We didn't have time to snap his picture but got some of the elite runners in his pack.

A few minutes later, our friend Ben arrived with his family. They were there to cheer on his brother Paul and we formed a good team of cheerleaders. But apparently not good enough because, early on, one runner yelled at the spectators for not being loud enough.

Only about twenty minutes after our arrival, Nikki and Jamey ran by. Josh pointed them out and I might have missed them if he hadn't. Nikki told me afterward that, just before they passed, she said to Jamey "I think we missed Carrie" and Jamey looked over and said, "there she is!"

Only five or seven minutes later, Eric ran by. Somehow, he was easier to spot in his all-black uniform!

Next on the list of expected runners-by were Catherine (my friend at work) and Paul (Ben's brother) who both aimed to run about a 10 mm average pace. The problem with race spectating is that if you look away right at the wrong second, you completely miss the runner you're looking for. And then you don't know if they've passed or if they're still coming. And, when you're on the front lines of cheering for an hour and a half, you just have to occasionally look away to sip water, fix your screwy cowbell and post instagrams of your friends who just ran by. Somehow in that mix, we saw and cheered for Paul but missed Catherine. Eventually, I was sure that she must have passed and kept an eye out for Hadley. She came into view in an outfit I was used to cheering for- the outfit she wore for her Marine Corps Marathon in October. I got a picture of her cursing the horrible hill that she had just run up out of Woodley Park. It is definitely one of the worst hills in DC.

Before we left I snapped a picture of our cheering ground. When we arrived, Josh and I stood at the white line by the cars in the far right of the photo. Early on, a guy with his bike went to stand at the far edge of the green, on the left in the photo. Over the course of the hour and a half we were there, the crowds inched up all the way to the double yellow lines, cutting the width of the course in half. We always stayed a bit behind the line, fighting the move but the crowds, especially the bike guy, kept pushing on. At one point, Ben told a policeman that he should control the crowds but the policeman wrote him off, saying he couldn't get everyone to move on his own. From a runner's perspective, it was frustrating.

Surprisingly, I wasn't really sad not to be running this race. If it weren't for VCM, I would have been. But I felt like standing on the sidelines was exactly where I was supposed to be. It certainly made me more excited for the marathon!

Congrats to all the runners on Saturday. I'm very glad that you survived the beastly rock creek hill and, even more so, that it didn't end up raining on you!

Week 6: VCM Training and Reflection

The first line of each day is what I actually did and the parentheses beside it show what my scheduled workout was...

Week 6 (3.4.13 to 3.10.13):

Monday: 45 minutes spin class (rest)
Tuesday:  2.82 miles at 7:49 pace (4 miles)
Wednesday:  30 minutes yoga (CT cardio)
Thursday: 3.32 miles at 8:35 pace (4 miles, weights)
Friday: rest- and by "rest", i mean standing in heels all day and night and running around like a crazy person setting up for and executing an event (rest)
Saturday: 8.04 miles at 8:56 pace (8 mile long run)
Sunday: 90 minutes frisbee (3 miles/frisbee)

My first cutback week during this training cycle came at the perfect time. It was the week of my big dinner at work and it was also the week when my foot pain flared up a little bit. I worked late nights and had some trouble squeezing workouts in. I went to spin class on Monday so that I could get it over with before my schedule got too out of control. On Tuesday and Thursday, I went for late afternoon runs and then returned to work for more long hours. I shortened them both because of mild foot pain and felt that I could get away with this during a cut-back week. Wednesday, a snow day in which I worked from home, I let myself rest and only did some quick yoga in my living room.

The hardest workout of the week, though, was my long run on Saturday after all the work was done. My ten miler the week before had been tough- it was really cold, windy and felt long, so I wanted a confidence booster during this eight miler. Long hours on my feet the day before, and two late-night glasses of de-stress wine, left me feeling tired and lethargic, even after nine hours of sleep. The weather was amazing- 60's and sunny- and I felt guilty for not being more happy to be running under the beautiful sun. Around mile 5, my friend Nathaniel, running in the opposite direction, called my name from across the street and that gave me some adrenaline. About a half a mile later, though, I was looking at a trash can as I threw away my gu packet and tripped on a jagged piece of the sidewalk. I was moving pretty fast so I went flying and skinned both knees and my right elbow, forearm and hand. 

It hurt my knees at first to continue on but I just got up and kept running, mostly wanting to run away from the embarrassing scene. I got a bunch of stares at the blood running down my legs which was embarrassing but, strangely, I felt a new energy for the rest of my run. I finished at the soccer field where Josh and Ingrid were playing and basked in the sun, watching the last 20 minutes of their victory.

So far, training has been really fun. As I prepare to run 12 miles this weekend, and face the fact that I will be doing double-digit runs for the next nine weekends in a row, I am slightly terrified. I counted and, since December 2010 when I began training for my first half, I've done only 15 runs over 9.99 miles. But I'm going to take it one week at a time and I'mg going to keep pushing through when things get tough!