Training Widget

Thursday, May 27, 2010

Seven Sans Coffee/Keep Your Effing Dog Away From the Water Fountain

I ran a seven miler this morning and the only good thing I can say about it is that I survived. It was supposed to be a tempo run with five miles at 8:54 pace, with one mile of warm up and cool down on each end. I anticipated this would be a tough workout, but I did not anticipate not being able to complete the miles at the prescribed pace. I had kind of been looking forward to it. I like a challenge, we've been having super running weather, and Thursdays are preschool days (so I get some me time). I thought all of that would combine for a splendid running experience. Being that I have delusions of returning to my previous sub-two hour half marathon form (and I thought I was on track), I really thought this was manageable.
WRONG-O!

SPLITS- THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY (I'll let you figure out which is which)
Mile 1 9:59--A great start... perfect pace for a warm up mile
Mile 2 8:56--Certainly close enough
Mile 3 8:59-- Again, close enough
Mile 4 9:38-- WHAT THE FUDGE??? (see WATER STOPS below)
Mile 5 9:28--I dunno. There was no water stop involved, so I have no excuse
Mile 6 10:58--Utter despair and complete defeat (again, see WATER STOPS below)
Mile 7 12:35-- Yes, it was a cool down, but COME. ON.

SOME NOTES ON THE ROUTE
We've got a great little trail about a mile from our house that's a two mile loop. It's paved, shaded, and has just enough pedestrian traffic to make one feel plenty safe to run alone in the woods. And, there's a water fountain (big time bonus in my book). The only problem with this little slice o' running heaven is that it's in a bit of a valley (i.e. pretty much a downhill trek to get there *yea* and pretty much a straight uphill trek to get home *BOO*). My plan was to run the mile there as a warm up, run twice around for four of my five tempo miles, head towards home for the final mile of the tempo portion; then putz around for a cool-down mile near the house. Pair these notes with the splits, and it's fairly easy to see where the wheels came off on this particular run. The last tempo mile was straight uphill. Flippin' genius, Anne. Seeeeeeeriously. How do you spell idiot?? That would be A-N-N-E.

WATER STOPS
I don't speak for all runners, but my 'runner's best friend' is hands down a water fountain. It's just a fact that this game dehydrates a person. If you're fortunate enough to run where there's a fountain, you don't have to break out the camel back (which is super handy, but a complete pain in the keester to clean) or a bottle of water. YEA for water fountains! Today, however, the water fountain caused me two problems. Number one was insignificant in the grand scheme of things. Number two... judge for yourself.
1. My garmin watch has this handy dandy auto stop feature that stops timing when you stop moving. For some reason, when I made my first water stop during mile four, the clock rolled on. It's annoying, but ultimately provides me with a pretty stinkin' good excuse for failing to run mile four in the goal time of 8:54.

2. Somewhere either in the late part of mile five or the early part of mile six, the despair and defeat of this run were firmly entrenched in my psyche. I was tired, I wasn't meeting my goal times, and I was oh so thirsty. Alas, my beloved water fountain was near. Despite the negative energy now surrounding the run, I was confident that I would take a good, healthy water break and finish strong. Not at goal pace, but strong.
I come around the corner and there's a woman with two dogs. She's taking a drink. No problemo. I can wait my turn, and the extra rest while waiting seems like a gift from above. Then, after she refreshes herself, she picks up the little pooch and proceeds to let him/her take a drink from the water fountain. When I told my husband this story, he responded with "Are you serious?". I responded with, "How could I make that up?".

Being the facebook junkie that I am, I immediately came changed my status to: OK... I know you dog people are goofy about your dogs, and that's cool. I don't get it, but it's cool. Still, I must cry foul if you lift your pooch to the water fountain for a drink while my stinky, sweaty, thirsty self is standing right behind you waiting for a drink.
Honestly, in the immediate moments following, I thought, maybe I'm being too hard on the dog people of the world. Maybe I'm freaking out over nothing. However, the responses have indicated that's not the case.

I wish I could tell you that I just skipped the water and came home for my liquid refreshment. But folks, I was in a bad way, and, have I mentioned, I was thirsty?? Really, really thiiiiiiirrrrrsty! I let the water run for a good 15 seconds and took a hit. Gross gross gross gross gross GROSS!

After this, I gave up. Just completely and totally gave up. In my running life, it rarely happens, but it sure as heck did today. "Don't give up" is something we preach pretty consistently to our kids; and ultimately I'm just glad they weren't around to see me doing just that.

DEBRIEFING
Now that I'm a few hours out from this epic fail experience, I am gaining some perspective. I'm definitely thankful for my dailymile support community on such days. How did I ever live without them??!! I'm also choosing to focus on miles two, three, and four as victories... they were a little off, but once water time is subtracted and you factor in some hills, they were ultimately quality miles.

I'm also giving myself a little wiggle room because this week is just crazy busy. All good things, but I didn't get home until after midnight on Tuesday, and was up past 11 yesterday night. By my standards, that's two pretty short nights. And, the two beers I enjoyed while sitting on the porch last night were likely (definitely) ill-advised. Lesson learned.

And lastly, I'm experimenting with drinking less coffee. I already drink half-caff, but drinking it at all just holds less appeal for me now that the weather has warmed. I skipped it this morning thinking that it would pay a dividend of me not feeling the need to pee the entire time I was out running. In reality, I probably needed the fuel. I am going to continue experimenting with this, so look for more coffee related posts in the future.

I'm spending the rest of today/this evening re-hydrating, re-fueling, and getting ready for tomorrow's 10 miler. It's the last long training run before the Minneapolis half. Woohoo!! Just for the record, I'm not giving up on running it in under two hours. We shall see...









Monday, May 24, 2010

Week Nine 13.1 days until the Minneapolis half!

WkDatMonTuesWedsThursFriSatSunTotal










95/17
5/23
Easy Run
Dist: 2 mi
@10:17
Rest
/ XT
Speedwork
Dist: 8 mi, inc
Warm; 4x1600 in 8:14
w/800 jogs; Cool
Easy Run
Dist: 2 mi
@10:17
Rest
/ XT
Long Run
Dist: 9 mi
@10:17
Rest
/ XT
21 miles











Week nine looked the same as the previous few weeks, so I'm not typing that all out. I had two daily mile posts that pretty much sum up where I am, so I will cut and paste those.

From Wednesday:


Speedwork 8.02 mi / 01:17 09:37 pace

This is what my little runners world plan had in store today:
Speedwork
Dist: 8 mi, inc
Warm; 4x1600 in 8:14
w/800 jogs; Cool

For some reason, I was super worked up about this particular workout (perhaps because I haven't run at such a pace since last spring's stress fracture). Chris gave me a very helpful pep talk last night, reminding me that it wasn't that far off the pace I had for last weekend's four mile race. I missed the mark on my first 1600, but am ultimately happy with the splits: 8:25, 8:05, 8:11, 7:59

I would really really really like to run a sub-two hour Mpls half marathon on June 6. I'm starting to think it's possible...

And from Saturday:

RUN
goodcharacter/marriage building nine 9 mi / 01:28 09:44 pace

We started the run with a monster of a hill (much to my chagrin), then were four plus miles from the car when it started to pour. Just about the time we were good and soaked, Chris informed me that he' wasn't sure we were headed in the right direction. Hmmmm. Turns out we were, but the last four miles of this run were, um, interesting. Glad to have that one in the books.



Monday, May 17, 2010

Week Eight + Monday musings


The Plan:

WkDatMonTuesWedsThurs
FriSatSunTotal

85/10
5/16
Easy Run
Dist: 2 mi
@10:23
Rest
/ XT
Tempo Run
Dist: 7 mi, inc
Warm; 5 mi @ 8:59; Cool
Easy Run
Dist: 2 mi
@10:23
Rest
/ XT
Long Run
Dist: 9 mi
@10:23
Rest
/ XT
20 miles

The Actual:

Monday: Swim (1050 meters)
Tuesday: Yoga
Wednesday: Seven mile tempo run
Thursday: 60 minute zone 2 cycle class
Friday: Nine mile long run
Saturday: rest
Sunday: Run for the Ribbon 4 Mile


Running life is blissful right now. I'm pretty much exactly one year out from the stress fracture diagnosis. I really am just now starting to feel like my pre-injury self. Chris was able to sneak away from the office on Friday and run with me. It was the first time in a long long loooong time that the miles just flew by. When we hit nine miles, I really didn't want to be done. The weather was beautiful and the company was great. We ran from downtown to Minnehaha Falls; and I really started to remember why I love running so much.
With the new Garmin, I've been doing the tempo runs outside. I'd been doing them on the treadmill before, but the sun's been coming up early so I decided to hit the streets. They are flipping hard. I think there's a few reasons for that. One is that it's hard to fuel up before those early morning runs. I did eat a banana before taking off this week, and that seemed to help. Week eight's tempo run wasn't quite as tough as week seven's. Regardless, I guess it's safe to conclude that they're paying off since this week's long run was so enjoyable.
Sunday's Run for the Ribbon was awesome. Once again the weather was fab. It's a small race, which means you get a little extra room to maneuver, which is helpful. Chris and I both set PR's. Chris really flew with an overall pace of 8:11 and I was quite happy with my 8:37. I am focusing on trying to put some of my fear aside and starting to run with confidence again. I am feeling great, so that helps :-)




Thursday, May 13, 2010

No One Mile Races for Me!

If I were an active Twitter person in real life, today's post would go something like this:
Anne is NOT participating in the TC One Mile race this evening.

One year ago tonight I WAS indeed running the TC One Mile. I look back on the evening with much ambivalence. On the positive side, I ran my little heart out and finished in 7 minutes and 39 seconds. That was the first and probably last time I've ever run such a zippy mile. OK, so it's not all that zippy, but for me it was a big deal. This running hobby of mine is simply that. I have not one iota of natural ability or speed. The only reason I've had any "success" (success being defined as setting some meager goals and achieving them) at this game is because I've put in the time and effort. Also on the positive side, I ended up getting a guaranteed entry for the Twin Cities 10 Mile (which I had tried twice to get a spot in and failed). And, after I finished running, I got to hang out on Nicollet Mall with my husband and a group of his co-workers and enjoy a celebratory Tom Collins.

Now, for the negative side. It was the week following this event that I started having nagging pain in my left shin. It was just annoying at first, but by the end of the week I was hating running (not normal for me). Soon after that, I couldn't even complete a workout. Crazy thing, a stress fracture is. I'd feel fine during normal activity. Then, once I'd start running (as in, immediately).... EEEOWWWWZA. I kept thinking I'd magically healed, until I'd start off running again. I gave it a couple of weeks to work itself out, but to no avail. Ultimately I found myself in the office of a sports medicine physician. I kind of knew what he was going to say, but once he uttered "stress fracture," my heart sank.

"Two weeks, no running," he says. The wheels in my mind are turning. I was signed up for two half marathons in June. "So," I say, "No Minneapolis half marathon, huh."
"Nope," he replies.
The wheels continue to turn. Grandma's was three or four weeks off. "What about Grandma's??" I ask.
"You can try, but I don't recommend it. Once you start running again, you'll need to re-enter gradually."
Aaaauuugh! Utter despair. I love running. I love summer. I love getting up early in the summer to go run with just shorts and a t-shirt. Too bad for me. How many times can a heart sink in one little ol' doctor's appointment?
So, I leave. Call my husband and tearfully pass on the crappy news.
To make a long story just slightly less long... I ended up being outta the game for pretty much the whole dang summer.
Let me just tell you, there are few things more pathetic than a runner who is unable to run. I would guess it's like a smoker trying to give up cigarettes. I was stressed, cranky, irritable... just straight up bitchy (more so than usual, which is saying a LOT). Throw a whole lotta family stress into that mix and you end up with one fabulously craptastic summer.
Did the TC One Mile cause my stress fracture? I don't know, but I'm not going to try it again to find out. I'm blogging while Chris is downtown (and probably just finishing). Call me scared, call me weak, call me a chicken... I soooo don't care. I'm too old for this sh**!





Sunday, May 9, 2010

Week Seven

Just four weeks until the Minneapolis half!!

The plan:
WkDatMonTuesWedsThursFriSatSunTotal










75/3
5/9
Easy Run
Dist: 2 mi
@10:23
Rest
/ XT
Tempo Run
Dist: 6 mi, inc
Warm; 4 mi @ 8:54; Cool
Easy Run
Dist: 2 mi
@10:23
Rest
/ XT
Long Run
Dist: 8 mi
@10:23
Rest
/ XT
18 miles












The Actual:
Monday: 30 minute swim and 30 minute personal training session
Tuesday: Lisa's yoga
Wednesday: Tempo run (with the new Garmin!! more on that later)
Thursday: 60 minute cycle class
Friday: rest
Saturday: 8 mile run along beautiful Bay Lake

Sunday, May 2, 2010

Week Six

The Plan:
WkDatMonTuesWedsThursFriSatSunTotal










64/26
5/2
Easy Run
Dist: 4 mi
@10:23
Rest
/ XT
Easy Run
Dist: 4 mi
@10:23
Rest
/ XT
Rest
/ XT
Easy Run
Dist: 4 mi
@10:23
Rest
/ XT
12 miles


The Actual:
Monday: 1000 m swim, 30 minute personal training session
Tuesday: Yoga with Lisa
Wednesday: Above described tempo run
Thursday: 60 minute cycle class
Friday: Four mile easy run
Saturday: rest
Sunday: Four mile easy run

Feelin' good :)