My Secret (Stupid) Plan

Last week, I got this idea. What if I ran 18 miles last Saturday and 21 miles this Saturday. Then I'd upgrade from the half marathon to the full marathon in Las Vegas in December. Neat!

Admittedly, last Saturday wasn't the ideal time for an extra long run. We had house guests for the weekend and Saturday afternoon we were hosting a barbecue at our place. I had all the major pre-party work completed and Steve stepped up to do all the day-of-party details. While I headed out for a run, Steve, his brother and his cousin spent the morning setting up tables and chairs on the patio and picking up food and ice.

Of course, I didn't mention the "Upgrade to Full Marathon" plan to Steve. We've both done the full marathon. He knows, and I know, that I wouldn't be well prepared with just one 18 mile and one 21 mile run. I'd be prepared, but not well prepared. With the consistency of my training base, I could probably do a (very ouchy) full marathon today.

During my run on Saturday at about mile 11, it finally hit me. This is not the way I want to run races. It's not enough for me to just finish; I want to run strong. Yes, I could do the full marathon. It would not be fun and I wouldn't run well, but I could do it.

And that was the end of the "Upgrade to Full Marathon" plan. I ran 16 miles and went home to a fabulous family and a yummy barbecue.

Seen While Running - In the Navy

San Diego is such a beautiful, interesting place that every run is filled with things to see.  Part of the reason I enjoy running alone is that there's no conversation to distract me from my people watching.   

Today I needed to crank out 11 miles and I didn't have a run mapped.  I decided to do a big loop around the Big Bay and actually ran 14 miles. It's a flat, scenic route: downtown San Diego, the USS Midway, the Embarcadero, Seaport Village, the Tall Ship Star of India and a loop around Shelter Island. 

You always see a bunch of Navy ships in the Big Bay.   As I started the Shelter Island loop, I saw a giant Navy boat headed out to sea.  The sailors were "Manning the Rails" which means all the crew are standing around the edge of the boat.   I've heard they man the rails when they enter port, but I'd never seen it.  The San Diego bay only has one opening to the Pacific and the boat was definitely leaving.

It was very, very sweet.  Retired Navy guys who were sitting around fishing would get out of their lawn chairs as the boat passed by them.  People were looking at the boat with binoculars...maybe trying to get one last glimpse of their loved one headed far away.

Run Notes:  It was windy and chilly for the first part of the run and I completely forgot to drink for the first 4 miles.  Stupid! My hydration never really got caught up even though I was chugging fluids.  I ran out completely and had to stop at Point Loma Seafood and get a refill of water.

Whee! Fun is back.

What a perfect day to run. I didn't get out until nearly 11:30, but it wasn't at all hot. It was typical San Diego - 60 degrees with a breeze coming off the ocean.

I was little worried since I haven't been running and my ankle isn't quite 100%. I haven't done any serious distance in a month. With the New Orleans race looming large in 2 weeks I decided that it's now or never to get some miles.

Running was surprisingly easy today; I wasn't rusty at all. Cranked out 9 miles along the bay and then lapped around to the ocean and ran along the beach. I felt nice and strong. Normally I run early in the day starting at 8 A.M. at the latest. Running at the beach at noon is completely different. The boardwalk was jammed with cyclists, families milling around and an array of motorcycle gang dudes. It was a slow process for those last 2 miles weaving though people.

Great run, but I'll be happy to go back to an early start.

Weekly Interval Run Completed

Decided to forgo spending the week dreading my interval run and making excuses.

Done.

The Time Has Come Today

Well, the time will come in 31 days. I'm running a half marathon on November 15.

And now I panic, because I haven't been doing enough miles and I only have 3 weeks to rebuild my mileage. Truthfully, I could complete a half marathon today if I had to do it, but it wouldn't be pretty.

Ah, well. Three weeks of training opportunity left and one week of recovery. Off to do long miles tomorrow before work.

The Opposite of Fun

Headed out for my 14 miler. FAIL.

As soon as I started running, my tummy went into a full revolt. I got food poisoning in Las Vegas two weeks ago and my GI tract hasn't been right since. Eating Thai food for lunch and dinner yesterday probably wasn't my smartest choice either.

In addition to my rumbling belly, it was hot. It was supposed to be in the over 80 degrees so I decided to run on Coronado Island to catch an ocean breeze. All of my Texas friends are thinking 80 degrees is not hot. It is to me. I was promised perfect weather at all times in San Diego. It's supposed to be 72 and sunny every day. I made my trade-offs to live here, enduring the ridiculous cost of Southern California housing and Mexican food made without lard. Surely, San Diego can deliver perfect running weather in return for my suffering. It was definitely hotter than 80 degrees with no shade and no breeze.

In the end, I ran about a mile and walked about 2 miles. So frustrating. I'll try again tomorrow.

Sweet Home Chicago

A few weeks ago Steve asked me what would happen if he couldn't go with me to the Chicago race. I told him that I'd be lonely, but that it would be okay. And it would have been okay, because I know he's had a pretty stressful workload lately. Plus, my company has a liberal vacation policy, while his company is positively stingy with vacation. We looked it over and decided that Steve could go, but he'd have to take the red-eye flight so that he could work an extra day. Since I like a red-eye flight (I fly the Ambien skies) and I was tempted to wait for him and travel together. We decided that I'd go out first and get the hotel, etc. There's nothing worse than arriving in the middle of the night and having to wait hours to check-in.

I got there Thursday evening and had few hours of work to do myself. Steve got there in the wee hours of the morning and promptly fell aspleep, only to wake up to to a few hours of work that needed his Urgent.Attention. It was sort of an odd experience for me. On more than one occassion, I've had to bail on vacation to work. Last summer, my parents visited from Pennsylvania. They spent a day sitting out my patio while I worked for 14 hours straight to meet a last minute deadline. I felt awful. This time I felt awful for Steve. He flew all night, then wasted a precious vacation day sitting at the desk in the hotel room.

When we finally got that nasty work business out of the way, we had a great time. Went to a White Sox game (Cubs were out of town). Spent 2 days at the Chicago Art Institute. Took the boat ride up the river to see the architecture. Popped into a blues club and lucked out because the band was excellent. Enjoyed Grant Park.

Oh, and yeah, I popped off another half marathon. Nice race - flat course, hot day and my legs were totally dead from walking 7 miles in flip flops the day before the race. Chicago was surprisingly lame with crowd support. There were long, long stretches of nobody cheering.

Toward the end of the race, I realized that this was my "Rockstar" race - my 5th half marathon in the Rock N Roll series for 2009. Back when I set the goal, the Rock N Roll Race Series was 5 races...then it got bigger and bigger and more races were added. Now the top prize is "Rock Legend" for 7 races and I'm doing all 7. However, 5 races was the original goal. When it finally hit me that this was my Rockstar Race, I realized I've have been really bummed if Steve wouldn't have been there to see me reach my goal.

A Weekend of Surprises

Our Saturday run was supposed to go along the trails in the Los Penasquitos Canyon Preserve. It's a beautiful location, complete with a waterfall and lots of wildlife. I was really looking forward to it, even though I'm not much of a trail runner. Unfortunately, when we got there both entrances to the trail were flooded. (How exactly? This is the desert.) With the trails a no-go, we ended up running up (and by that I mean uphill) Black Mountain Road to the Highway 56 bike path. It was a route chock full of hilly glory. It was a pretty tough 8 miles - hot with no shade and extra heat reflecting off the asphalt. Again, my hydration wasn't the best and I had leg cramps on the hills. Must drink more water.

Sunday Steve and Donna rode the Grandfondo Century Ride. I met them at mile 60 with comfy chairs situated in the one shady spot available, lunch, sports drinks, sunscreen and 20 pounds of ice. As I was waiting for Donna and Steve, I got some strong clues that the Grandfondo was a tough ride. Relatively few riders made it to mile 60. The riders who made it in were all exhausted and this was only a bit past the midpoint of the ride. Plus, I saw a number of riders stop and phone for rides home. My last clue was that Steve and Donna were almost an hour later than they'd planned. Since they are both strong climbers, I knew it was tough out there. When they arrived, Steve checked his cycle GPS. The Grandfondo was supposed to have 4800 ft of climbing, a tough ride by any standard. However, at mile 60 they'd already climbed over 6,000 feet. Whew. Glad it was them and not me.

That's endurance racing in all it glory - you plan, you prepare and sometimes the course laughs at you.

Getting Advice from the Experts

Last night, we went to a lecture on planning your training calendar by Arnie Baker, M.D. He knows his stuff. Arnie is a doctor, a cycling coach, an adviser to the International Olympic Committee. He was a CAT 1 Elite cyclist with 200 wins and 6 US National Champion titles. He's coached for the Olympics, US National Championships and 40 US record holders. In his spare time, he's written books on cycling, endurance sports and nutrition. In other words, if Artie is speaking near you, go listen.

The audience at the lecture was mostly cyclists and a few triathletes. I was probably the only runner there, but I found an awful lot of useful information. A few minutes into his talk, I realized this was going to be really good stuff and I started taking notes on my blackberry. If you're interested, you can "read more" to see my notes.

Planning Training Periods - Arnie Baker, M.D.

Schedule time to fully plan your calendar for the year (or longer). The calendar should have blocks set aside for each training period listed. Each period should be months, not days.

Recovery - Downtime and preseason. Get your family, home, taxes in order. Recovery isn't just for your body, but also for your life in general. Everything needs to be ready for the rigors of training.
Foundation - Build your base of strength, aerobic fitness and overall endurance. Lot of miles.
Fitness Systems Prep - Work each system individually to build it: aerobic, lungs, legs, form, race nutrition, mental preparation. Utilize High-Intensity Training (HIT). Re-evaluate your goals. Do mental training to practice shifting your mental focus and using your focus to reach goals. As an example, on a hill do you focus on the whole hill, focus on the next small segment, focus on your breathing, focus on form. Knowing how to control your focus gives you options to conquer challenges.
Racing - The racing season.
Specialization - Specialization training to sprint, ride a century, run track, etc. Do specialization as needed for your discipline.
Peak - The planned culmination of your season when you plan to be your best.

Some other notes:

• The most common mistake is going too easy during your hard workouts and too hard during your recovery workouts. It prevents full recovery which eliminates the progress gained by working at your maximum during hard workouts. Go easy when you go easy. Go hard when you go hard. Use your heart rate monitor to confirm your easy workouts.
  
• You can't train hard all the time and probably much less than you expect. A limitation is the amount of glycogen your body can produce. If you're really, truly going hard - 2 hours per week.
• Strength work only helps if it's at the correct time in your training calendar. Doing individual leg training or heavy weights will not help you during the racing season. Instead, it will leave you with dead legs.
  
• While backdown weeks are needed, Arnie doesn't plan them for his athletes. Instead, when life (or soreness) demands a lighter week, it's not a big deal. No need to stress, we knew there would be some weeks of backdown.
• When you're over training, your family knows before you do. If you're irritable or you go through your entire workout without any joy, then you're over training. If you think you need a day off of training, then you do.
• Plan easy workouts in every week. If you don't, you're likely to have a bunch of mediocre workouts instead of a variation of easy and intense workouts.
• How long you need to taper before a competition is dependent on the activity. Cycling may require only a day or two. Eccentric exercises, such as running, require a much longer taper.

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Second Verse, Same as the First

Long time readers (both of you) may remember that my last tangle with cycling didn't end well. I decided to go back to marathons and I sold my beautiful bike to someone who loves it.

That left me without a bike which was kind of a bummer, because I missed the Team In Training spin classes. TNT spin class is different from spinning at the gym. Classes are held outside and you're on your own bike which is harnessed onto a spin training stand.

For the last few weeks, Steve has been searching Craigslist for a bike for me. Since I'm not doing endurance cycling I decided that I didn't need (or even want) a super-duper-all-carbon road bike. I wanted a solid bike with big fat tires - heavy and stable.

This weekend we found a nice hybrid bike and made an offer. The seller is training to be a professional cyclist which is perfect. Those types of riders take excellent care of their bikes. The bike he listed on Craigslist had been his commuter ride. (He also had a Trek Madone and a yummy Felt Triathon bike.) He was a total sweetheart and threw in spare tires, tubes, a rack and panniers. He also swapped out some pedals for me.

Last night Steve and I hit the TNT spin class. I was having a great time. To wrap up the class, we did some standing spinning. You won't believe this, but a pedal flew off the bike. If you're doing the physics, you can probably imagine how this went. I'm standing on the bike pedals. One bike pedal flies off. I slam down on the bike's top tube. Yep, right on the hoohaa. Ouch.

Sometimes, I think maybe I should stay off bikes entirely.

Updates

After a day of tests the pet emergency room vets were completely confounded by what was wrong with Toby. I took him home and he stumped us all by getting better on his own.

My bout with the croup is almost complete. Other than a lingering cough, I'm good. It's still a bummer since that cough/cold kept me pretty well out of cardio activities and I'm really worried about the half marathon this weekend. Ah, well. I guess I'll suffer on through it.

I did my first TNT Peak Performance Team workout last night. One hour - all core - all the time. That's a full hour of abdominals with only quick breaks for back. Yikes. My abadabas were screaming for mercy.

Man-Torture

Last night as I was at one of the TNT information sessions, I realized that the Peak Performance team starts with a fitness assessment. In less than 2 weeks, someone is going to assess my core strength, flexiblity, etc.

Noooooooooo!

Two years of marathon training has left me with little time to do other gym work, such as core work or weight training. (Excuses, excuses. I could have made time.) My pride decided that a few preparation workouts before my fitness assessment are essential. This morning I grabbed a Pilates DVD from my extensive collection and got down on the mat.

Pilates is tougher than you think. I used to share an office a former Army Ranger. He was a very fit guy and tough as leather. How tough? The man was in a grappling league. When I told him I did Pilates he said, "Pilates! I did that once. They should call that Man-Torture. That Pilates is how they get prisioners to talk."

I used to be good at Pilates - not great, but respectable. Today, I couldn't do one teaser and struggled with jackknifes. Not good news.

The Peak Performance team should be exactly what I need. Twelve weeks of focus on my overall fitness should make me a much stronger marathoner in the long run. (In the long run - I'm punny!)

Why?

We're on a road trip for Steve's bike race. Since I'm not riding, I dropped him off at the start and set out to find a nice run.

As a woman, when I run alone I stay in very populated areas. Finding a relatively safe run here was a challenge. Most of the runs on mapmyrun.com for this area go through some barren locations. That's the problem with runs over 10 miles, it's hard to find a consistently good route.

I picked a route along the shoreline thinking that the beach is always nice. Fail. I ended up in what must be the most yucky beach town on the planet. Running isn't any fun here - lots of missing sidewalk, potholes and cracks, trash on the street and dog dookie on the sidewalks. I'm sure there's something nice about this place, but I'm at a loss to tell you what it might be. There was so much fog I couldn't even see the ocean.

Since mapmyrun has gone to a paid model, you must now pay to print maps. That's pretty much the end of my use of mapmyrun. Their service is adequate, but no better than some of the free services out there. I didn't print a map, but I did memorize a 12 mile route.

It was ugly, foggy and trashy, but I was strong - running hard through the beachside trailer parks. As I was at the midpoint of my run, I noticed that the same black Monte Carlo car was always behind me. After a mile or so, I realize, this guy's not looking for an address. Now we start a game of cat and mouse. I turn in the opposite direction and he takes the next turn and catches up to me. I run slowly; he drives slowly. I run though yards or against traffic, he catches me at the next intersection. Creepy. I finally lost him, but also had managed to get lost - without a map, off my memorized route and somehow on the other side of the canyon and the highway. Getting back to my truck added a few extra miles to my plan. As I got near my car, there he was again. I looked over and there was now a woman in the car with him and she snapped my picture (with flash). Why? Why do you stalk and snap a photo of a stranger running?

You annoy me creepy, cellulite fetish, Chevy Monte Carlo man and your freaky photographer girlfriend. You annoy me.

Spun

Went to spin class. Then went and ate two enormous cookies from the catering tray in the break room.

Like Job in the Desert

Today we did the train run/walk that we planned for 16 miles.

We hopped the Amtrak Surfliner train in Solana Beach and rode to Oceanside. Of course, none of us brought a map and instead we relied on our memory of the course to get us from Oceanside through Carlsbad then Leucadia then Encinitas then Cardiff by the Sea and finally back to Solana Beach.

All was okay until the group got separated, then it was just a wander of looking for each other. This included me backtracking for a mile to try to find everyone. I didn't ever find anyone and plowed along until Noel caught up to me. (And here I had been going as fast as I could because I was sure she and the rest of the crew had passed me.) Noel and I finished together, but she was definitely faster than I was.

All in all I ended up with 17 miles. Soreness may be my companion tomorrow. (Update: Not sore at all. My legs held up fine.)

Lessons learned:

• Today, I carried trail mix and a nutrition bar which was much, much better than just my standard course nutrition of gels and sport beans. A bit of extra solid food really knocked out the bonking problem that I generally have at mile 12 or 13. From now onward, I'm carrying real food for long miles.

• A course that spans five zip codes probably merits a map.

All Aboard

At 6 a.m. this morning, I ran into my friend Debbie at the Solana Beach train station. We were both there to train with our marathon teams. Is there another reason to be at the train station before dawn? She's with Team In Training and I'm with the San Diego Stride.

Debbie once called me the Queen of Mileage, because if there is even a few more feet of training distance available I'll insist on doing it. Today I was actually not running the absolute most mileage available. I decided to limit my run to 14 miles instead of 16. I've been really pushing myself to run more consistently, so it seemed like a good week to go with shorter run. Next week, I'm doing the train run again for 16-17 miles.

It was a good run today, but I started to bonk about 1 mile from the finish. Suddenly I was famished and then nauseated and then back to famished. I did a Gu and some sport beans, but that wasn't enough for 3 hours of running. I need to take a nutrition bar next week.

Of course, it's hard to believe I could possibly be hungry after a week in Las Vegas. The casino may beat me at the slot machine, but I make it up in the buffet line. It was nice to burn through some of the food coma sluggishness of the last week. Today when I was sweating, I'm pretty sure I smelled cream gravy.

Rest Is As Important As Work - Duh!

Saturday I had my worst running performance since I began running. That's not an exaggeration; my legs could not run. After about 2 miles of slow shuffling, I had to walk/run back to my car. I cut off about 3 miles from my planned distance. There were a lot of reasons for my poor showing: dehydration, travel (round trip to San Francisco for a meeting on Friday), crappy nutrition on Thursday and Friday, lack of sleep. However, mostly I was simply over-training for the last week since I was trying to get ready for the San Francisco Half Marathon.

Yep, there were lots of reasons for Saturday's crappy run and I knew it. It was still a real confidence killer just a week before a race. I decided to rest Saturday and Sunday, eat more and gets lots of sleep. Hey, over-training isn't getting the job done. Maybe lying around the house like a slug will help.

Tonight I did my regular run up the 6th Avenue Hill of Panting. It was quite possibly, the best run I've ever done there. It was still tough, but I was able to go further, faster than I have in the past. I also bumped into the TNT walk crew after I finished my run. I joined them for 3 miles their walk, including the camelback hills. I jammed the camelback without even breathing heavy.

Turns out that the coaches are right - backdown is as important training. Rest achieves what over-training cannot.

10 Miles

Who would have thought that there be a beautiful run in San Diego that I'd missed? Today's course was one of the most lovely I've ever run. We started from the city skateboarding park in Ocean Beach (the Hippie Hollow of San Diego) and on through "Dog Beach". Then we went along the coast, out to the end of the pier and on to Sunset Cliffs. I know that I see the coast every week, but this is especially nice coastline - rocky and rugged with great crashing waves and dolphins playing with the surfers.

The course was hilly, but mostly rollers with a few peaks for fun. It was challenging, but not torture. One of the coaches was kind enough to offer to run with me since most of the team is on a taper this week, but I'm going in the opposite direction and needed to increase mileage. I did pretty well hanging with the coach, but she's definitely faster than I am. Also, I faded a lot on mile 8, 9 and 10 while she was able to be more consistent to her pace.

An irritating problem for the final miles was an ouchy friction spot on my inner thigh. I'm out of my favorite running product EVER - Two Toms Sports Shield Liquid. I used to love Body Glide for the prevention of chaffing, but Sport Shield beats it by a mile. With Sports Shield there are no blisters, no chaffing from your sports bra and no upper thigh Chub Rub. Since I didn't have Sports Shield I used something else that was good, but not fantastic. After mile 6, my inner thighs were angry about the friction. Hey, my thighs make me angry when I see them in shorts. I guess we're even.

Overall, more than 10 miles in perfect running weather.

The Technical Term Is Badness

Three miles in the humidity - including my nemesis the 6th Street hill. Not fun, but done.

AFC Half Marathon Preview Run

Tonight we ran the 6th Street hill that is mile 11-12 the America's Finest City Half Marathon. Considering all the miles I've covered around Balboa Park, it's amazing that I missed the 6th Street climb. It's a bugger even though it's only a mile with about 300 feet of elevation.

There are some real corkers in the middle of the climb - spots where it shoots up quickly. It's not nearly the beatdown that mile 6 of the La Jolla Half Marathon, but still tough. Of course, the hill in AFC comes at the end of the run. Hopefully, the long downhill and flat will give me plenty of easy miles before the long climb toward the finish line.


It was hard, but I made it without stopping. I was "running" pretty slowly in parts. Guess what I'll be doing every Monday between now and August 17?