running: the dawn

Today the Gazelle and I had our final run together before race day.  She had planned on running 2 and I wanted to get in 6, so I ran the two miles to her house, we did two together, and then I ran home.  With temps in the mid-70′s and the sun still shining brightly, it was a little too warm for my taste.  The miles there were uneventful.

Once at her house we sat and talked and talked about the race.  I told her all about the section of the course that I ran on Sunday, she told me all that she’s heard about the course from people who have run it in the past.  We obsessed over all the mundane details and it was so nice to have someone who cares as much (if not more) than I do!  This is her first marathon and she is so eager and excited.  Which is nice because when I’m answering her 1001 questions, it helps me to realize that I’m more ready for race day than I give myself credit for.

Our biggest topic of conversation was pace.  I told her about how I lay in bed and play out every possible scenario in my head…turns out she does too!  After much discussion we both decided that we want to keep an even (conservative) pace for the first 20 miles.  In order to finish the race with a BQ, my time can be upto (and including) 3:40:59.  That translates to be an 8:26 pace.  Our goal is to keep the pace between 8:20 and 8:26 for the first 20 miles.  If at mile 20 we’re feeling good then, and only then, will we let ourselves speed up.  We want to run smart.  We want to run strong.

We also talked fueling, possible bodily function mishaps, the weather, spectators’ locations and who knows what else.  (Turns out that I’m going to have quite the support crew, which thrills me to death!–more on that in a later post.)

I am so excited to be running this race with such a fierce competitor.  She pushes herself hard and that causes me to push harder than I would by myself.  It has been inspiring for me to watch her develop from a runner into a marathoner.  No matter what our and/or her finish time is, I am so proud and thankful that we started running together.

The theme for this weekend was: re-lax.

One of my favorite things about running the Grand Rapids Marathon, is that it’s a smaller event that has a lot of personal touches just for runners.  The race director has been sending out newsletters every so often, and as race day approaches they have started to come more frequently.  I got one this weekend that started like this:

RE-FREAKIN’-LAX

You’re ready.  You’ve prepared.  You’ve trained.  And now, it’s time for the fun.  Feel the energy from the people around you.  Find someone wearing a staff jacket and give them a hug.  It’s your day now.  Enjoy everything about it.

Saturday night at the beach

Mile 20...I'm coming for you!

Narrow bridge...crossing both ways...not sure how that's going to work

Still green...hoping for fall colors by Sunday!

I drove home, got dinner ready, and spent the evening enjoying football with Mr. Dawn.  Totally relaxed.

….welll….

Ok, so maybe when I got into bed I got a little un-relaxed while I was thinking obsessing about pacing and timing and wondering what the best strategy is: start slow and build?  stay even?  run by feel? keep an even effort?  bank time in the first half?

Only 6 days till all my questions find their answers out on the road…

This weekend was so amazing!  Everything that we did was the perfect way for me to zen out before my big race next weekend.  But I don’t want to miss capturing my training stats from last week, so before I forget:

This week
Sunday: 16 beautifully chilly perfect miles
Monday: rest
Tuesday: 7 miles & Jazzercise
Wednesday: 5 recovery miles
Thursday: 8 miles with 3×1600 intervals & Jazzercise
Friday: rest

Total Mileage: 36

My Thursday workout was originally scheduled for Tuesday, but I kept putting it off.  I don’t know what it is about mile repeats that gets into my head.  I freak out and talk myself into a frenzy about how I’m not ready or I don’t think I can get it done.  I know that it’s only 4 laps around the track, but it seems like forever.  So I told myself I would do it Wednesday.  Then Wednesday came and my legs were tired so that became the perfect reason to postpone it yet again.

Thursday morning I knew that I needed to do it early if I was going to get it done at all.  For some reason we’ve been having a mini heat-wave and I knew that if I didn’t run in the morning the temperature would be another excuse for me to not run.  So in the early morning, I headed out to face my fears.  My goal is to run the miles at close to 7:18 as possible.  But when it comes to track work I don’t look at the time.  I know, I have a Garmin, which makes it incredibly easy to know exactly how long it takes me to do each interval.  But I’m weird about it.  I like just having the distance and lap number on the display.  I run by feel.  Then when the workout is over I like to be pleasantly or unpleasantly surprised by what I did.  So, anyway, I got to the track did my laps and then ran a long cool down on the way home to get all 8 miles in.  When I got home I looked at the numbers:

Mile 1– 7:28 oops!  That’s way off my goal time!
Mile 2– 7:18 perfect!
Mile 3–7:07, I’ll take it!

Which if I take the average is right where I want it to be   Perfection.  Why do I worry?  I don’t know.  It’s who I am…

Lately I’ve been noticing that I have not been a good spouse lately.  Here are some of my observations:

• I create three times as much dirty laundry as my husband
• I can be satisfied eating apples and peanut butter indefinitely if it means I can run instead of going to the store
• I no longer pick up around the house
• My husband has made 3 (at least) bushels of apples into applesauce with no help from me
• I haven’t vacuumed my house in three months (don’t worry, its gotten done…just not by me)
• My running gear is left all over the house, then that it takes me 20 minutes to gather it to go on a run
• I come home from a run at 5pm and leave at 5:30 to go to Jazzercise….
• When I do “stop by the house” I usually run into my husband returning from the grocery store to replenish our bare cabinets
• It takes me multiple days to do the laundry because I throw in a load, then go for a run and forget about it till the next day

I have promised that my absenteeism will stop in 12 days.  After the marathon.  But Mr. Dawn knows me better than that replying, “Yeah, until you sign up for the next one.”

Seriously though, I really do need to get back to a place where my life was balanced and I was able to be more present for my house, my husband, and my students.  All who I’m pretty sure I’m letting down lately.

I’m sure that this is not new news, but I just found out recently that Ryan Hall is not going to be running in the Chicago Marathon this year.  I’m super bummed out about it.  After last year’s Boston where he ran an amazing race and broke the American record for that course he said that he was going to train and try to break the American record for the marathon at Chicago.  It’s what has been making me want to be there, to see him run into the history books.

If you want to read more about why he’s decided to drop out here is a link to the press release issued by the Chicago Marathon.

It is good for me to read about an elite runner who is choosing health over victory.  I can’t imagine the kind of stress and strain that they put on their bodies year after year.  Its a good reminder to me to stay in tune with my energy levels and make sure that I’m not pushing myself too hard or too fast.

I know the race is still going to be amazing and exciting, but I can’t help but be a little bummed that my favorite isn’t going to be out there come Sunday.  I’ll still tune in and see what happens, but its like watching the Super Bowl more for the party than really caring who wins…

My training plan called for one last long run before I start cutting back on mileage.  Sunday was the day.  The Gazelle, who has been my faithful long run partner over the past month, needed to get her miles in early and I was still camping and entertaining company so sadly we did not get a chance to run this last long one together.  So of course, I started freaking out.  Not a lot.  Its just that whenever I get used to doing things one way I get worried that I will not be capable of running if anything needs to change.  I was worried about running alone, worried about going too slow, worried that something will go wrong.  All of this worrying took a lot of time and then all of a sudden it was 4 o’clock in the afternoon and I had 2+ hours of running to get done.

Every time I go running by myself, I invite Mr. Dawn to ride along on his bike.  Usually he is pretty busy and this time was no exception.  He is knee-deep in midterms and needed to do some serious studying.  So I worried some more.  Then, out of no where, he was all kinds of energetic.  He prodded me out of my worrisome funk and got me out the door with these words, “If we go now, I can ride along with you for awhile.”  Are you serious?!?!?   Ummm, ok.  Done!

We were on our way as soon as we could get dressed and out the door.  Before I started running I gave myself permission to go slow.  It’s the beginning of the taper, and I’m sure that the old legs could used some nice easy miles.  So, we’re going to keep it under control and just coast.  OK?  I even mentioned that the the Mr. and he was game for whatever.

He stayed with me for the first 4 miles (which are always the worst for me) and then he headed back to the house to get some more studying done.  It was so great to be 4 miles into my run and starting to feel the groove.  Once he left, I put in my ipod and listened to NPR podcasts and the miles started to click by.  It was almost effortless, except for some of the huge hills that always kick my butt.

Without really meaning to, my pace kept going down.  I would reign it in when I was thinking about it, but most of the time I just cruised.  It was really cool, sub-50 at least.  It gave me a good reason to wear my arm warmers and gloves to make sure that I want to sport them on race day.  Even with the chilly air the sun was bright and the sky was as blue as I’ve ever seen.  It was a glorious peaceful day for a run.

I ended up running my second-fastest long run pace: 8:31 per mile!  It felt amazing to face all those fears that I had been festering in all morning and realize that there is no reason to panic when one little variable changes.  I am trained and ready!

I walked in the house and it smelled AMAZING!!!  In addition to studying Mr. Dawn decided to make dinner for us   Not just any dinner, my favorite: Thai Soup!  It was so delicious and the perfect recovery meal with brown rice and stir fry.  Yummmmy!

And now, I have a few short(ish) runs before the race.  I am not “nervous” per se.  I’m excited.  And I have severe tunnel vision.  All I can think about is the race and running and paces and hydration and the course….I’m just hoping to make it through all the non-running things I’m supposed to do between now and the race with grace and dignity.  Like, I’m giving a calculus test tomorrow…I need to be able to focus.

We had a fabulous time backpacking/camping with our good friends K- and C-Dub.  K-Dub is an amazing photographer.  Any of the following pictures that are of high quality and good resolution, he captured.  The rest are just me…with my non-auto focus camera.  Enjoy!

beautiful fall colors

leaves

the trail

filtering water

me, Mr. Dawn, K- and C-Dub

our matching Keens

the Taj

game faces

he's so crazy

"I want this to be my funeral picture" ~Mr. Dawn

camping makes us happy!

the trail home

lunch!

mmmm...camping food

Whew.  Two weeks.  I must admit, I’m getting super excited to be on the other side of this particular race.  I feel like it has been consuming my life to an uncomfortable point and I’m just ready to move on.  Now, this does not mean that I lack enthusiasm for the race itself…in fact I cannot wait to run!  I don’t know how I’ll do in my quest towards a BQ, but I’m ready to test myself and see how I perform.

This week:
Sunday: 22 miles of pure bliss
Monday: 3 recovery miles
Tuesday: 6 miles
Wednesday: 11 miles, and my last mid-week double digit run
Thursday: 5 miles with 5×600 intervals
Friday: 3 recovery miles

Total Mileage: 50

Well, I have made it through the bulk of my training.  I have two weeks of taper left.  This week my legs felt heavier than they have in months.  I can tell that I’ve been pushing it with my mileage and my paces.  Hopefully that will translate into huge leaps in my performance come race day.

I’m going to fully enjoy this weekend (we’re backpacking with some dear friends) and eek out every restful moment over the next two weeks.  Try to store up my energy, positive attitude, and potential over the taper so that it can uncoil like a cobra come race day.

So, that’s me using positive self-talk to survive the crazies that come with lower mileage.  We’ll see how I do