Mental over physical

Well, that was... a bit disappointing.  28 seconds slower than last year.  The plan was to run the first 4.5 miles at a hard pace, then increase to very hard and very very hard for the last 2 miles.  I stuck to the plan, but somehow my hard heart rate translated to a 7:44 pace.  This pace felt a little slow.  And I spent those miles watching the competition pass me by, hoping that my increased effort at the end of the race would allow me to catch back up. 

At 4.5, I kicked it up a gear and finally felt like I was moving.  I passed the 5 or 6 people who had passed me in the last mile.  Then I set my sights on a woman who had started with me, but left me in the dust when I tried to maintain my effort level in the first mile.  I slowly reeled her in, and in the last half a mile, I passed 4 more women, so that felt good. 

The end results are that with a slightly slower finish, I had an 8th place in age group (versus 6th last year) out of 272.  I can't really be disappointed about coming in the top 3% of my age group, even if it wasn't the performance I'd hoped for.  This wasn't an A race, and I didn't have A race preparation, taper or mentality going into it.  Having a solid race should be a good result.  My bigger concern is that I have an aggressive goal for the Chilly half of a 7:20 pace.  Averaging 7:29 here does not build confidence.

Much more exciting (and less sulky):  my friend A had a stellar race!  She improved her time by nearly 3 minutes.  That's almost 30 seconds per mile.  She hit her goal and really raced out there today.  So happy for her.

Breaking new ground

Last week, I ran the most miles I have ever run in a single week.  My previous record was just over 27, in the week of the Chilly Half.  Last week I ran just over 30.  I know in the world of marathoners that is not a big number, but for me, this is pretty huge.  That was 30 miles in just 3 runs, nestled in amongst 2 hours of swimming and 2.5 hours of biking.  Hell yeah.

But that will likely be the longest run, I'll see for another month.  This weekend is the Devil's Chase 6.66 miler in Salem.  I'm feeling good for this race.  Last year I did this race at an average pace of 7:28, for a total time of 49:08.  My plan for this weekend is by heart rate, so I don't have a good sense of what to expect time-wise.  I believe I'm faster, but I haven't raced a 10K in the last year outside of a tri.  My best was at AGN, but that was a 7:32 pace.  So, yeah, faster.

Then in 3 little weeks I've got the repeat of the Chilly, so I don't imagine the training will get back up to 30 miles until after that.  Here, we're targeting a 1:36.  This feels legitimately fast.  And a little bit scary.

But not as scary as signing up for a marathon.  I've talked about, I've researched, I've put it on my race goals with my coach, but I still haven't signed up.  Because I'm scared.  Marathons have always been this big looming beast.  I've always had too much trouble with injury to even flirt with a full marathon, but here I am, running healthy and looking at that 26.2 boundary.  The deadline for early registration is next week. I'm sure I will register by then, so I get the discounted rate, but I just can't seem to do it, yet. It will mean many more weeks over 30 miles.  It will mean running in the brutal cold and dark.  It will also somehow legitimize the possibility of doing a full ironman at some point in my future.  Marathons are scary.

Devils Chase Race Report: Following the plan

Coming into the last mile of the Devil's Chase this morning I had one thought in my mind: My coach was right. He was right about the pacing, he was right about using the virtual partner on the watch, he was right about what to wear.

This was my best running race in I don't remember how long. Like many good races, then pre-race had a few hiccups, but I'll get into that later. First, the race. 1200 people, at least half dressed in some devil-themed fashion, including a guy in a red speedo and body paint and many variations of deviled eggs (unofficial pictures here).

The plan was to run 7:34s throughout the race, monitoring my heart rate and reducing pace if the heart rate rose too much. I didn't want to go out too hard like I had in the Somerville Homeless Coalition 5K. I've spent a lot of my run training in low heart rate/ low pace zones, so I was a little worried about how fast 7:34 would feel. Turns out, it felt great. Comfortable for the first few miles, then hard, but not impossible.

I love using my garmin for to manage my run. Because the plan was pretty straightforward and because I can only program 1 "advanced" workout into my run, I had uploaded the warm up workout. Unfortunately, I had cut it a bit too fine and didn't have time to reprogram the watch for the actual race. So I just had the instantaneous pace displayed to work with. I hadn't appreciated just how much this metric varies. I'd look down and see a pace of 8 minutes then of 7, then back to 7:20. I knew I wasn't varying that much, so I tried to keep it fast and consistent. Next time I'll definitely use the virtual partner for this type of run.



Just past mile 2, a woman caught up to me. I held with her for a bit, then saw that we were some where near a 7:15 mile. Too fast. I thought about what my coach had said about catching people holding my pace and catching people at the finish. I let her go. She never got out of sight, and I caught her and held her off around 4.5 miles. :)

At mile 5 I was still feeling good. We came around a corner close to 5.2 miles, and I decided it was time to see what I still had left in the legs. I started picking people off. I got passed by one guy between there and the 6 mile mark. After that no more.

I did the 6th mile in 7:17, then sped up a bit more and did the final 6 tenths at a 7:04 pace. (Note: the first lap is 3 miles.)


I did the first 10K in 45:47 which is right around my best 10K time. I was so happy with this. I was the 104th person out of over 1200 and the 6th in the women 30-39 age group. So pleased.

Ok, back to the start. We got to the course a bit later than planned. You see 95 and 128 are pretty much synonymous in Boston, but apparently as you get to the north shore, they diverge. Andrea and I were engaged in a very in depth conversation about cords of firewood and missed the split. We still got to the course well before the start, but with registration and port-o-potty queues and dropping our warm, outer layers at the car, there wasn't a lot of extra time. So as we were dropping our clothes off, I thought I'd rather just run into the bushes to pee, rather than risking missing the start waiting for a port-o-potty. I searched out a spot that wasn't visible from the road and squatted. Then I noticed there was a bur on my gloves. Wait, there are burs on my jacket. Oh, no there are burs everywhere, outside and inside my tights. I did my best to de-bur-ify myself, but those were some scratchy tights. Luckily, the cool temperatures were numbing.

This little guy followed me home:

Race prep: Salem Devil's Chase 6.66 miler

After five days at the beach and a visit to my coach in DC, I'm back and settled in to my routine and ready to take on the 6.66 miler this weekend.

The trip to Galveston for Paul's family reunion was fantastic. I still did some training: one open water swim, a little over 20 miles of running and a fun bike, but mostly it was about hanging out. My days looked like this.

Catch the sunrise

Relax

This weekend is the 6.66 mile Devil's Chase in Salem. I've been training for the Chilly Half Marathon coming up in 2.5 weeks. This weekend's race is a fun one, to practice for the half.

The plan is to not go out too hard (again, just like the 5K, except this time, I'll follow the plan). I've got a pace to hold and heart rates to stay under. I'm feeling good about it.

This weekend is also R's second 5K. I'm looking forward to cheering her on Sunday at the Superhero 5K.

Finally, I was a little nervous about working with a coach at a distance, but it's been great. Getting to run and swim with him last week was definitely a highlight. And then today, I got my feedback on my last run, including this:


Look at that cadence improvement. Yay.