I have been working on some new running goals with Coach Lesley since I reached my last milestone of completing a ½ marathon in under 2 hours. Many of you have been asking if I am going to be doing a full marathon anytime soon. Right now, the answer is no. I feel that if I am going to make the commitment of training and running 26.2 miles, I need to see how my body is going to react to the increase of mileage. Also if I am doing a full marathon, it means that I'll be needing to hit the pavement more as opposed to getting the bulk of my training done on the elliptical (on a simulated running setting). I've had shin splints in the past, so I'm going to need to manage this carefully.
Well one of the 1st things that Les and I agreed on is that I need to change the mindset around the 13.1 (or 13.3 depending on how the course is measured) miles. More specifically, my body hadn't really gone more than 13.3 miles, let alone at a race pace, so naturally I am really beat when I get to the last bit of a race. When I did the PR in November with Andria and Michael, I was so spent at the end of that race, I really think I would have stopped and walked a little to catch my breath. And that would have been the difference between getting under 2 hours and coming in later. Andria had a good learning moment for me in her blog recap of the race, which I am grateful for.
On Saturday morning, Les had me run 14 miles for the 1st time ever in my life. I knew that I would physically be able to do it. I had a solid 12+ miler with another person on the team, Carol, the previous week. I was more concerned about sticking with the pace goals that were outlined for me – yeah, right now I am in the "learn to go slower to go faster" phase. I hate it even though I know for a fact that it will pay dividends. OK, there I said it. But the 2010 plan is to have me run some longer distances with the hope of making those last couple of miles in the ½ marathons a bit easier for me to finish strong.
The weather forecast looked kind of crappy with lots of wind and rain, which wasn't making me super-excited either. But you do these runs in bad weather to build up some character and toughness, and to also figure out what to wear in different conditions. After all, what if the weather is awful on race day? Are you not going to race? The only exceptions to the 'run in all weather' tend to be when it is icy or when there is thunder and lightning.
You know it is not a good sign when you wake up to find an e-mail from Coach Lesley telling everyone that the pacing goals for today's run will be shelved because of the excessive wind she felt when she was marking up the course. My time to start my run with the group was 7:20am, and I was ready even after some food and wine with friends the previous night at Joule. It was windy and cold, but the rain hadn't arrived yet. It was in the high 30s/low 40s, so it was also a borderline call on the attire to wear on the run, which I hate. Ended up with capris, turtleneck, tech shirt and vest to go with a beanie cap to keep the head warm. The good news is that I was running with 2 of the regular crew for the 1st part of the run. Jan hung around for 3 miles, and Tricia did 7 miles. It was windy for the 1st half of the run, but running with the ladies helped as we tend to cover a range of topics and have some laughs along the way.
Tricia left me at 7.0, and I was on my own for the rest of the run. I felt good from a fitness perspective so I picked up the pace a bit. Went through some interesting neighborhoods (some very nice, some – eh, not so nice) and took my CarboPro drink along the way, which helped a lot. I'll admit that I was counting down the miles once I got to the start of mile 9, which made things probably seem slower than they actually were. For whatever reason, I was kind of bummed not to have any company on this training run in the 2nd half. Maybe it was the new distance. Who knows. It is weird because I am not a runner who NEEDS to run with someone, but it has become a little more social for me recently, which isn't a bad thing. It probably speaks more to the quality of the people that I have gotten to know better since I have started to run.
Don't get me wrong. I still like to take a run on my own every once in awhile to just think through a situation, and in a race, I want to be completely focused on my plan and need to save my energy for the last bits instead of chatting away. At the start of mile 10, I made a turn and started climbing up what looked like to be a very long and gradual hill. I approach these hills different than the steeper and shorter ones. I find that I can keep my rhythm a bit more on the gradual ones, even if it is longer, and it also helps me recover in the event there is another hill to tackle later on in the run. But doing the steep hill repeats has definitely paid dividends along the way in terms of my fitness. I actually did a training run about a month ago that highlighted how much progress I made in the 2 years that I have increased the intensity of my training.
Back to the hill – at mile 11.5, the hill looks like it is going to crest and I also know where I am going so I know I need to head down to Seward Park and run along Lake Washington. Out of nowhere, the "crewing" car arrives with more fuel and out jumps Coach to run the last 2.5 miles with me. Woo woo! What a morale booster. I know that I would have finished the run and I knew I was running a decent pace, but running that last bit with someone totally made a difference. Even worked on a couple of things with Les, which I can use for my upcoming race.
When I downloaded everything from my watch to my computer, I was pretty pleased to see that I averaged just over 9 minutes/mile and that I did 'negative splits' in the 2nd half of the run. Props to Tricia and Jan for setting me up for that. Based on some of the other stats I check out post-run, I was pretty happy with the run as a whole, especially with it being my 1st effort at 14 miles. I'm getting closer to being where I want to be for race day.
And BTW, it never ended up raining. Nice.