This Week's Workload: 12 Weeks to Go

We're 12 weeks from Boston tomorrow, which means I have 10 weeks of work and 2 weeks of taper left before I toe the line in Hopkinton. It's time to start thinking about goals and honing in on some quality workouts to help me achieve them.  I have had a few good weeks of training recently, including a workout of 800s last Thursday that felt positively easy. I'm smart enough to know that everything can go right in training and crash on race day, but I'm hopeful that the next 10 weeks will result in my strongest marathon to date.

I have three quality workouts planned for this week, and a total of about 60 miles of running. I would like to do more, but I am focusing on tuning up speed over endurance this cycle and tired legs can't run fast.

*Long Run: Sub-zero temps combined with Raynaud's meant I had no choice but to head indoors so I did a 16 miler this morning. On the treadmill. It was as bad as you might imagine.
*Tempo: I normally do a tempo run on Saturday before my long run to simulate race day, but I had to get my car repaired, so instead, I'll do it tomorrow on tired legs.  8 miles, with 6 at 6:40 pace, approximately my 10K pace.
*Intervals: My least favorite, ever. I am always the one who falls for more reps of shorter intervals over longer intervals and this week is no exception. I cannot tell you the number of times I have begged for quarter repeats instead of 1200s and gone on to regret it. This week, I'm doing 20 by 200 and hoping for very consistent 40 second repeats and will be focusing on form, particularly arm swing and knee drive.

Have a great week of running all. Stay warm. Spring will come again.

S

Spooky Time of Year

(When I set out to write my post for this week, I had grand plans of writing about my experience registering for Boston. Other ideas included talking about volunteering at a marathon last weekend and cherishing the connection with other runners.  As life goes, however, my run on Wednesday night changed my plans for this week’s entry. )

Typically bucolic Burlington has been disrupted by a violent event in the North End, where a woman was found dead in her home.  Details continue to emerge, but the event unsettled me. The extent to which was not clear until my run on Wednesday night.  

I was running along the bike path when a bike slowed behind me.  Normally, I wouldn’t have paid any mind.  On Wednesday, however, I spun around, spooked. It was a commuter, slowing to turn off the bike path onto his street.  He apologized and was clearly surprised to have upset me. I spent the rest of the run on edge, jumping at the rustling of leaves and mile markers.  As it got too dark to see, I needed my headlamp, plunging myself into the isolation of a single beam of light.  By the last two miles, I was whistling “Camptown Races” as loudly as I could, as though that would dissuade any attackers.  

On my nth rendition of the song, I got mad.  I’ve been running alone for fifteen years in places much more dangerous than Burlington.  I survived four years in Albany and ran through post-Katrina Biloxi.  Now, in my safe little haven, I’ve been rudely reminded of my vulnerability as a woman runner.  As someone constantly competing with the boys, it pisses me off that while they run on, I’m risking ankle sprains from jumping off a path when a branch brushes my arm.

In a few weeks, the salience of this will fade and I’ll be back to being a creature of the night, running before the rest of the world rouses. Until then, I’m begging friends to run with me (fruitless), considering a new dog (crazy) and re-scheduling my life to allow me to run in the daylight (impractical).