Auntie Em Goes Running

A cool and overcast morning here.  Also quite humid once I got into the woods.  My right heel felt tender near the back, as if a blister was forming.  I felt sluggish, but talked myself into the run.  Was supposed to do 3 easy miles, which seems attainable on the worst of days.

I kept the miles slow and easy, and spent 100% of my mental energy focusing on relaxing my left shoulder.  This is easier than yesterday, as the pain and stiffness from Thursday's chiropractic treatment are gone.   

Also practiced positive thoughts about running and life in general.  I'm finally getting that my thoughts really do create my future.  If I can apply this successfully to running, I will be able to apply it to the rest of my life.  

Group running coach promised that this week we would start "special strength building".  I'm totally curious about what this could mean, since I thought that is what we had been doing already!  Whatever it is, I'm looking forward to it, but I will miss the workouts we've been doing. 

Yeah!  After several tries, I got my picture up!  Its not the one I wanted, I wanted the RUNNING one, but there it is.  

 Don't get to run until this evening, when we'll have a new exciting track workout.  I can't wait; I love new workouts.

Update:  Track workout was pretty good.  Basically it consisted of some warm up running, then a bunch of exercises intended to fatigue the muscles in our legs, followed by 4 more miles of running, on tired legs!  I did feel tired when it was over, but I think partly because it was 8 at night and I hadn't eaten yet!  I'm glad at least that we got 6 miles of running; I just feel that I'm not running enough.  Maybe the pre race jitters are starting already for Seattle's R&R.   

I have a lot of stiffness and tightness in my neck this morning; it makes it hard to relax my arms as I run.  The schedule called for 4 easy miles, which felt just about right after last night's workout.  For once, I really felt like just jogging along.  Usually I start out fast and only relax into my easy pace after a mile or so.  This morning, I was able to go slow right from the beginning.  And I used the auto lap feature on Garmin to get mile splits!  Here they are:     9:15, 9:00, 9:22, 9:15.  Pretty perfect for easy miles.

The weather has gone a bit cooler, with no sun, sort of a typical NW summer day that has me wishing I lived somewhere else.  

 I have a rolfing session scheduled later today, and I'm really hoping for some help with my sore neck and also some work on my shoulders.  After that, I have my Tuesday group bike ride!  I've missed the last few weeks, so I'm really ready to get back to riding.  We usually have enough people for two speed groups, sometimes three.  I'll ride 25 miles, either with the 17 pace group or the 20, depending on how energetic I feel.

Argh!  Short run, lots to talk about.  First, I am going absolutely bonkers! with this reduced mileage.  I am trying so hard to trust this training, but it drives me crazy.  I cheated a bit this morning and threw in some faster miles.  I will cheat again this evening if I feel like it and do a three mile loop around the pond.  I will also ride my bike to work this morning and see if that takes the edge off.  Kinda Grumpy ):  Its making me feel better to write in all these colors though.

On the positive side (and there ALWAYS is one), the rolfing session yesterday was great!  I feel like my whole rib cage has expanded, and the left arm was literally hanging loosely at my side while I ran.  I don't even think I remember the last time that shoulder completely relaxed.  There is now some tightness in the RIGHT shoulder. LOL.  I think I need more rolfing to continue this stuff, but have to wait until after the Seattle R&R on 6/27.  Then I'll schedule some sessions.   

It rained here this morning!  It felt so weird to run in the rain, it has been so long!  All the green stuff and flowers just looked brilliant; I was so distracted by looking at some peonies that I ran by I missed my trail and didn't even realize it until I had gone about 1/4 mile of course.  This happens to me more and more often.  Who knows where I could end up?  I really should wear one of those wrist IDs.  I have one somewhere, if only I could remember.... 

 Rode to work and back, just under 9 miles total.  The rain has stopped and its humid.

BONUS MILES!  - Yeah, I did get a second run today.  Pretty fast too, although the effort felt easy.  First two miles were around 8:10, last one 8:50.   

A tough workout this morning.  Regular 2 miles warm up on track at about 9 minute miles. Then usual runner's warmup, followed by 200m strides.  My times on my strides were 43 and 44 seconds.  Then we did the series of 10 exercises designed to fatigue the legs.   They tired me out more this time because:  1)  I was doing them properly, and 2) my legs were still tired from Monday's workout, and 3) I did a bonus run last night at a fast pace.  

Following the exercises we run three miles, supposedly easy, but involves some big hills.   This is hard on tired legs.  I guess it makes us strong.  As we run we talk about many things, like "why do many runners have so many shoes?", and stuff like that.  So the time goes fast, and not unpleasantly, but I'm tired at the end.  Its only 5.5 miles of running!

Came home craving food with FAT in it!  Sometimes just can't get enough fat.  So egg and cheese and veggie breakfast, then a short catnap. 

My real "taper" begins tomorrow.  I'm certain I've not done this right before (if at all), because I get very antsy, but this time I'm detemined.  I will run about 25 easy miles from Friday to Friday, and develop an actual plan for my race next Saturday.  I am going to get out my big black sharpie on race morning and write "Slow Down" on my arm.  That's the beginning of my plan.  More on that later.

Its supposed to be my day off, and I really feel like I need it.  I did a yoga session already, and will do another this afternoon, plus ab/core strengthening, and maybe a walk.  Going to the chiropractor - what is wrong with my neck?

I've been doing the math on 13.1 miles, to make my goal of 1:50.  I think it goes something like this:

Miles 1-2:  GO SLOW.  Keep it at 9:00. 18 minutes.

Miles 3-10:  Gradually picking it up to achieve an average of 8:20/mile.  My calculated marathon pace is 8:30; my 10K pace is around 8-8:10.   Also, by mile 5, I'll be ready for an inhaler puff, if needed.  Probably will go ahead and do it even if I don't feel its needed (ie, wheezing), just to keep ahead of things.  I'm a bit concerned about the weird reaction I've had to the stuff in the past, so maybe just one puff.  66 minutes, 40 sec.

Miles 11-13:   OK, I'm at 84 minutes, 40 secs.  Three more miles at 9 minutes puts me at 111 minutes, 40 secs.  Finish time 51:40.  Not good enough.  So, where do I pick up the 1:40?  Will I be feeling good enough at the end to maintain 8:30?  That would do it.  Or should I try to get some even faster miles in the middle?  

So, the end is really where my plan falls apart.  I blame this on coaching, since he kept saying I didn't need to do the longer runs, just work on speed over distances of UP TO 12 miles.  Aha, that's it.  Garmin Connect shows my 12 mile training run at 1:46, an average of 8:51.  This run incorporated only 6 miles at marathon pace.  Could I have pushed harder.  Yep!  So, to achieve 1:50, my average miles needs to be just under 8:30.  I guess I'd better push for SLIGHTLY faster miles in the middle AND somewhat faster at the end.  Maybe ending miles being either 8:45s or 8:00s, depending on how I feel.

Comments?  This is making me anxious. 

EDITED:  On the off chance that my coach reads this blog, (UNLIKELY) I don't really blame coaching, just feeling anxious. 

Easy miles today.  I worked at a local race in the morning; I was one of the water stations on a turn around loop for miles 9 and 11.  It was a small race, fast course, great running weather.  This was a fund raiser for our high school XC team, so I drove a bunch of XCers to the race and set them up at water stations for their shifts.  I thought about running the 10K at the race, just to get my miles, but it sort of seemed like they needed me to help, so that was OK.

I chose a trail at the end of our lake, a 6 mile drive from my house.  This particular trail got severely damaged in last winter's mud slides and floods, with many large trees down and huge slide areas.  It was good to see it in such nice shape again.  Nice out and back, averaged 8.43.  A little fast for easy miles, but felt nice.  

Feeling pretty good about next Saturdays race.  I'm trying to focus my thoughts on finishing strong, since that is really what I think all this work is going to do for me.  Today I'm inclined to throw yesterday's elaborate plans out the window and just aim for a 8:30 mile pace.  I think this works out fine.