Monthly Archives: July 2011
Best ever? Not yet
Before I jump the gun and call July 2011 the best running month ever, I want to get through this entire training cycle first. I was ready last night to call this month the best ever, but what if next month is even better?
There’s a lot of running to do between now and Oct. 15, so what I want to do is take a moment to reflect on this month and then keep my eyes on the big prize — the Baltimore Marathon. My goal is to not have “best ever” months, and I can certainly hand out the “best ever” awards later.
I set two race PRs in the 5k and the 5 miler. I haven’t had two race PRs in a calendar month in four years.- Overall, I’m a lot faster. Out of 22 runs, 12 of them were under a 9-minute mile pace. Last July I ran 20 times with just 5 of those runs under that pace. Up until the past few months, I haven’t paid much attention to my everyday pace from an overall perspective. Now that I’m paying attention to it, I want to go faster. I really like my new slow.
- One of those faster runs included a double-digit 10-mile training run in flat Ohio, definitely one of the best long runs I’ve ever had.
- I ran down a mountain.
- I did two doubles (running twice in a day).
- I ran 122.5 miles — the third highest mileage month ever, just 2.2 miles off September 2010. My highest mileage month was October 2007 when I ran 133 miles.
Looking ahead to August, I’ve established some mileage goals that I have never hit. Besides the mileage, I want to continue getting faster and stronger — it’s quality and quantity continuing to come together.
This week will be a cut-back week before what I am anticipating will be three very intense weeks. In two weeks I am running the Lynchburg Half Marathon. I will set a very specific goal for this race as I will treat it as a test of where I am physically. I am beginning to have some thoughts of what I want to do for Baltimore, but I need this race and the next several weeks to come together before I get specific about the marathon.
For the last full week of August I have written down a goal for something that I’ve never done — 40 miles. All told I have a goal of 140 miles for the month. How I get to that number is much more important than just hitting that number.
I am embracing what I have put in front of me, but as always I will change my goals if I have to.
Jumping over the wall
After having some good and unique runs this week, I think I was more and more critical of last week’s long run that really wasn’t all that bad. That said, I learned a lot of lessons last week that I had to apply to the next long run to get over it and move on with my Baltimore Marathon training.
When the alarm went off at 5 a.m. today I was hating life. I didn’t sleep much and it had already been a long week — I was letting self-doubt enter my mind before I even got out of the door. As soon as I starting running with Duke, though, I was fine and very happy that I was out before the sun. The weather was a bit cooler than last week, but still very humid.
After less than a half mile, we almost got sprayed by a skunk — what I thought was a cat hanging out on the side of the road was a skunk that puffed up and hissed as we neared it. I shouted “GO DUKE” and we took off through someone’s yard. That woke me up, and I immediately started thinking about my goals for this run. Like my overarching goal is for 2011 is, today’s frame of mind was to finish it stronger than I started it.
I did exactly that. Here are the highlights of today’s 14.5-mile run, with lessons learned and many other miscellaneous things:
Don’t eat buffalo chicken wraps the day before a long run. I had a much-needed pit stop when I dropped Duke off about 5 miles into the run, but that wasn’t a bad thing. I realized I had forgotten to apply my Mission Skincare Anti-Chafe Balm before starting, something I failed to do last week.- After the brief stop, I took a frozen water bottle with me. It lasted several miles, keeping me cool and relaxed. After getting so hot last week, I needed this relief, especially in the middle miles.
- While my route doesn’t look planned, I made sure I would be in some shadier spots when the sun came up.
- Speaking of the sun, I made sure I had my sunglasses with me today. As soon as the sun peered over the trees, I put on my sunglasses. As weird as this sounds, this may have been the best decision of all today. There’s a lot to be said for not squinting in the final hour of the run. I was able to keep my face relaxed and focus on other things. Who knew squinting took so much effort?
- I was able to put my phone in a good spot so I didn’t have to hold it. My playlist was a little more singer-friendly too.
- I ran through some parking lots to break up a few continuous hills.
- I was able to refill my water about 9 miles in and get me through about mile 12 — that left me completely hands free for the final push.
- After starting slow — a 9:44 first mile — I finished strong with a next to last mile in 8:40. The second 7 miles were a little more than a minute and a half faster than the first 7 miles. My overall pace was 9:25, which I am very happy with.
- This run sticks out in my mind like a 16-mile run last September, when the conditions were actually much cooler and less humid. I’m excited beyond words about that. This weather is tough no matter how much I talk about running in it.
- I did my first-ever ice bath following the run. Long story short, I learned some lessons and didn’t last long. Two hours later, though, my legs feel great.
- Today’s run puts me at 30+ miles for the week, the first 30-mile week in 41 weeks.
Down the mountain
Back in April, I wrote a post titled “The final disappointment” about missing the Blue Ridge Half Marathon in Roanoke — it was sort of the final thing that I couldn’t do because of my ITB injury.
Today on my lunch run with a few co-workers, we did a point-to-point run from the top of the mountain back to our office. I didn’t talk about today, but doing this run felt more important to me than any of my PRs have this year. I really enjoyed running in the mountains the first half of last year — there’s a huge sense of accomplishment of going both up and down a mountain.
I mean, really … it’s a mountain. It’s not a hill. It’s a mountain. Say what you want about this being the downhill part of the mountain, but 2 miles downhill is brutal. My quads were on fire at the bottom.
The great thing about this was keeping a steady pace in the second half of the run that looks flat, but certainly wasn’t.
I’ll be climbing a mountain again eventually, but I believe that the importance of going downhill is bigger than uphill. Downhill is when the pain started in October, plus it’s really hard on the legs on longer downhills. Plus the Baltimore Marathon has a downhill finish — running down mountains certainly will help prepare for that.
Just like yesterday with two great runs and passing 100 miles for this month, today is yet another milestone in my training journey this summer. Now I need all the pieces to come together to avoid a repeat of this past weekend’s long run.
Triple digits, it’s been a while
I had one of the best overall days of running I’ve had in a while, not counting races. With humidity way down mid-day (but still 90 degrees), I pulled off a nice progressive run: 9:07, 8:29, 8:13 and .6 miles in an 8:04 pace. Then tonight in slightly more humid conditions, but still relatively comfortable, I kept pushing it — a 3.4-mile run in 29:48, which included an 8:29 second mile.
On the second run tonight, I also hit and passed 100 miles for the month! It’s the first triple digit month since October. I can’t even begin to explain what it means to me to have such a good day and hit a milestone like this.
Getting right back up
After Sunday’s wall-hitting run, I’ve taken the past few days to privately think about that moment and where I’ve been since last fall. It’s been a big wake-up call to focus on the work that remains and that I can’t get into a comfort zone of training that’s so easy to slip into.
It’s really hard to explain, but I’ve had a variety of thoughts this week that at first seem a bit jumbled, but they all fit together somehow.
I’ve dusted of Matt Fitzgerald’s “RUN: The Mind-Body Method of Running by Feel” that I got for Christmas to find things that made sense then, but I never really grasped. I read much of that book at the lowest points of my running seven months ago. Once again, I feel like this book was made for me as it reaffirms so many of my approaches to running in the past couple of years. I need it now to get refocused. I hope by the end of summer to write an appropriate review.- I read a good post this week over on Loving the Run about bucket lists, a term I’ve never really liked until now. I don’t have a bucket list; I’m afraid to make one. Right now it seems my thoughts are getting through the Baltimore Marathon uninjured, but is that the right frame of mind? I don’t really know, but if I’m questioning it, perhaps I should make my own bucket list.
- I’m getting very close to establishing a specific goal for the Lynchburg Half Marathon that is Aug. 13. The “non-race race” approach has worked in the past, but honestly this is a perfect time to test where I am both physically and mentally at a longer distance on a tough course. I’m not saying it will be a 100 percent all-out race, but I have a feeling it may be close. Blame the book or the wall-hitting or buckets on these thoughts, but I think the same approach as last year puts me back in this same-old same-old routine.
- Lastly, it’s worth mentioning that after Sunday’s run, I bounced back in the mid-day heat the next day for a lunch run of 4.1 miles. I treated it mentally as a recovery run with a co-worker; I felt like I complained the whole time, but we turned in a nice run at right about a 9-minute mile pace. I needed that run as much as I think I needed this wake-up call.
Now that I’ve put all this out there, it’s time to move on and make this the best week of training.
Slamming into the wall
From a quick search on my blog and from my memory of what I’ve written, I’m pretty sure that I have never talked about hitting a wall on a run. I think it comes from keeping my long runs slower and, fortunately, not having many wall-hitting moments in a race.
Today, though, I had one of the worst moments of hitting on a wall on a run that I can remember. I had 14 miles planned, but after the sun came up, I felt like I had the life sucked out of me. At around 11 miles I was feeling weak; after stopping and drinking some water, I tried to keep going.
At mile 12, I could not go any more. It wasn’t like I went from a run to a walk — I literally had to stop and catch my breath for a minute before I could go. I walked about a half mile and then tried to run a little more, but less than a quarter mile later the run was over. Getting to 14 miles safely, and to 30 miles for the week, just wasn’t meant to be.
It was so humid today — at 5:30 a.m. the humidity was 84 percent. It was the same 2 hours later. The temperatures weren’t too bad — in the low 70s — but the sun got a little rough when it came up. My clothes were as wet today as when I ran in the rain Tuesday. I could feel sweat dripping on my legs from my shorts at the end of the run. I’m pretty sure that’s never happened before.
Despite feeling defeated for a little while, I am OK with all this. I hit some big hills throughout today’s run (700-plus feet of elevation gain) that I guess I wasn’t fully ready for on a longer run. The effort on these hills will do more for me than a longer flat run will anyway, so I have to keep that in mind.
And why would I beat myself for running 12-plus miles in miserable conditions? On top of that, I had some great runs this week in the hottest conditions I’ve ever experienced, plus a run in the rain. I am not about to complain as this week will make a big difference in how I feel in cooler conditions later in training. (See yesterday’s post about training in these conditions …)
One lesson I have learned this week is that I either need to get used to running with my Camelbak again or buy a small handheld. After running in the heat this week and the humidity today, I need to do something. I did a good job today of staging water stops and fuel — five water stops, two gels and a Clif bar — but a more constant supply of water may have made a difference with getting an extra couple of miles.
Not to be lost in today’s run is the fact that I passed 90 miles for the month and 500 miles for the year. As I adjust my training schedule for next week, I’ll get to 120 miles in July if things go as planned. My focus, though, will be to make sure these continue to be solid, focused and purposeful miles … and no more wall-hitting.
Recent Comments