In light of my lame post this morning (and to procrastinate a bit more at work), I tallied up my October miles. My NY resolution this year was 1300 miles, which seemed reasonable since last year I came in at 1284.8 and that included my wedding month of 39.5 miles. But what I didn't know at the beginning of the year was that 2010 would include a Swedish and Russian vacation extravaganza, which meant similarly little running for several weeks.
And then my marathon training season seemed to be slightly less intense than last year. June I was 6 miles over last June. July I was 6 under. August I was 2 over, September I was 10 under. So coming into October, I think YTD I was down 17.5 miles. But I knew that in 09, I had very weak months in October (due to a post-marathon cold that lasted more than 2 weeks) and December (holiday laziness). I figured I could easily crank out some extra miles one of those months to recover from any deficit, and then buckle down a little for one of the other weak months and make up the 15 extra I needed for my resolution.
Well, October was the month. I beat last October by more than 30 miles, which means I'm now a net of 20 miles ahead of last year at the end of October. Score. Now I can just repeat last November and December, and I'll be all set.
The obvious flaw in that plan was that last year I ran full marathons in Oct, Nov and Dec, and I'm not doing that this year. After the half next weekend, I think I'm probably going to relax a bit, but most likely still do the local full in December, but just for fun, not for time. But I just need 171 more miles over the next 2 months, which works out to about 22 miles per week, allowing a week off for Xmas. Totally doable I say right now. Barring injury of course. Last year I wiped out during the last week of December and sprained my ankle severely, making for a light January!
So, October 2010 = 133.9 miles. Average of 33.5 per week, or 4.3 per day.
It felt like a nice step back. I haven't had a month this low since May, which included the Swedish-Russian vacation extravaganza and was before I started official marathon training for the season.
I successfully avoided all those post-marathon illnesses that seem to plague so many people (including me many years). Maybe the flu shot is working? Actually, our office and my husband have been healthy all month, so that's probably helped more than anything. But as soon as a co-worker or hubby gets sick, I'll probably be right behind them.
Sunday, October 31, 2010
Sleep-Deprived
Oh, I'm feeling beat. About to take a little nap I think before heading into the office for a little while. Ran 12 this morning, a little faster than I was expecting, but it was fine. The nice thing was that today's group route went right past our house, so I was able to run from the front door, which is always cool. The rest of the weekend has been good. Highlight was a wedding, where we met some interesting people.
Not much else to report. Basically came to no conclusions yesterday in our trip planning. If we go anywhere else in Europe, it will probably be Paris. I think the itinerary will be Dallas, Boston, Pittsburgh, Paris, Lamezia, Dallas. Not sure yet though. Nap time...
Not much else to report. Basically came to no conclusions yesterday in our trip planning. If we go anywhere else in Europe, it will probably be Paris. I think the itinerary will be Dallas, Boston, Pittsburgh, Paris, Lamezia, Dallas. Not sure yet though. Nap time...
Friday, October 29, 2010
Woo-Hooooo!!!
Boston, baby, Boston! I stayed awake much later than usual yesterday. I left work early because I was volunteering to help with packet pick-up for a race from 5-7 last night. From there, I went straight to my Italian conversation group, which was fun. Then I hung out at the bar and watched some of the Rangers game, but try as I might, I just don't care enough anymore (far cry from the girl who used to fly to watch spring training most years in Ariz or Florida!). It of course didn't help that they were losing! Anyway, I got home and ate some cheese and veggie buffalo wings. All this at way past my normal bedtime.
But since hubby is out of town, I was thinking about sleeping in and skipping boot camp this morning. I checked my email and then couldn't get back to sleep. I saw a message with the subject "Boston Marathon Entry Confirmation." I opened it, and read this:
Woo-hoo! That means they finally confirmed my MTCM time and I'm in. There were some general instructions about packet pick-up, tourist info, etc., but all I cared about was the link to Boston entrants. Searched for my name and there it was!
So tomorrow is our big trip-planning day. It is sounding like my in-laws aren't likely to join us for the trip, which is a bummer. My father-in-law would really like to go, but my mother-in-law has some trouble moving around, so she doesn't want to go, and they don't want him to go and her to stay. I'm going to keep hoping that it will work out, but of course it's fine if it's just the two of us. Either way, now that I know I'm confirmed for Boston, we can plan away! I think whether we do any kind of extra stop in someplace like Paris or Como will depend on flights and where we end up with a stop (since of course there aren't any workable direct flights into Lamezia, which is our destination).
Anyway, after that email, I was pretty jazzed up. And lonely. Both of those combined to make for some trouble falling asleep, which is so rare for me. Usually I can fall asleep within about 4-5 minutes any where at any time. Seriously, after a 5k if there was a bed and a blanket and it was somewhat dark and quiet, I could lay down and fall asleep. It's like I'm permanently tired. But last night I was awake and just thinking about how much I needed to fall asleep!
But the alarm went off at 5 and I got up for boot camp. I considered going back to sleep, but figured it would be fun to work out with Joy. It was really cold this morning -- upper 40s, which is unusual -- so camp was pretty sparsely attended. If I had known we were just going to do the PT test, I probably would have slept in. But I did it and did pretty well, a little lower on sit-ups than last time, but still solid. My 2 mile run was great. Second mile was only about 4 seconds slower than the first, and I knew the first had been faster than I needed, so I was fine with the slow-down, but surprised it wasn't substantially more! But probably not a pace I could have sustained for a third mile, though it might have been interesting to try. The weather was just so cool and nice! Felt good to run fast. It was just my ears and hands that were cold. Oh, I'm not ready for winter!
But since hubby is out of town, I was thinking about sleeping in and skipping boot camp this morning. I checked my email and then couldn't get back to sleep. I saw a message with the subject "Boston Marathon Entry Confirmation." I opened it, and read this:
This is to notify you that your entry into the 115th Boston Marathon on Monday, April 18, 2011 has been accepted, provided that the information you submitted is accurate. ...
We look forward to seeing you in April! Best of luck in your training!
Sincerely,
Boston Athletic Association
Woo-hoo! That means they finally confirmed my MTCM time and I'm in. There were some general instructions about packet pick-up, tourist info, etc., but all I cared about was the link to Boston entrants. Searched for my name and there it was!
So tomorrow is our big trip-planning day. It is sounding like my in-laws aren't likely to join us for the trip, which is a bummer. My father-in-law would really like to go, but my mother-in-law has some trouble moving around, so she doesn't want to go, and they don't want him to go and her to stay. I'm going to keep hoping that it will work out, but of course it's fine if it's just the two of us. Either way, now that I know I'm confirmed for Boston, we can plan away! I think whether we do any kind of extra stop in someplace like Paris or Como will depend on flights and where we end up with a stop (since of course there aren't any workable direct flights into Lamezia, which is our destination).
Anyway, after that email, I was pretty jazzed up. And lonely. Both of those combined to make for some trouble falling asleep, which is so rare for me. Usually I can fall asleep within about 4-5 minutes any where at any time. Seriously, after a 5k if there was a bed and a blanket and it was somewhat dark and quiet, I could lay down and fall asleep. It's like I'm permanently tired. But last night I was awake and just thinking about how much I needed to fall asleep!
But the alarm went off at 5 and I got up for boot camp. I considered going back to sleep, but figured it would be fun to work out with Joy. It was really cold this morning -- upper 40s, which is unusual -- so camp was pretty sparsely attended. If I had known we were just going to do the PT test, I probably would have slept in. But I did it and did pretty well, a little lower on sit-ups than last time, but still solid. My 2 mile run was great. Second mile was only about 4 seconds slower than the first, and I knew the first had been faster than I needed, so I was fine with the slow-down, but surprised it wasn't substantially more! But probably not a pace I could have sustained for a third mile, though it might have been interesting to try. The weather was just so cool and nice! Felt good to run fast. It was just my ears and hands that were cold. Oh, I'm not ready for winter!
Thursday, October 28, 2010
Boston Nerves
Hmm, my name is still not listed as a Boston entrant, and now most of my registered friends are. I still know one other person who registered and isn't listed. But why is it taking so long for them to verify my time? Shouldn't it go alphabetically or something, so I'd have a sense of where they were in the process? Don't they know how nervous I am? It's like my theory that hitting "track package" every minute with UPS or FedEx might make them know I really, really am waiting for it so they'll bring it faster?
We had our last fun morning at the track today. By fun, I mean unscheduled. Those of us who've already done our big fall marathons have been accompanying the NY marathoners to the track, but as they've been busting out steady times on their scheduled repeats, the group of us has been taking turns calling the repeat and the pace, asking each other what we feel like doing next. But that's ending today. By Monday, my legs should officially be back to normal and I will be cleared to race again if I want, having taken off from racing 1 day for every mile raced, which is the conventional wisdom on returning to running injury-free after a race.
This has been an interesting year for racing. And interesting is not necessarily good. For the first 8 months of the year, I couldn't seem to PR to save my life. I suppose I technically had 1 PR in those months, but that was at a distance (10k) where I was competing with Adam and I missed beating him by less than 15 seconds, so I wasn't at all happy with the PR. And in many of the other races during the first 8 months of the year, I missed a PR very narrowly, but missed it nonetheless. Then I had a birthday in August and have PRed in every race since then. But that's only 3 races. But of course two of them (5k and marathon) were big personal victories for me, especially the marathon since I eeked it out a few minutes faster than Adam. The 5k was a bit disappointing because I was 1 second behind him.
I originally had high hopes for the half next weekend. While I'll compete with Adam, I fully expect that he will beat me, and I will accept that gracefully. I want him to completely kill it and I'll be happy to share in his joy and celebrations afterward. My goals had always seemed more modest. I wanted to run fast enough to put my time in a new "decade" of minutes, meaning I need to shave about 2 minutes off my half PR from this race last year. And given that during MTCM I actually had a first half time that would get me into the new decade (would have been a PR if the race had been a half instead of a full), it seems like I should be able to do it.
But I'm having doubts about my legs and level of fitness. The scale hasn't shown any results from all the damage I've been doing on my body lately in terms of my eats (and mostly my drinks). After spreading out celebration meals and happy hours for a couple weeks after the marathon, I'm pretty much back to my normal eating patterns, but I still seem to have a much bigger appetite (and I'm far more relaxed about things like drinking the night before a run). Regardless of the scale, following a recovery plan of almost a month of easy running after the marathon has made me feel like I don't have any speed left, though I actually was happy with my times at the track this morning. We did 1600 easy, 400, 400 easy, 800, 400 easy, 400, 400 easy. And my 400 times were actually good. The first one I thought would not be replicated, but I actually beat it by one second on the second one.
My mileage in the weeks following MTCM:
Race week = 31.1 over 3 days (race day Sunday, then Thurs and Fri)
Next week = 23.6 over 6 days of working out (1 day was no running though)
Next week = 32.3 over 5 days
This week = 30.3 so far, I'll probably add in a mile or two tomorrow
Those distances per week should all be fine for a half PR next weekend, but my legs just don't seem to feel it. On the 1600 easy this morning, we were about 10-15 seconds faster than I'd like my half pace to be, but wow, it did not feel sustainable for another 12 miles! Guess we'll just see.
After being so happy with meeting my marathon goal, I don't feel like I have to impress anyone with a good half time. But at the same time, lots of my marathon pacing decisions were based on the fact that I should have been able to qualify based on my training, but I didn't want to qualify by a large margin in hopes of saving my legs a bit of stress so they could pump out an impressive time next weekend. So if I underperform next weekend, I'll be disappointed in myself.
Guess we'll just see how it goes. The morning of the race, I may try to find some weekday guys to start with, and then see how it goes and how much they and/or Adam are picking up the pace. I've actually run this particular half on 3 or 4 times before and I've PRed every time.
That's misleading. I must admit that the first time I ever ran it was my first half race ever, so it was a guaranteed PR -- if I'd had any time to beat, I wouldn't have done it. It was my first race where I got very overheated, had to walk the last mile, and then was taken to the medical tent where I promptly commenced the vomiting. Lovely. The good news was my very first half was such a wreck that my personality pretty much guaranteed I'd keep running so that I could finish with a time that I felt better represented my abilities.
Anyway, hubby is out of town tonight, so I'm excited to get to sleep with the windows open, that won't make up for missing him, but it's something. Other than that, not much to report. Saw two movies this week, Sound of Music Sing-Along, and Monsters.
Sound of Music Sing-Along was fun. The funniest part for me was realized that they subtitled the chanting in the abbey, so you could sing along in Latin if you wanted. Several people laughed when the subtitles came up. Of course a great movie. Not sure if my fave song is Edelweiss or My Favorite Things, but I enjoyed singing them all.
Monsters was pretty good. Best described as drawing from Jurassic Park, District 9, The Road (didn't see the movie, but I read the book), and one movie I can't remember the name of -- it was about most people in the country getting some kind of plague, the army quarantining them, and a group of 3 or 4 people fleeing, maybe set in Pennsylvania. Anyway, I thought Monsters was pretty good, but hubby didn't like it too much. He thought there was too much of an undercurrent message about illegal immigration and that it was too anti-US-govt. But we both enjoyed going out for wine and pizza afterward, like normal people. We usually go to bed so early, but he was sleeping in today b/c of his travel, and I figured I didn't care if I sabotaged my track workout. Who are all those people eating and drinking at 10:00 at night on a school night? I still don't know, but at least we were among them and having fun last night.
We had our last fun morning at the track today. By fun, I mean unscheduled. Those of us who've already done our big fall marathons have been accompanying the NY marathoners to the track, but as they've been busting out steady times on their scheduled repeats, the group of us has been taking turns calling the repeat and the pace, asking each other what we feel like doing next. But that's ending today. By Monday, my legs should officially be back to normal and I will be cleared to race again if I want, having taken off from racing 1 day for every mile raced, which is the conventional wisdom on returning to running injury-free after a race.
This has been an interesting year for racing. And interesting is not necessarily good. For the first 8 months of the year, I couldn't seem to PR to save my life. I suppose I technically had 1 PR in those months, but that was at a distance (10k) where I was competing with Adam and I missed beating him by less than 15 seconds, so I wasn't at all happy with the PR. And in many of the other races during the first 8 months of the year, I missed a PR very narrowly, but missed it nonetheless. Then I had a birthday in August and have PRed in every race since then. But that's only 3 races. But of course two of them (5k and marathon) were big personal victories for me, especially the marathon since I eeked it out a few minutes faster than Adam. The 5k was a bit disappointing because I was 1 second behind him.
I originally had high hopes for the half next weekend. While I'll compete with Adam, I fully expect that he will beat me, and I will accept that gracefully. I want him to completely kill it and I'll be happy to share in his joy and celebrations afterward. My goals had always seemed more modest. I wanted to run fast enough to put my time in a new "decade" of minutes, meaning I need to shave about 2 minutes off my half PR from this race last year. And given that during MTCM I actually had a first half time that would get me into the new decade (would have been a PR if the race had been a half instead of a full), it seems like I should be able to do it.
But I'm having doubts about my legs and level of fitness. The scale hasn't shown any results from all the damage I've been doing on my body lately in terms of my eats (and mostly my drinks). After spreading out celebration meals and happy hours for a couple weeks after the marathon, I'm pretty much back to my normal eating patterns, but I still seem to have a much bigger appetite (and I'm far more relaxed about things like drinking the night before a run). Regardless of the scale, following a recovery plan of almost a month of easy running after the marathon has made me feel like I don't have any speed left, though I actually was happy with my times at the track this morning. We did 1600 easy, 400, 400 easy, 800, 400 easy, 400, 400 easy. And my 400 times were actually good. The first one I thought would not be replicated, but I actually beat it by one second on the second one.
My mileage in the weeks following MTCM:
Race week = 31.1 over 3 days (race day Sunday, then Thurs and Fri)
Next week = 23.6 over 6 days of working out (1 day was no running though)
Next week = 32.3 over 5 days
This week = 30.3 so far, I'll probably add in a mile or two tomorrow
Those distances per week should all be fine for a half PR next weekend, but my legs just don't seem to feel it. On the 1600 easy this morning, we were about 10-15 seconds faster than I'd like my half pace to be, but wow, it did not feel sustainable for another 12 miles! Guess we'll just see.
After being so happy with meeting my marathon goal, I don't feel like I have to impress anyone with a good half time. But at the same time, lots of my marathon pacing decisions were based on the fact that I should have been able to qualify based on my training, but I didn't want to qualify by a large margin in hopes of saving my legs a bit of stress so they could pump out an impressive time next weekend. So if I underperform next weekend, I'll be disappointed in myself.
Guess we'll just see how it goes. The morning of the race, I may try to find some weekday guys to start with, and then see how it goes and how much they and/or Adam are picking up the pace. I've actually run this particular half on 3 or 4 times before and I've PRed every time.
That's misleading. I must admit that the first time I ever ran it was my first half race ever, so it was a guaranteed PR -- if I'd had any time to beat, I wouldn't have done it. It was my first race where I got very overheated, had to walk the last mile, and then was taken to the medical tent where I promptly commenced the vomiting. Lovely. The good news was my very first half was such a wreck that my personality pretty much guaranteed I'd keep running so that I could finish with a time that I felt better represented my abilities.
Anyway, hubby is out of town tonight, so I'm excited to get to sleep with the windows open, that won't make up for missing him, but it's something. Other than that, not much to report. Saw two movies this week, Sound of Music Sing-Along, and Monsters.
Sound of Music Sing-Along was fun. The funniest part for me was realized that they subtitled the chanting in the abbey, so you could sing along in Latin if you wanted. Several people laughed when the subtitles came up. Of course a great movie. Not sure if my fave song is Edelweiss or My Favorite Things, but I enjoyed singing them all.
Monsters was pretty good. Best described as drawing from Jurassic Park, District 9, The Road (didn't see the movie, but I read the book), and one movie I can't remember the name of -- it was about most people in the country getting some kind of plague, the army quarantining them, and a group of 3 or 4 people fleeing, maybe set in Pennsylvania. Anyway, I thought Monsters was pretty good, but hubby didn't like it too much. He thought there was too much of an undercurrent message about illegal immigration and that it was too anti-US-govt. But we both enjoyed going out for wine and pizza afterward, like normal people. We usually go to bed so early, but he was sleeping in today b/c of his travel, and I figured I didn't care if I sabotaged my track workout. Who are all those people eating and drinking at 10:00 at night on a school night? I still don't know, but at least we were among them and having fun last night.
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