Patience; the new endurance sport.

The danger is that novice racers often try to achieve too much.  Unless they exercise caution, impetuous and overzealous racers will find themselves falling prey to the most common, and least understood of all running ailments--overtraining.  An important observation made by Heiss (1971), described an increased susceptibility to infection as an important component of the overtraining syndrome.  In some runners, the first signs of overtraining are generalized fatigue, recurrent headaches, weight loss, sleep problems.  All fail to understand why, despite such hard training, their racing performances continue to deteriorate.  Probably the earliest scientific reference to overtraining was made by McKenzie (1923) who noted fatigue of the whole muscular system requires a day or two of rest, chronic fatigue (slow poisoning of the nervous system) also called 'staleness' could require a week or even months.  The urgency to train even harder is only exacerbated by the time lost as a result of illness and fatigue.  But because these assumptions are wholly incorrect, the athlete's bout of intensive training only compounds an already grave situation. The truth is that once athletes are even mildly over trained, they are already past peak condition.  The only way to save the situation is to stop training until the body is rested and the desire to run and complete return.  Excerpt from the Fourth Edition of the Lore of Running, by Tim Noakes, MD.      In other words, I rode my spin bike 16 miles at 19 MPH instead of running today and counted it as 4 miles.

9:23 av  8:38/9:26/10:37/7:11/8:55/12:16/8:30/10:09

So I started the run on flat Timpview Drive, ran a good mile on flat surface, then there was the gradual up hill toward the Provo Temple.  I ran up the South Temple side and continued running up Rock Canyon and ran up a perfect mile (10:37).  I wanted to run the same split downhill just to see how different the time would be and so I turned it on (7:11).  I have never run a mile in under 7:37.  It was however about a 20% grade up and also down, but still 7:11!!  Running slow uphill, fast downhill, and then maintaining a steady pace on the flat surfaces seems to be a good technique for me--or at least the using the downhill to get some good splits.  So as I was running along, I started to think of good name for this technique, which of course I learned from Smooth. So I wanted to call it the "Smooth Move" but then rememberd there is an herbal laxative by the same name. So then I decided to call if the "full Suzanna".  So now anytime I hit a downhill and speed up the turnover, I'm going to call it the full Suzanna.  I then went up Quail Valley +.3 to make it a full mile up hill--whew.  I hope my legs don't get as ruined as they did last week.  Although this was 2 less miles, and half as many hill repeats.  Felt pretty good, weather was awesome.  I'm getting really good at bathing in the tiny handsink at work.

I love my Boston Marathon Race Number 18801.  I love 8's and 1's. I'm booking my flight now and I'm trying to get psyched--hoping it doesn't rain, that I will make it in one piece (I hate to fly), that I'm prepared to run it well and have fun there with my daughter.  I was sore again today from the hill repeats, and ran w/Marsha in that  horrible depressing a.m. darkness.  I hate daylight savings, I don't know why we have to do it.  It has messed up my sleep, my running, my children are exhausted and I can not see one single benefit to it.  Also, I told Marsh I was going to bail for the next 3 weeks so I can do my weekday runs either later in the morning, or at lunchtime during work.  I literally can not hack getting up this early when I'm trying to run hard.  Sleeping is just as important as running right now.  My friends from CA emailed yesterday to remind me about the St. George Marathon registration April 1st and also my UVM registration.  So I got my act together and registered for the Utah Valley Marathon June 12th and put it on my agenda to 'ding' me first thing on April 1st.  We'll see if I can hack 3 marathons.  I may have to bail on Park City because I'll probably be back east again.  I'm so excited to see my sister and for Moab! I pick her up from the airport in about 6 hours.  I am so looking forward to red rock country, hiking in arches & walking down main street in the balmy spring air partying with all the Halfers. 

9:14/8:59/8:49/8:45/9:44  Quick run back and forth and back and forth on the 1.1 mile of open trail behind the house (trail is closed because of the bridge construction).  I had to get it done before getting in the car and heading to Moab.  I felt stiff in the butt/piriformis/hips. I hope it was from my great hill work out on Tuesday, and not because I'm breaking my hip.  Tommorrow we'll be hiking Arches all day.  These girls that come from DC with my sister always hike the day before the race, it will be their 9th year to do Moab.  I think I've been doing it since 2005 (trying to think of the shirt they gave me).

3 warm up/ 3 cool down

13.1/ 8:40 ap, 3281 total runners, 1941 women runners (I ranked 376th of women runners, 50th of the 221 in my Age Division). 

I went up fairly early and ran a 3 mile warm up behind the start.  The day was gorgeous, clear, and windless.  Friday had been miserable hiking through arches (it felt like 20 degrees, snow piled on top of red sand, and it blew sand and snow into our hair and faces up at delicate arch).  But as soon as I warmed up (30 degrees, but no wind) I felt great. The worry over my stiff hips and lower back disappeared. I waited about 6 minutes till the road was cleared to cross the starting matt.  Wanted to take advantage of running easy downhill 8:34/8:24.  Mile 2 I stopped to drink, take off my thermal shirt, fix my hair/ear band that was acting crazy. 9:04/8:29/8:23 fairly downhill, when there were spots of sun on the road peeking through the canyon walls people would erupt into cheering--it was still pretty cold. 8:10/8:43/8:21  these were gentle the uphill miles, and as you can see the splits were really consistent.  I felt strong going up those hills and kept thinking of my daughter who during a tough treadmill run a couple weeks ago sat on the spin bike next to the treadmill and 'rode alongside the treadmill' saying really encouraging things.  I repeated the things she said in my mind "Go Mama!  You're doing good getting ready for Boston!".  She's really excited to go with me.  I thought of being 'a diamond & titanium girl.  I thought about the huge plate of rigatoni I'd eaten the night before--the thoughts of the rigatoni were especially encouraging.  I allowed myself to slow down between miles 9-10 (9:23) where that last  big hill  about kills you coming out of the canyon--right before the drum ladies who beat those huge skin drums--that always gives me the chills.  Then coming out of the canyon onto the road, I kept saying Smooth's "smooth-strong-fast" and "smooth to the finish".  I hate running on that road and it was especially heinous today with all the construction.  8:45/8:41/8:43  I surprised myself on the finish--I could have maybe even gone faster but I just wanted to maintain a strong & steady finish.  At least 3 people had warned me not to overdo the race today.  I thought an 8:40 average (only about 10 seconds behind my best half race pace) was reasonable effort.  After I finished (1:53), I ran back 1.5 miles to find my sister and ran her into the finish.  The sunlight, the red rock, the Colorado River, the company, the air quality, the clear sky--it was a Spring Equinox extraordinaire. We talked with Walter (who came in 7th overall) and Misty for a bit, chatted about Boston, who was going, what everyone was going to do.  It was a really nice day.  I feel I can do my best training in the next two weeks, and feel much more confident about my steps toward a strong finish at Boston.  Got home around 5:30-- going to do my pushups and sit ups-- I have not done them since Wednesday.  19 miles total, 7 or more miles at Race Pace.  It was a good day.