Thursday, January 27, 2011

It's not the heat, it's the humidity

"It's not the heat, it's the humidity."

That's what we say about our Virginia summers. There's a lot of truth to that statement, although even a dry 90 still feels pretty stinkin' hot to me. In the wintertime, it's not the cold, it's the wind.

This winter has been particularly cold. Not record-setting cold, but very long stretches of below-normal temps. It's pretty common to have 60 degree days during the winter. Just not this winter, it seems. On Tuesday it just about cracked 50, and I wore shorts and a t-shirt to run in. By yesterday it was back to the 30's, we got some snow, and today was cold again.

And windy.

In my particular microclimate, snugged up against the base of the Blue Ridge, we get some pretty serious winds. It's just relentlessly windy. When I popped out at lunchtime for a quick run, I just could NOT handle the wind. It wasn't even that bad. Often this winter, certain spots on my route where the wind is concentrated, I have to lean against it hard just to keep my footing. Today was nothing like that, but in the sunshine, I alternated between feeling warm, and then having the warm ripped right out of my body by an arctic blast.

My intention was to do the five miles on the program for today, and add in the hills I was supposed to do on Tuesday, but didn't get around to. I figured I'd do about a 1.5/2 mile warmup, do the hills for about another .5-1, then do a 2 mi cool down. It didn't shake out like that at all.

First, the cold and wind. So demoralizing. When I set out to train through the winter, I didn't foresee that I'd be training in ACTUAL winter, I figured I'd get our garden variety Virginia winter (see 60 degrees, above). Second, all that winter has kept me indoors a lot. I'm fighting a little SAD right now, and getting motivated is hard enough without feeling physically brittle. Third, I picked the wrong hill. Way too steep. My hill perception is all messed up (see base of the Blue Ridge above). And finally - speedwork AND distance? Am I nuts? Yeah, I am. There's a reason that Coach Mark puts the speedwork on the low mileage days.

Blah blah, aches and pains, blah blah, tired legs, blah blah, I did my hills, put my tail between my legs, and hobbled home.

Saturday, January 22, 2011

Cool running

Make that freakin' freezin' running.

It was 18 degrees when I left my cozy house for the track for the two mile time trial. Mark couldn't get through his spiel fast enough - my teeth were chattering by the time we headed out for our warmup. My usual running buddy was there, which was a happy surprise, since recent events in her personal life had pretty much taken running off the table for a while. We chatted and chattered our way through the two mile warmup, getting caught up.

Back at the track, we did skips and strides to further warm up, and I tried my best to coherently formulate my strategy. It came as a big surprise to me during marathon training that I love track workouts. They really speak to my inner math nerd, and focus my brain in a way that road and trail runs simply can't. All morning the numbers 2:26, 9:45, and 19:30 were running through my head - the lap, mile, and two mile paces that would translate to a 10:30 10 mile pace. With the extreme cold, I didn't think I had much chance of hitting them without a struggle. Plus, rather than resting last night, I went to a girls' night out at the home of fellow blogger Jen on the Edge. And of course, I wanted to look good, so I wore my highest heels, and then I was feeling shy, so I had to have a glass or so of wine. Not my usual pre-race regimin by a long shot!

My legs were so cold when we actually started the time trial that I really had very little sense of how fast or slow I was running, so I paid careful attention to my watch. I actually hauled out the old Timex for this, though I kept my Garmin on my other arm to track my totals just in case. The first 100 went by in about 40 seconds. Not bad. At 200 I was around 1:15, right on target to come in a little slower than 2:26 for the first lap. My numb legs were hitting their groove, and if I could just keep a lid on my speed the first few laps, I knew I'd cruise to 19:30. The first seven laps went like this:
2:28
2:27
2:25
2:24
2:22
2:21
2:20
Hello, textbook, it's me. I've been a good girl and studied hard. And my last lap was, wait for it....

2:02

For a grand total of 18:53.

YEEEEEEEEHAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!! My only regret is that I didn't push just a little harder on lap 7, I really had a lot of gas left in the tank at the end of the two miles. But hey, I'll take a 9:27 pace. My New Year's Day 5K 9:29 pace wasn't a fluke.

I can't begin to describe the utter satisfaction that comes with logging my fastest times EVER at the ripe old age of 36, after having kids. And to be on the track this morning, a really fine collegiate facility that has seen some gifted athletes, to be pounding away on that surface makes me feel like I'm just beginning to scratch the surface of what my body can do.

Wednesday, January 12, 2011

Resolutions

I'm not big on resolutions. Being inspired to make changes in my life doesn't typically happen on an arbitrary day on my calendar. But in general, I hope that this year will bring a renewed dedication to my training, among other things. For me, this resolution began one July day when I got stressed and had a terrible run. No run before or since had been that bad. And while my training hasn't been everything I want it to be, I have hit some huge goals since then. I've PR'ed in 4 miles, 5K (twice), and 10K. I've done all my long runs for the 10 miler training program. I've been getting up long before dawn and strapping on my reflective vest to get in my miles. I've even, horror of horrors, logged some serious miles on the treadmill. Six months in to this resolution, I'm doing pretty good.

Fast forward to an icy January morning. I decided not to run at 6am in the dark because I was worried about not seeing any patches of ice left from the previous day's precipitation. So I got up at the usual time, and was walking down the driveway in broad daylight to my car when my feet slid out from under me, my bags went flying, I landed hard on my backside and hands, and I may or may not have shouted my favorite expletive. Once I got the wind back in me, I picked myself up and loaded up the kids for school and headed to work. As the morning went on, I got sore and stiff in all kinds of weird places, and could not get comfortable. So after work, I headed to the gym for some stretching and treadmill time.

And of course, it was packed with resolutioners. I am a HUGE advocate for personal fitness. I'm a believer in the power of physical activity. I think everyone should do it. But somehow, when unfamiliar faces start showing up at the gym and hogging the treadmills, I can't help but resent the presence of the unfit. It shouldn't make much of a difference to me - I haven't yet had to wait for any equipment, and truth be told I want my gym to keep its awesome satellite location 1.3 miles from my front steps, so I should welcome newcomers. But I've been through this before, and I know that most of them will fade away long before their 60 day trial membership is up. Maybe my resolution should be to help the resolutioners keep up the good work and fighting the good fight, and crowding my gym every day of the year.

So keep it up, resolutioners! I'll only resent you for a few more weeks, and then we can be friends, okay? But if you leave my gym and never come back, I'll resent you forever.

Saturday, January 01, 2011

Happy New Year!

The New Years Day 5K was cancelled last year due to snow, so I feel like I've been saving up for this one since 2009. Today was my best shot at a sub-30 5K, after the Turkey Trot disaster.

Except I just wasn't feelin' it. An 11am race on NYD sounds awesome, but truthfully, it just means that I'm up with the kids by 7, and spend 4 hours waiting around to run, when I really want to get on with my day. It was rather dreary this morning, and by the time I was driving up Millington, I just felt unprepared and unmotivated. More than that, I didn't want to run unless I knew for sure that I'd break 30 minutes. I didn't want the disappointment again.

But I'd paid my money a month ago, and figured that I'd better just man up and do it.

Just before the start, I ran in to some women from the Saturday group, and my surly solo self begrudingly accepted a buddy. She kept me honest the first part of the race - it's hard to go out too fast when you're chatting about kids and wineries and whatnot. Without even breathing hard, we did about a 9:50 first mile. A little faster than I intended, but not out of the ballpark. The turnaround came up so fast it surprised me, and a glance at my watch showed less than 15 minutes!!

With a mile to go, I left my buddy behind, and switched gears. There's a long, gentle uphill in the last mile, and I wanted to have some gas in the tank and time in the bank before I hit it. And I did, in spades! I have never passed so many people in my life. Pick, pick, pick, everyone in front of me soon ended up behind. I was working, but I wasn't exhausted.

I turned the corner for the last tenth of a mile or so and could see the finish clock reading 28 something. Hell yeah. I could walk and still get a sub-30!

But I ran hard, and crossed the finish time at 29:24 by my watch. Even by the official time (I started way back in the pack), I was still well under 30 minutes.

I ran a 9:29 pace!! Much faster than I ever anticipated. And I felt awesome when I was done! I could have kept running that fast for another few miles at least.

What an awesome way to start the new year!

(For those of you keeping track at home, I had fabulous, textbook, negative splits! 9:52, 9:30, 9:14. Now THAT'S how you run a 5K!!!)