On the Track Again

Have I mentioned that everything will be changing soon? Buying a house, changing neighborhoods, our oldest in school? (Have I mentioned that all this is causing me great stress?) And with that all my own personal routines will have to be reinvented as well. Such as, oh, I don't know, WHEN I RUN?!?!?

Gah.

Today I was presented with a foretaste of all that. I needed to enroll Buddy in kindergarten, and the school has limited office hours during the summer. I couldn't take a half day for this due to my work schedule this week, but then that meant I couldn't figure out a way to go running. I meant to go to the gym yesterday and just couldn't get it in - but if I didn't do something today it would be three days of no activity, and that means a seriously unhappy mama.

So what to do? Why, turn to an old solution, one I relied on when Buddy was first born and I was bringing him downtown for daycare. Head out during my lunch hour and run on the track at the park a half mile from work.

What with this, that, and the other at work I didn't get out until mid-afternoon - not ideal for me any day, and not ideal today with the weather (hot and sunny). But I loved it. I'd forgotten how much I enjoy track workouts, and running on this track in particular, how the temperatures and winds and smells change as you go around, in the sun and then next to gardens and then nearer the lake. And how much better a speed workout is on the track than on the treadmill any day. I've had kind of a crummy week thinking about my future with running and with boxing and with any kind of athletics (and I'm having a weird foot pain thing going on so that doesn't help), but getting out on the track today just restored my spirits tremendously. (Made me hungry for more speedwork too.)

And made me very grateful for a renewed sense of possibilities. The changes that are happening in our family life are good ones, great ones, and I know this and am excited for them, but it is also, oh, very hard in the transition time (and in anticipating the transition time). So I will take any small hope I can.

Anything challenging your sense of equilibrium right now? My word of the week has been "unmoored".

Cast adrift and out to sea,
Annie

Finally!

Just finished my last major workout before the marathon: 5 mile repeats, all between 9:00-9:05. Awesome!

I planned to run 9 miles total but I was listening to Marc Maron's podcast on my way home from the track and kept stopping to laugh. Finally I just gave up and walked the rest of the way home.

Let the taper begin! I believe there is some chocolate in my future.

Yasso 800s (Or, Just How Fast Can I Run This Thing Anyway?)

I tried the Yasso 800s this morning for the first time, just to see if my marathon goal is sound. (I had been running mile repeats as my track workout all season, rather than 800s.) I only did eight of them today, rather than the recommended ten, since I'd been set to do 4 mile repeats today, and I still have a couple of weeks left to fit in another attempt if I want.

Okay, here comes a bit of number crunching of no interest except other runners (maybe).

• My goal for the marathon is 4:35 (hours), based on the McMillan calculator and my actual past workouts.
• My goal for the Yasso 800s this morning was 4:30 (minutes), based on my previous results with mile repeats.
• My actual performance was 4:20, and I felt I could certainly have done another 2 repeats at that speed.

So I smoked them, right? I should be reconsidering my goal time, yes? That was certainly my first thought.

Then I started doing some more online research, mostly in an attempt to find an easier way to explain these to a non-running audience. I didn't find that (so I refer you to the original article about them in Runner's World), but I found a lot of dissent about the use of Yasso 800s, either as a predictor, or as a training tool. You can Google this yourself if you're interested.

I had thought a 4:20 marathon was too good to be true for me at this point, so I wasn't truly discouraged by what I read. Mostly what I take from my reading is that the Yasso 800s can be a decent predictor of performance (and not so much a training tool), and only if the necessary support is there (in the form of long runs, tempo runs, etc.). And that it's best to add on 5-15 minutes to that prediction time anyway. Which brings me right back to a goal time of 4:35. Maybe, possibly, cross-my-fingers, 4:25 if everything lines up beautifully that day.

I guess I'm spending so much time thinking about this because over the summer I've been frequently disheartened by my long runs. For a while it seemed like I just. could. not. do them at the paces I thought I should be able to. Everything else was lining up according to past experience and pace calculators, why weren't the long runs? (Leaving aside the issue of a hellish Chicago summer, of course.)

I had basically resigned my self to "just" finishing, as if that weren't accomplishment enough for my first time out. Although it will help with how I go about the marathon that day if I have a good and realistic sense of what I am capable of.

But finally, things seem to be a bit more on pace, ha-ha. The weather has cooled which makes a world of difference, and I feel like I'm getting a better handle on my pre-long-run nutrition needs as well, thanks to The Dude (still struggling with what to take in during my runs, alas).

I'm getting excited... I'm getting hopeful... what I don't want is to get crazy.

To any runners reading this, what has been your experience in predicting race times?

We Interrupt Our Regularly Scheduled Reports...

To bring exciting news --- today I ran a mile in under 9:00!

8:58, to be exact, the second of two mile repeats in my track workout today.

I realize this is ridiculously slow to some people, but it's quite an achievement for me.

Makes me think a sub-8:00 mile might yet be possible...

Oops

I left my iPod at home today. I was halfway down the block with Buddy when I realized I didn't have it - I knew I'd been travelling light this morning but not that light - if I hadn't had him I would have turned around and gotten it. So today was my first track workout ever without my tunes.

I was a little nervous about it since track workouts always require some extra oomph and music is the easiest way to get that. But I figured this would be good practice for the race on Sunday (Share Your Soles 10K) and just good practice in general. Also, it was a fairly easy workout as far as track workouts go, 6x400m.

And you know what? I think it worked out for the best! Right from the start I focused closely on my breathing, my form, and how my legs felt. I was trying for as consistent a feel as I could get, checking my time halfway through each repeat to confirm my pace and then adjust as need be. I used my breathing to slow me down when I suspected I might be going too fast, and then changed my breathing pattern at the very end when I wanted that last extra oomph and didn't know where I was going to get it from. And my repeats were the most consistent they've ever been, all at 2:13 with maybe a second's variance in either direction once I got through the first one.

Of course, it's one thing to focus this intensely when I'm only doing 400m at a time. After next week, when I start my marathon training in earnest, my track workouts are all mile repeats and that's a long time to focus so closely, especially given how slow I run. I will really want my music then. But I might try turning off the iPod for some of those repeats... you know, just to see how it feels.

9:53

That is how fast I ran a mile during my speedwork session today.

The second mile (after warming up for a mile and running my first fast one at 10:20).

And while some of you speed-bunnies out there may be scoffing, saying that you couldn't run that slow if you tied lead weights to your feet, I have never before run a mile that fast. So I am pretty well pleased.

Could 9:30 be that far behind?

Trying Something New

I did a tempo run yesterday on the track, and it was awful and it was glorious. Awful because of the heat and humidity, glorious because I managed it despite the heat and humidity. This was the first tempo run I had done under my new program and I was nervous about my ability to do it, especially in this weather. But I got through, on pace, thanks to just enough of those beautiful moments when you feel that all is merging together perfectly to bring you, the run, and the world into blissful harmony. That, and the garden volunteer who kindly watered me when I asked him to.

For those of my non-running readers who don’t know what I’m talking about, a tempo run involves warming up at an easy pace for about 10-15 minutes, then an extended run at a middle race distance pace (that is, not as fast as you would do a 5K, but not as slow as you would a marathon), and then cooling down with an easy jog for another 10-15 minutes. The idea is that they teach your body (and mind) to run at a fast pace for a long period of time, thus getting you ready for actual racing conditions. This is something new I've been doing this year, and aside from being fun to do on its own, it has also really boosted my confidence about my abilities.

As I said, this was the first week of a new training program. I’ve been getting mine from the Runner's World Smart Coach program, and previously I had been working with one created from my 5K time of earlier this year. But as I started incorporating speedwork and tempo runs into my training, I realized I was improving much faster than I had expected, and that in fact I was finding it harder to go at the slower pace set by the program than to just go at a faster one. Was it possible that I had already improved so much as to need a new program? It seemed so - every time I changed my planned runs to go faster the transition was effortless, even at the longer distances. I was tired of the endless tinkering I was doing, and worried that I might end up "improving" my program to the point of overexertion, so after a few weeks of this I decided to recalibrate and create a new one, based on the actual speedwork I'd been doing.

Of course I worried that I was being too ambitious, but after a week it feels just right - hard enough to have to put more physical and mental effort into it, but temperate enough to feel like it's a challenge I can continue to meet, week after week. (I hate the word "moderate.") I really do need to be able to stay the course on my training - as the mother of an almost-toddler who relies on my runs to keep me happy and grounded (and pleasant to be around), I cannot afford to be injured or to burn out.

I would love to be able to do more - I read the blogs of other mother athletes and envy what they are doing. But I have a thirteen-year history of not managing to string more than two years of running together, despite my great love for it. I am determined this time to keep it going, which means, for this first year back at least, I need to keep my ambition in check. Or rather, to recognize that in order for me to realize my running ambitions, I need to maintain a steady, measured effort over the long haul, and not succumb to the allure of a fast dash out of the gate.

Because I have dreams, baby, I have dreams. And I have sat on them for thirteen years, and I am not content to sit any more.

Spring Is Here!

I've started running in the park near me at work, part of my new plan to get more runs in each week. I drop Buster off at daycare, drop my bags off at work, and then head over to the park. Thankfully, there is a field house there with a changing room and showers - I don't think I could really consider running in the summer there if there wasn't. Not and then head into a day of work.

It's a lovely park, just off the lake, with a quarter-mile track, picnic tables, tennis courts, softball diamonds, and playground. So lots of opportunity to watch people. The local neighborhood association maintains the garden that frames it to the east and west, with a nice assortment of annuals and flowering trees and shrubs. And of course the views are fantastic - looking to the east there is the lake, and to the west the Chicago skyline. And there you are, running your miles, with a great stretch of green in the center and beautiful greenery along the sides. In the middle of the city.

I love running in my neighborhood, but I always have to watch out for something - cracked and uneven sidewalks, cars coming out of alleys, a new intersection every minute or so. Here I could really pay attention to more attractive distractions. A red-winged blackbird streaking across the field. Sparrows bathing themselves in the dust. The differences in shade and light as I ran through and then out of the gardens. The slight breeze from the lake as I turned east.

And I loved not thinking about distance, just setting my watch for 30 minutes and then running as I felt like it until it went off. At home it's easier to run for distance, because I can plot out a course and know I'll be back home at the end of it. The times I've run for time in my neighborhood, I end up overshooting my home or not being anywhere near it at the end of the time, which isn't very relaxing to me. So in the park I had a nice easy run of half an hour, occasionally picking up my pace for a lap just for the heck of it, and remembering when that half hour would have been a slog.

I've been thinking about my running history recently (and will post more on that later). Usually when I think about it I see the gaps in my running, the months I didn't run, the races I wasn't able to train for. It's kind of startling to look back and see that I've been running for thirteen years now. And as much as I've been grousing to myself about how out of condition I am, I was able to go out and run a 5K three weeks after starting running again, after a break of almost two years. Without hurting the next day. That's pretty darn cool.

I am looking forward to making this a regular part of my week, and to having a place where I can really watch the seasons change.