The Week Ahead

Let Monster Month begin!  I bought extra snacks at the grocery store, am scheduling in more sleep and am ready to start Monster Month, albeit in abbreviated form.

Sunday: 20 miler today, easy pace
Monday: 6 miler, plus upper body
Tuesday: 8 mile tempo
Wednesday: Off. :)
Thursday: 10 miler, progressive.
Friday: 5 miles, legs
Saturday: 16 miles (so that I can enjoy Burlington's Mardi Gras.)

Have a great week all.

Thoughts on Boston

My first reaction to the changes to registration for Boston Marathon 2012 and beyond was relief. I expect (hope?) to qualify for many years to come, and don’t want to relive the experience I had this fall.  Like many other runners, I logged on at 9 am, only to find that the pages didn’t seem to be loading. I almost decided to just try again later that week, but tried again at noon, happy to be registered. That happiness was compounded just after 5, when I heard that Boston was full. Many of my friends were not as lucky, and found themselves shut out, even with excellent qualifying times. 

I am empathetic, though, to the plight of those who have been steadily working towards a qualifying time, only to have it drop by 5 minutes. I am even more empathetic to those who have qualified, but who will have to wait for days while faster runners get registration priority. 

Boston is many things to many people. For example, my boyfriend in graduate school begrudgingly ran a marathon so that we could run Boston together (in exchange for me playing ultimate Frisbee; I’m not sure what we were thinking.) From Brookline, Boston held a special place in Will’s heart. He had an older Boston jacket, yet it hung in his closet because he hadn’t run the race yet. The Brookline Hills?  His high school training grounds. We ran up Heartbreak, just so I could see the hill likely to haunt my future. Will trained his ass off, and ran Myrtle Beach with tendonitis in his Achilles and knee, literally held together by tape, pre-wrap and Flexor patches. He ran a 3:10 and change, good enough to get him into Boston. I still remember screaming madly at 26, when I realized how close to the line we were. I later screwed us up by insisting that we had plenty of time to register. The race closed in mid-November and we were shut out.  I keep trying to convince Will to qualify again so we can run Boston together, but now not only does he have to run a 3:05, he probably has to run a 2:50 to be guaranteed a spot. Similarly, two of my best friends have been steadily working towards 3:40 with the hope that the three of us can run it together one year. These new standards put a lot more pressure on KC and Emmy, especially with the priority registration.

My second reaction was that the organizers chose the best possible solution. Nothing was going to make everyone happy, so they had to find a way to relieve the pressure, while staying true to the tradition of Boston. As anyone familiar with Boston knows, it has become less and less of a challenge to get in over the past few decades, which when coupled with the explosion in recreational marathon running, caused a major bottleneck.  Add in some hype about an early sell out and well, we are where we are. 

Is it a permanent solution? I’m not convinced. I think the goals of Boston need to be carefully considered. Boston is a totally different marathon from New York or Chicago, which also sell out annually.  Boston is a mecca. There are pictures of me from childhood (I’ll dig some up), dressed in my “marathon Monday” outfit. I’ve studied the Boston course unlike any other race, because I know that the downhills at the beginning can crush me going into Brookline. I get teary thinking about coming out of the scream tunnel. I can’t wait to have my own Boston shirt.

What do you think? Did the BAA do the right thing? Make it worse? If you were in charge, what would you have done?

53 Days to Boston

Shit. There are only 53 days before Boston. My math tells me this gives me 43 more days of training, plus a 10 day taper. This includes a mini-taper for the New Bedford Half on March 20th. The past few weeks have been crazy. I've thankfully fit in most of my long runs and been consistent on other workouts, but am missing my normal diet of midweek long runs that I feel are key to success.

So what to do with 43 days left? I'm hoping for a 20 this Sunday (last Sunday, it was so cold, I skipped our group run in favor of warmer afternoon temps). Since the weekend is my only real free time, I'm going to have to double up tough workouts, with my tempo runs on Saturdays from now until April. Given my schedule, my best hope is to aim for 6 more weeks at 50 to 60 quality miles a week. It's not the cycle I wanted for Boston, but the perfect cycle doesn't necessarily guarantee a perfect race. Here's hoping talent, a solid base and a smart race strategy get me through.

Besides a hope and a prayer, I do have some things on my side. I'm not injured (knock on wood) besides the regular winter/training aches. I've been running a lot of hills, including self-flagellation on Maple Street at least once a week. I've been consistent about speed work, which is always my weak point. I'm almost at race weight, so I don't have to waste energy thinking about diet. Most importantly, I don't feel like my life depends on my Boston performance. This has been a recovery year, and it is unrealistic to expect a banner performance. Would I like a PR? Absolutely. Will I be devastated if I don't get one? Nope. I'll enjoy the party, and enjoy my first Boston experience.


Run On.
S

Insider Info: Blog to Follow

Want to read a running blog by someone funnier than me, who is also getting ready for the Boston Marathon?  Check out Running with Liz at:

http://runningwithliz.blogspot.com/

She's funny, candid and always knows how many days we have until Boston. All handy things as we plod on through this winter.

Why do you run?

I run because I always have.
I run because I love it.
I run because I like when my jeans fit easily.
I run because I like bread. Okay, because I love anything with a carb in it (see the former statement).
I run because I have a ponytail that swings perfectly at a 7:45 pace.
I run because I'm good at it.
I run because as many before me have said, it will change you.
I run to see how far I can go. And sometimes how fast.

Why do you run?

Wordless Wednesday: Recovery

The past year of running, in graph form. Surgery was April 7th, 2010.

Saucony Kinvara Review Part 2

I'm about halfway through the Kinvara's mileage-wise and am still pretty smitten. I find myself reaching for them out of rotation and am still getting used to the looks of envy they inspire, from runners and teenagers alike.

Why do I love them?

• They are light and flexible and for someone who ADORES road feel, they leave very little to the imagination. Post surgery, it's been difficult for me to re-learn how to drive through my foot and a minimal shoe helps me remember.
• They have good tread. True to Saucony form with the triangle tread, the Kinvara do a good job of hanging on in wet and ice, of which we've had plenty this winter. 
• They seem (to me) to be a true minimal shoe. They took some getting used to and for the first few weeks, I could only do a few miles at a time in them before my feet started to feel worked. Now that I've built up foot strength, they've done a set of 16 through 20 milers with no problems.

Drawbacks?

• The major drawback for me is the ventilation. While this might be great in the summer, it's not something I want in a shoe in Vermont mid-winter. The only consolation? Easy in, easy out. Like my boat shoes, the Kinvara bails water/slush out as fast as it lets it in. My feet haven't been overly freezing on my runs, but they definitely get wet. 
• Not sure how sturdy they are. I don't tend to be tough on shoes, but I've noticed some of the seams starting to split and salt has definitely corroded some of the "invisilight" mesh.

Bottom line: I'm smitten, and as long as Saucony keeps turning them out in bright shades, I'll keep a pair of Kinvara in my rotation.

Who they will work for? For runners looking to try out a more minimal shoe, these are a natural transition. Very little difference between heel and forefront, and no posts, heel cups or other supports. For runners who need/like more shoe, I'd still recommend keeping a pair around for track work or short runs to build foot strength. While I rarely say never, I don't think they would work for a trail shoe, if only because the construction doesn't seem that sturdy, and I'd be afraid of a blow out hammering down a trail.

Injury Paranoia

We all know what I'm talking about. It's the sore Achilles after a hill workout that we pray is just from an hour of hard work. It's the tight calf or the vague soreness around the knee. It's the moment of panic after slipping on a patch of ice where we pause to take a full-systems check. 

In my life pre-surgery, I suffered from very minimal injury paranoia. In the grand scheme of things, I've been incredibly lucky with injuries. 10 days before my first marathon, I twisted my ankle running trails (right, I asked for that one). While I had regular taper craziness, I didn't worry too much about it. I did the elliptical, took some advil and moved on. Post-surgery, however, I find myself over analyzing every sore muscle. Because of the location of my incisions, some nerves were nicked during surgery, but that doesn't stop me from a full panic every time I have some decreased sensation on my left side. And don't get me started on my leg falling asleep (often after sitting on it) or a calf that feels "funny" during a run.

I suspect I'm not the only runner who suffers from injury paranoia. In some ways, it's a self-protective measure. Most of us have probably attempted the "run through it" approach and taken ourselves out for longer than it would have taken us to just recover.

But where is the balance between being cautious and being crazy? Am I really going to run indoors all winter long to avoid a slip like the one I had yesterday?  (As a sidenote, I saw a woman fall and crack a rib on the treadmill the day of my indoor 16, so I'm not convinced indoors is much safer.) Is running without some pain or twinge even a realistic expectation when I don't have all day to dedicate to strength training, flexibility, massage and physical therapy?

I hear from a source who bet his paycheck on it that we are destined for some delightful temps at the end of the week.  I expect to see you all out there in shorts, paranoia stricken or not.

Run On.
S

Whine Wednesday

I intended to get a picture of Camel's Hump at sunrise from my run this morning. Instead, I was Sarah and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Run. Everything hurt, my nose was frozen and I slipped 9 million times. So I let myself whine. For the whole run. And by the time I got home, I felt better. In so doing, I decided that today will be our whine day. Our day to complain about the aches and pains, about the pains in the ass and whatever else you want to complain about. Write it down, throw it in the fire below and watch it burn.

So here's my whine for the day:
*What the f*ck is with the sidewalks in Burlington right now? They are either unplowed or frozen, slippery, rutted messes. I know we got a lot of snow. I know DPW is doing their best. But I'm still left with the option of leaping over leftover mess pushed into the sidewalks, running in the roads or the treadmill.  What happened to a pedestrian friendly city? What happened to being green?  I walk to work, which saves gas, traffic and a UVM parking spot. As a result, I've been playing Frogger with cars for a week.

Now that I've gotten that off my chest, into the fire it goes:

That feels wayyyyyyy better.

Whine On. Run On.

S

Flexibility

This post has nothing to do with touching my toes or Downward Dog. I do neither particularly well, and although that kind of flexibility is also on my to-do list, the flexibility to which I refer today is of a more global variety.

Today was supposed to be my first official 20 miler of the Boston cycle (I did 19.5 last week, but it wasn't official). Last night, however, Burlington got 9 inches of heavy, wet snow and because it's a weekend, the sidewalks haven't received much attention. To top it off, I have a chemistry and biology exam on Wednesday  and a practice MCAT next Sunday, plus my regular 40 hour work week staring me in the face. So, I didn't do 20 miles today. I didn't even do 10.  I slogged for an hour tonight between practice sets and returned looking like a human slush puppy. But I got out there.

Life or not, Boston is coming. Long runs are vital. But so is sanity. I'm a runner but I'm also a researcher, a student, a daughter and a sister. So when weeks like this crop up, I start bargaining with myself. If all else fails, I try for at least an hour of running a day. If the wheels really come off the bus, I sneak out for 30 minutes. On really bad days, I settle for ten minutes and some crunches. But those days are rare. Years of experience have taught me that running makes me a better/kinder/more focused researcher/student/daughter/sister. As such, I can rationalize 30 minutes of running taken from all my other responsibilities.

How flexible are you? What do you do to figure out how to balance running, the demands of the marathon and the inevitable life monster that disrupts even the more organized of people?

Run On.
~S