running: the dawn

I’ll admit it.  I was a little nervous leading up to today.  I had a LOT on my agenda and I honestly didn’t know how I was going to fit it all in.  Here’s my to-do list for today:

• Jazzercise
• Grading
• Lunch with friends from California
• 12 mile run
• Wedding
• Packing for the mountains

Hmmmmm…..

Jazzercise was amazing.  I just love that I can go to classes where ever I go.  I can just hop online and type in the address and find the schedule for the closest center.  I LOVE LOVE LOVE Jazzercise people.  They are just as open and friendly as the running community and I always feel at home when I step into Jazzer-land!

Got one of my class’s grading done.  Still have one to go….can’t check that off completely.

Lunch was great.  We went to an Indian buffet and it was delicious!  I may have eaten too much (more on that later)…We got carried away telling and listening to stories.  My good friend is in medical school and she has the BEST stories of all her professors.  Seriously, she could write an entire book, or movie, or something….I know I could listen to (0r read) her stories forever.

By the time I was hitting the trail for my run, I did the math and there was NO way I’d be able to get all 12 miles done.  I decided to set out and get at least 10 in.  The first three miles were great.  I felt all the pent up energy pouring out through my feet and onto the pavement.  I knew at the time I was running too fast, but it just felt so good!  It felt so good, until it started to feel bad.  In my tummy.  In fact, I’m pretty sure that it was my entire abdominal cavity started to seize up.  My dad was with me on his bike and he was out in front of me when I got the full body side-stitch, so I decided that I would work it out until I caught up to him so I could tell him that I wanted to walk for a bit.  But of course, as soon as I got to him it had settled down and I could keep going.  I did decide that I should slow down and that helped everything stay calm for the rest of the run.  I ended up with 10 miles, and I’ll just be ok with that.

The wedding was glorious.  Congrats to Guy and Becca!

I have one more load of laundry (hate packing dirty running clothes) and then I’ll be done with my packing for the next leg of our vacation.

The bad news?  I’m pretty sure I’m teetering on the edge of a significant illness.  Ever since our 10 hour drive that lasted until 3:30 am where I may or may not have indulged my obsession with chewy sprees (my favorite travel food), I have had a sore throat.  After my run, when I got into the car I started to feel aches all over my body.  Uh oh!  I really did feel great the entire run, and it wasn’t until I stopped that I started to feel awful.  I was able to survive the wedding and haven’t touched a bit of sugar all day.  Hoping that a good night’s sleep is all I need to feel back on top!  We’ll see…

Yesterday morning I went to the informational meeting for the running club starting in January.  It was really fun and interesting to walk into a room of people that love running as much as I do.  We were all strangers and yet I felt like they had the potential to be come my dearest friends.

Nothing terribly exciting happened during the meeting.  We talked a bit about our goals as a club, winter running tips, training schedule examples, and discussed the varying levels of skill and/or experience.  I did discover that there is one really fast guy (31:00 10k pr!) who has run Boston 5 times.  I wanted to introduce myself after the meeting but he was caught up in conversation with some others.  I thought about waiting, but figured that I’d have plenty of time to pick his brain when we’re running come January (if he’s willing to slow down some…) So I put my name on the email list and headed home.  It was already snowing….and I still had 15 miles to run….

I made a good breakfast: tofu scramble with zucchini and squash.  Then lazily got ready to run while watching football (its an obsession, really).  I tore myself away sometime in the third quarter because if I didn’t get started it was going to be dark before I finished my run.

It had been snowing off and on all day but by the time I started running it was in a lull between the snow.  The first two miles I was kicking myself for over dressing.  I had worn two long sleeve tech shirts, a fleece jacket, fleece lined pants (hoping to get a pair of actual running tights for Christmas), wool socks, two pairs of gloves, ear warmers, and a wool neck-gaiter.  I was pretty warm while running through the neighborhood.  Then, I turned and headed out of town and over the highway and into the wind.  Wowza.  Took my breath away.  Windy.  Cold.  Brutal.

Mile 4, still feeling decent...but it started to snow again

Just when I thought I was through the worst of it after mile 4, I turned and headed north.  For the next 5+ miles I was running into a combination of cross- and head-winds.  The snow was coming down pretty thick at this time and I was glad I had worn my bright red fleece for visibility purposes, but that thing did nothing to block the wind.  In the summer, I love running around the back roads.  There are so many vineyards and farms, its beautiful!  Yesterday, the vineyards were not my friends.  The wind would just howl across the fields unencumbered by any tree or house to slow it down.

After I ran by a particularly evil vineyard, I stopped at the edge of the trees and took a picture to remember the beast that conquered me.

There were several times where I literally had to put my arm up to my ear and hunch over just to keep from getting knocked down by the fierce wind.  It was pure craziness.

A view from the top, looking back on the hill I just ran, mile 7.

The wind and I battled until I got to turn my back on it around mile 9 or so.  Then I faced two monster hills, that I’m pretty sure I should get credit for running up twice with all the slipping and sliding I did.  Love me those hills!  This was my first long run that I’m running in reverse from last training cycle so that I’ll have to run UP the hills I used to always try to run DOWN.  They are tough, but I know its good for me.

I wish you could see how ridiculous the snow was. It started snowing so hard and the flakes were so huge I started laughing and tried to capture it in a picture...

GG (my garmin) lost battery power around mile 14.  Up until then I’d been keeping a fairly steady pace somewhere between 8:35 and 8:50.  Not nearly as fast as my last 15 miler…but I’ll take it!

I am so excited that its snowing!

I’m even more excited that its December.  This is my favorite month of the entire year.  Interestingly it has nothing to do with the holidays.  I met my Mr. Dawn on December 24, 2005.  We got married on December 30, 2007.  I love snow and usually get to enjoy it more during December while on winter break.  I love snowboarding which always happens in December.  I love going home and spending time with family.  I love that all my friends from high school still all come home for the holidays and I get to see their precious families.  December is the BEST!

It started snowing sometime last night and there was a light dusting everywhere on my way to work this morning.  It got more and more serious and by noon everything was covered by a blanket of white.  I’m pretty sure that I am wired wrong because this kind of weather beckons to me like 70 degrees and blue skies calls to most normal people.  I couldn’t wait to get home, change into my running gear and get out on the roads.  I emailed my winter running buddy KT just to see if she might be game for a mid afternoon run and she was!  We ran to the track, since I had some light speedwork on the agenda…but it was covered in snow and we couldn’t even find where the track was, so we decided to make it a nice easy 5 miles.  We looped around some of our favorite routes from last winter and agreed that we both LOVE running in the winter.  There’s something blissfully challenging and exhilaratingly peaceful about it.

More hard evidence that I’ve got my wires crossed?  Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday, the highs were in the mid 40′s.  I ran on my treadmill.  Today?  High of 25, 3+ inches of snow still falling, and I have to run outside.  I’m pretty sure that I need to get that checked out…

Yesterday was not enough time to recover from Thanksgiving!  Today I have been dragging…  We spent the holiday in a different time zone, which really messes with my internal clock.  I’m amazed how much my body rejects my normal routine even when I’ve been off it for just a few days.  I can’t sleep in and stay up late on the weekends because then I’m dragging all week long.  So I tried to get myself up at 8am yesterday (to try to ease back into reality) but it was not pretty.

Sunday, I had a super long to-do list: unpack, laundry, run 12, Christmas shopping, grocery shopping.  But the most important thing was watching football.  Everything else gets moved around based on when my beloved Kansas City Chiefs are playing.  With that in mind and my crazy long list of food I needed to buy I decided to tackle the shopping first.  Ugh.  Our fridge was completely empty so it took forever to get everything we need.  Then ran around to four different places trying to find the perfect Christmas gifts.  The trip took WAY longer than I thought it would and didn’t get back in time to finish my run before football.

Solution: treadmill!  Mr. Dawn had his Bears on the TV and I had my Chiefs on my computer.  Between the two games I always had something to entertain me.  I didn’t realize how distracting watching football can be.  The run just flew by!  Touchdowns and interceptions.  It was so fun!  I wasn’t very fast.  For some reason I always run slower on the treadmill than I do outside…sigh…oh well.

We now find ourselves in those strange weeks “in between” Thanksgiving and Christmas.  While Mr. Dawn and I were driving home on Saturday we were bemoaning all the nutrition-less food we’d eaten in just a few short days.  Our bodies were craving good nutrient dense food.  So we have stocked up on veggies (thanks to my epically long grocery trip) and have committed to eating at least one vegetable per every meal for the next two weeks.  48 hours in and I’m feeling great!  Kale and cucumbers for breakfast–delish!  Bell peppers and celery at lunch–yum!  Tonight we had some stir fry cauliflower and a lime-cilantro coleslaw w/tomatoes and jalapeno.  Now I just need to get my sleep system back on track.

Yay for surviving the holiday season with one’s health in tact!

This morning I had a rude awakening.  I didn’t realize how used to the warm fall weather that we’ve been having these past few weeks.  Apparently I’ve been spoiled.  I headed out for my five miles with just one layer on.  True, I had long pants and a long sleeve shirt, but this did little to protect me from the brutal wind.

When I turned the first corner into a vicious head wind I remembered what running in the winter is like.  Numbness of the skin.  Watery eyes.  Trying to catch my breath as the wind whisks it away.   Frozen eyelashes.  Talk about a good time!

Next time, I’ll be prepared!

So, yeah.  Tomorrow is my 5k.  The one that I am supposed to guess my finishing time.  I have NO IDEA what to expect.  Here’s the information I have to go on:

• Current 5k PR: 24:51.  This is from 2007.  I did not train for it at all, I just went and ran with a friend from work.  I have never done 5k specific training.
• According to McMillan I should be capable of finishing in 22:36, based on my recent marathon.  However, since then I have not done any speed work or any runs over 10 miles.
• I am well aware that I am not speedy.  Some people are fast and have to work on building endurance.  For me, endurance comes more naturally…its the speed that really taxes my abilities.  Pretty much nothing scares me more than 5k’s.

I asked my students what I should use for a prediction.  My student who is currently training for her first marathon (Have I mentioned her?  She said that I inspired her!  Makes me so proud.) said that I should try to finish in under 22 minutes.  Whew.  That seems unlikely.  Maybe I can hope for sub-23?

Suggestions are welcome!

Today has been weird.  Now that its nearing its end I am feeling weighed down by the stress of the day.  It’s not the good kind of stress either.  The kind where there are so many fun and fabulous things going on that you run from one activity to the next without so much as a breath.  No.  Its the kind of big-girl stress that makes me wish that I was not a grown up.

Sigh.  Such is life.

You know what though?  The moment I got home I threw on my running digs and cranked up my favorite “yelling” song to go out and punish the pavement.  I had two pesky miles to finish out this week’s mileage.  I decided to beat the stress out of my body during the run.  I pulled my shirt sleeve down over g.g. (garmin) and just found my zone.  Two miles in fifteen min (7:30 pace).  Not bad.  In fact, that’s downright fast for this girl!

That’s what I love about running.  Its a place I can go to when circumstances make me feel out of control.  I am allowed to be angry, strong, and aggressive if I want to be.  I can pass through the waters of fear and doubt and come out refreshed and renewed.  I can reclaim my power.  I can beat out all my anxiety and frustration.

In case you missed it on Friday, I shared a link to a video about how to objectively analyze your marathon.  The idea is to lay out the mile splits from 6 through 20 (I did all 26 for kicks and giggles), include any elevation change, course, and anecdotal information that you can remember.  Then you can see how all the elements affected your pace.  I wish that I would have done this analysis closer to my last race which was 4 weeks ago now (tomorrow’s my one-month BQ anniversary, but who’s counting?).  I feel like there might be pieces of data that I’ve already forgotten about.  So, even though it’s not ideal here is what I have come up with:

notes of clarification: I ran with a 10 oz. water bottle with a 50/50 mix of water and Gatorade that I exchanged with my friend Andi at different spots along the way.  So, I always had access to fluids.  The elevation is tricky for me to put into numbers, so I just looked at the highest and lowest points for each mile and did my best to estimate the feet gained or lost.

Honestly, I’m not sure what to do with this information now…

One way to look at it is the number of miles over/under my goal.  I wanted to run conservatively and hit even splits ranging between 8:20 and 8:25.  10 of my miles were over this goal and 4 were under.  Pink=over, Blue=under.

I’m seriously trying to figure out what this can tell me about what I should be doing differently.  I would love to figure out why I felt so HORRIBLE from mile 20 to 25.  The good news was that I was still able to churn out 3 goal pace miles during my emotional meltdown (don’t know what I’m talking about…check it out here).

So…what do we think?  If you were my coach what would you tell me to do differently?  How can I learn to run strong from the first step until the last?  I can’t wait to hear what you have to say!!

Anyone else planning on doing the analysis?  I’d love to link to anyone else that’s interested in sharing what you’ve been learning about your race.  Let me know if you do a post with a race analysis!

Blog Update:

If you are reading this in Google Reader, you might be missing the newest addition to my blog.  I was always under the impression that since I use WordPress, I couldn’t integrate Google Friend Connect.  After some exploration I happily discovered that I was mistaken!  So, now, you can “Follow” by clicking on the button to the right.  Super fun.

I’m hoping that for Christmas this year Santa will bring me a new redesigned blog.  I have some ideas about what I want to do visually with this space.  Now I just need to find an artist that would love a little side project.  Any suggestions?

Running Update:

After having mapped out a plan to stay injury-free during the upcoming training cycle, including running at slower paces and slowly rebuilding my mileage…I’m suffering from new pain.  I went on a nice, slow, four mile run yesterday and by the end I couldn’t believe how tight the back of my left knee was.  Like tension you could cut with a butter knife.  Tension I wanted to cut with a butter knife.  I felt like I had to keep my knee slightly bent at all times.  I iced it as soon as I got home.  Then I did the Insanity “Recovery” dvd which is a lot of stretching and some strength work.  That helped a lot, but eeesh.

The weird thing was that it’s not a joint pain.  It’s not the IT band.  It’s unlike anything I’ve felt before.  I’m hoping that its just a muscle cramp from all the Insanity that I’ve been doing.  All that jumping around really does lead to tight hamstrings and calves.

Other News:

Our church is starting a running club!  I’m very excited about it.  I have a hard time finding running/training partners that are interested in persevering through the snowy months.  Technically the club isn’t starting until January 9, but it sounds like the person organizing it might be training for Boston too…such a huge blessing!

notice the totally free part? hurray! no need to dip into my running allowance

Speaking of blessings, I found out today that I’m going to get a little extra monetary compensation for the additional work that I’ve been doing this week!  So a few extra coins to put in the Boston Fund.  Sweet!

Finally.  I’ve been trying to get back into the swing of waking up early to exercise.  This does require going to bed early enough…and I’m pretty sure that’s been my problem recently.  However, with the time change I was drowsy at a perfect time last night, got a full 8 hours of sleep, and was still able to get my Insanity on before school!

This week I have a different schedule at work and its kinda throwing me off.  I mean, I have a little more down time than normal, but its just because my responsibilities have been spread out.  Basically for this week I have to get there early and stay later.  Its fine, just takes a little getting used to.

Lately Mr. Dawn has been sick.  Fever.  Chills.  Coughing.  If its not fun, he’s got it.  I feel so bad for him!  He has a big test this week and a huge research paper due next Tuesday, so he really doesn’t have time for all this non-sense.

In other news, I’m thinking about signing up for a Thanksgiving morning 5k.  We’re going to spend our Turkey day with Mr. Dawn’s family and I found a local running club that is hosting a 5k.  But get this: instead of giving awards to the fastest people, they give 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place to the people who most accurately guess their finish time.  So, before the race everyone writes down how long they think it will take them to run the 5k.  The rules strictly state that no one is allowed to wear timing devices (watches or garmins) during the race so that no one can cheat.  Sounds fun, right?  And it only costs $7.  What a fun thing to do Thanksgiving morning!

Anyone else running a Turkey Trot or other race this Thanksgiving?

First.

The NYC Marathon?  Epic.  Yes, I paid the $4.99 so that I could watch the live stream on my computer at 9:00am.  I am that big of a marathon junkie.  The first half of the race was such a let down, both the men’s and women’s races.  I mean with the elite squad that was gathered there the numbers should have been much lower at the half way point.  (Granted I am saying all this while lying on the couch, wrapped in blankets, sipping my morning tea.)  The second half is where everything started happening.  Hailey (the men’s world record holder) dropped out of the race, the lead women’s pack dwindled to 3–two of which were running their first marathon, the men finally started to throw in some surging, and the competition got exciting.  Both races were really won between mile 24 and 25, with the lead man and women crossing the finish line well ahead of their respective competitors, but that didn’t make it any less exciting.

It was so interesting that during the first half of the race the men’s elite field refused to pick up the pace.  They had the word’s best runner in their midst and they let him dictate the pace.  Ironically that meant that the winner came in well over Hailey’s 2:03:59 time.  I wonder if he’s wishing that he would have pushed a little harder a little sooner….

Lesson Learned: It doesn’t matter who else is running, you have to run your own race.

Second.

I have been noticing that a huge number of people from the running blogs that I read are currently injured.  Like two-thirds of them.  That seems like a huge percentage.  Its a good reminder to me that rest and recovery are just as important and the hard training and racing.  Since I have at least 5 or 6 weeks until I need to start training, I want to make sure that I follow a recovery plan.  I have enjoyed Pete Pfitzinger’s training plans for the last two marathons I’ve run and since I know I perform better when I have a written plan I think I’m going to follow his “5 week recovery” plan.  It has a reverse-taper where you slowly build back the mileage before entering any speed, tempo, or long runs into the mix.  I did this after San Diego this past June and I really think that it helped me fully recover and get through my 2nd training cycle injury free.

So…true confessions.  This recovery plan designates almost every run to be at “recovery” pace.  For me recovery pace needs to be a 10 minute mile, maybe a little faster, but no faster than 9:30.  I did 6 miles today and the average pace was 8:37.  Not in my recovery zone.  Sure, nothing felt bad today….but the more I read about over use injuries the more worried I am about being sidelined before Boston.  With that in mind, starting today, I am going to run my prescribed paces this month.  I will stick to them even when they feel slow.  I will stick to them even when I feel like I’m loosing fitness.  I will do it!!!  (Hopefully that’s enough positive thinking to get me through…)

Lesson Learned: Rest and Recovery lead to Growth.  Be patient.

Third, and Finally.

This lesson is pretty much a “Duh!” moment.  After the aforementioned 6 mile non-recovery run I ate dinner with Mr. Dawn and then did Insanity.  I wore those 6 miles like buckets of cement encasing my feet.  The set tonight includes “power jumps.”  If you are privileged enough to not know what they are let me enlighten you.  Power jumps start in a squat position, then you leap (ha!) into the air, pulling your knees up above your waist (ha!), slap your knees with your hands, and gracefully (ha!) land back in a squat.  Seriously.  I couldn’t coordinate this.  At. All.  It was comical, I assure you.

Lesson Learned: Running and Insanity are not good neighbors.  They should be allowed to reside on different sides of the day, preferably one in the morning and the other at night.