Marathon Training, Week... whatever

Five weeks until race day.

I've neglected blogging something awful, I know.  Luckily, I've only neglected my training a little.

As of my last blog post, I'd just finished my first 12-miler in record time.  The following week I did 10 miles, also in record time, shaving 5 seconds off the pace I'd averaged the week before.  I was feeling awesome about my progress and all that.

And then it got hot.  And I got promoted, which meant my schedule changed and I had to start doing my runs in the morning instead of at night.  When I did my 14-miler the following Saturday morning, things went fine until about, oh, mile 11.  By that time the sun had come out and it was in the upper 80s and my body just... died.  I spent the last three miles dragging myself along the trail at, like, 3mph.  Dying.  I had plenty of water and cramp-buster shot bloks, but none of that mattered.  I'd never tried exerting myself that much in temperatures that high, and it sucked.  But I finished.

The next week was another "easy" 10-miler, but the heat was still a problem.  My pace wasn't good.  I struggled through it.  I was starting to feel pretty down on myself for not being able to keep up in the heat, even though I know it's just a fact that heat decreases a body's ability to function.  Still, it's discouraging.

So the next week I headed out for my first 16-miler, a little unsure of my ability to finish.  I started out strong and tried to stick it out, but after 12 miles it was killer hot again and I knew if I kept trying to push through another 4 miles I'd end up passing out or puking.  So I stopped at 12.  Amazingly, I again made record time, shaving off a full 14 seconds per mile from my best long run pace up to that point.  Still, I was disappointed that I didn't make my distance goal. 

I thought about trying to do 16  miles the next week instead of the scheduled 12, but the heat was even worse and I only made 8.  Okay, I can't totally blame the heat, since I know I could have gotten my ass out of bed earlier to get things done before it got really hot, but I was getting discouraged and really down on myself for "screwing up my training schedule."  Besides that, the new work schedule made it so that Kourt and I couldn't go to the gym together anymore.  I told myself I'd go right after work, but even if I took gym clothes with me I found it far too easy to go straight home instead.  So my weekly workouts have been seriously neglected, and I felt like my failure to keep myself motivated and active was negatively impacting my long runs, and was only exacerbated by the heat wave we've been having. 

So two weeks ago when I headed out for what was supposed to be 18 miles, despite the fact that I was really worked up mentally over the sad state of my training program, I took to the trail absolutely determined to get to at least 16 miles even if it was the slowest 16 miles ever.  I had a later start than I intended, but weather.com said it was only supposed to get up to the upper 70s by noon and that rain clouds should be here by then.

Weather.com lied to me.

I should have known better.  I should have put on sunscreen.  Yes, snow-white-complexion here left the house for an 18 mile run/walk with zero sunblock on.  In capris and a sleeveless shirt.  It was 87 degrees when I hit mile 16, and there was barely a cloud in the sky.  Those 16 miles sucked something awful.  But you know what?  I did it.  I did all 16 miles.  Of course, I spent much of the last several miles of that distance trying to creatively maneuver my shirt to try and minimize the sun damage to my arms, because at that point I knew I was totally fried.  Extra crispy.  The only lucky part was that I'd finally settled on headgear -- a visor -- so my face didn't burn.  But my arms and shoulders and the back of my neck were pretty badly sunburned.  Not to the point of blistering, but still really bad.  And although it looked on the trail like my legs were still paper white, when I got home and took off my running capris it looked like I was wearing red knee socks.  I honestly felt like I could have made the last two miles, but I was afraid of burning any worse.  I've burned to the point of blisters before, and wasn't going to go there again.  As it was, the sunburn took the better part of a week to recover from.

At this point we decided that since we hadn't been working out consistently on our own and hadn't seen our trainer in a while, we'd start seeing him every week to try and get back in a groove.  Despite the few weeks of lackluster effort, my strength hadn't really suffered.  And it felt good to work out and leave feeling like he'd kicked our asses.  So last Sunday morning I headed out for what was supposed to be 12 miles at race pace, thinking I was good to go.  I did remember sunscreen this time.  But still, the heat was unbearable and I only did 8.  And my pace wasn't what I'd hoped.  This time I am chalking it up to the heat, though.  And I was totally pumped to be really good about getting to the gym after work this past week until I went to a potluck at a friend's house Sunday night that ended with Flaming Dr. Peppers and a lot of puking.  It turns out starting the week off with a killer hangover is really, really bad on your body.  The worst of the hangover only lasted a day, but I've not been right ever since.  I've been just... exhausted. 

If there's one lesson this training process has reinforced, it's that it only takes one little hiccup in a plan, one tiny setback, to throw me into a downward spiral of low self-esteem and avoidance.  If I "fail" once, I become afraid that the next attempt will be worse, so I start sitting on my ass to avoid having to face more failure.  This heat and change in schedule and lack of consistency in my training program have made things harder, and the harder they get the more I want to just stop.  I've not been tracking my food (although I haven't gained any weight through this, luckily) and have just felt like a quitter, really.  But I know the pattern, and despite the fact that I haven't been able to shake myself out of it I knew I needed to somehow just jump back in and get in one good workout to prove to myself that all was not lost.

Friday, then, we met with our trainer.  He put us on the assisted pull-up/dip machine, which we haven't used as part of our strength training routine since sometime last Spring.  The last time we used it, we had it up to the maximum weight (which is a counterbalance, so the more weight you put on the machine the easier it makes the exercise) and I could do maybe 5 or 6 pull-ups and 12 or so dips.  He set it at the maximum again, and this time I breezed through 17 pull-ups and 27 dips.  Between sets he had me doing burpees, which I haven't done in a while either and struggled with before, and I was doing them like a boss!  For the first time in over a month, I was reminded how much stronger I am and how much more endurance I have.  I left the gym feeling like I could do anything!

Tomorrow morning I'm slated for 20 miles.  The forecast says the temperature should hold steady in the low 70s pretty much all morning.  I'm going to bed early so I can hit the trail early and avoid as much sun as possible.  I have just over a month to go, and I know I can't let the last month's setbacks continue to affect me.  I'm confident that if I push hard this last month to stick with my training plan, I'll be fine.  I won't have lost as much weight as I hoped by race day, but that's nothing to beat myself up over.  Spilled milk and all that.  I just want to cross the finish line, even if I'm the last one to cross.  And I can't change what's already happened.  No amount of beating myself up over missed miles will make up that lost ground. I can only go forward.

Marathon Training, Week 7

13 weeks until race day.

Had a bit of an injury last week.  Luckily, it wasn't my legs.  We were lifting weights on Sunday afternoon, and I was feeling all, you know, ambitious and strong.  Halfway through my second set of dumbell flys, I let my arms go out a little farther than usual and found myself unable to lift the left one back up and had to kind of twist my arm and drop the weight to the floor.  Immediately I knew I'd strained my tricep.  Initially it didn't hurt much, but by the next day it was pretty sore and on Tuesday it wasn't any better.  Before I started running I wasn't aware of this, but your upper body gets used more than you think when you run, so I held off on my Tuesday run and did it on Wednesday when my arm felt good enough for running but not quite good enough for a tricep workout.  It's all good now.

Friday's long run was my longest distance yet: 12 miles.  Made it in 3:17:20.  Not that I'm racing through my long runs, but I'm pushing myself to the upper end of "comfortable pace."  I was pretty happy with the end time, because that means my average pace was faster than my 8 mile run last week.  So, you know, w00t.

Since I've had a recurring problem with inner arm chafing, I tried wearing a yoga top I have that doesn't have trim on it.  That didn't solve the problem, although it wasn't quite as bad as it has been.  I guess I'm going to have to start experimenting with anti-chafing products, because the last thing I want to deal with on race day is the discomfort of my arm being rubbed raw.  It's not cool.

And I'm also going to have to start paying more attention to keeping up a regular stretching routine.  By about mile 9 my muscles were getting pretty tight.  But the hardest part of the increased distance was the sheer monotony of going around and around the loop 8 times.  I was only on the trail about 20 minutes longer than during my 10-miler, but this time I started to get tired of being out there after a couple of hours.  I'm curious to see if I have the same problem on my upcoming 14-miler.

The hardest part about learning to run

As I was running on the treadmill last night, it suddenly occurred to me why I still feel like running is difficult, even though I'm very quickly gaining endurance.  It's not painful anymore, my stride is a lot more relaxed and natural than it was at the beginning, and it takes me a while to really get out of breath. 

The difference, though, is that when I walk -- even when I walk really hard -- my brain wanders.  As soon as my body finds its rhythm, I don't really have to pay conscious attention to how I'm moving.  I just keep going, and my brain finds other things to do.

But when I'm running, I still have to think about it.  Instead of thinking about the things I need to do when I get home or getting caught up in the lyrics of whatever song is on my iPod or brainstorming ideas for centerpieces for my wedding or deciding what to cook for dinner, my brain has to think about what my legs are doing and remember to relax my shoulders and pep-talk myself over the hills.  I'm very conscious of every step, and I don't get to that point where my brain can wander off and let my legs go on autopilot.  That's where the zen of walking comes from.  I can get so distracted by other things that suddenly I've gone a mile before I realize it. 

Guess I'll just have to keep running until I'm comfortable enough with it that my brain can stop babysitting my body.

Marathon Training, Week 6

14 weeks until race day.

Apparently I'm better at keeping up with weekly workouts than weekly blogging.

We're back on the workout wagon, and things have mostly been going well.  But with all the running I'm doing now, I have finally reached that point where I've noticed the lower body weight workouts are negatively affecting my running ability.  Especially now that we've been doing a more traditional bodybuilding workout, I think it's not been beneficial to try and get my leg muscles to train for two different types of activities at once.  It leaves my legs too fatigued and/or too sore when it's time to hit the treadmill.  So from now until the race I'll be saving my legs for running, but I have and will continue to do my upper body workouts.

I did my 8 miles Friday night alone, as my sister and I couldn't agree on a time to meet to run.  She's not a night person, and I hate the sun.  In the end, I shaved five minutes off my 8-mile long run time, and that was in 90 degree weather.  I'm still wondering when this is going to get really difficult.

My sister has decided, though, that she's not up for a full marathon.  She's planning to do the first part (half?) and then meet me towards the end to see how I'm doing.  So I'm kind of losing my training partner.  In some ways this makes things easier, because now I can do long runs at my own pace.  On the other hand, this means I'll probably be doing the rest of my long runs at Cooper on the 1.5 mile looped trail because I don't want to just head out of town on an isolated trail by myself.  But I'm cool with it.  I was worried at the beginning of this process that I would need somebody to spur me on to keep going with the training and do the long runs every week without skipping, but so far I've not had trouble keeping up, so it's all good.

Marathon Training, Weeks 4 and 5

15 weeks until race day.

Week 4 was, well, weird.  It had nothing to do with training, but it threw me completely out of my game.  Kourt and I have started planning a wedding, and the first part of the week I was consumed in a weird emotional tug of war with my parents over the whole thing.  I wasn't sleeping well and was carrying a lot of stress, and that just makes me really exhausted.  So we skipped on Sunday.  I went by myself and ran that Tuesday and actually did really well.  I managed to get Kourt to the gym to lift weights that Wednesday, but struck a bargain to skip cardio.  By that Thursday we'd kind of resolved the weirdness with my parents, but both our work shifts were pretty demanding so we skipped again.  And then that weekend I had a high school reunion gathering to go to.  It was great, and I didn't let myself skip my 6 mile long run on Friday, but we ate too much and didn't work out at all the rest of the weekend.

Oddly enough, at the beginning of this week my leg muscles were sore.  It took me a bit to realize that it was from walking around downtown in high heels all Saturday night.  I've gotten very unaccustomed to wearing heels on a regular basis.  The reunion events ran through Sunday, so it wasn't until Tuesday that we got back into the gym, and I was actually still sore.  But I ran.  Didn't make it through all the intervals as planned -- I think it was because it had been too long between my last meal and going to the gym.  But I did the whole distance, just not without modifying the interval lengths.

I got to thinking, though, about the whole running vs walking bit.  I'm challenged by running.  Walking just doesn't challenge me anymore.  I've been doing the incline intervals, and those did kick my ass, but Chicago hosts one of the flattest marathon courses ever.  So why not just keep working on my running?

So we've changed up our routine a bit this week.  On Wednesday, we did two of our three weightlifting workouts together, but no cardio.  Then on Thursday we only did cardio, and I ran shorter but faster intervals with longer rests.

Friday, then, Brenda and I met to do a 10 miler.  We started early because she'd started taking allergy meds that make her drowsy and she didn't want to be still out when the sleepiness kicked in.  Plus, we knew 10 miles would take a bit.  Turns out the sun is still pretty high and hot at 5:30.  But I pushed on.  Brenda bailed after mile 3, partly due to the meds and partly due to residual discomfort from physical therapy on her shoulder that morning.  But I kept on going, and made it in under 3 hours, which I consider pretty good considering how freakin' hot it was.  The sun finally set around mile 8, and after that I had a ton more energy to keep going.  And in the end, 10 miles turned out to be not the challenge I expected it to be.  The only problem I had was that there's a stripe on the tank top I wore that is top-stitched onto the shirt and it chafed against the inside of my upper arm.  It didn't leave much of a mark, but it was an annoyance.  Apparently it's time for a wardrobe change.  Next week's long walk is another 8-miler, and then the week after that it jumps to 12.  I'm curious to see how long these runs get before I start struggling.

I was sore, however, on Saturday.  Not so much in my legs, but tiny little muscle twinges in my arms and shoulders.  So we took Saturday as a rest day, and I think that's going to be a practice I continue.  As the long runs get longer, I think my muscles are going to need that extra rest.

Our new plan, then, is to do double weightlifting sets on Wednesdays and Sundays, and runs on Tuesdays and Thursdays (and maybe sometimes Mondays if I'm feeling really ambitious), with long runs on Friday nights until the weather cools down again and we can move them back to Saturday mornings.

Marathon Training, Week 3

17 weeks until race day.

This week went much better than last week.  For starters, it occurred to me that maybe I wasn't consuming enough water for all the hard workouts and hot weather.  It's never been a problem before, but my digestive system has been increasingly stubborn lately, so I decided to see what would happen if I tried drinking more water.  Funny thing, as soon as I did, I dropped a pound a day for three days in a row.  And another one later in the week.  So apparently now that I'm an elite athlete (*snicker*) I need to hydrate like one.

Both Tuesday's run and Thursday's incline walks (with decreased speed on the highest incline) went exactly as planned, so that's two workouts off the checklists.  This Tuesday I'll be going for 3/4 mile running intervals with 1/4 mile walking rests.  And Thursday I'll go for a second successful attack at the inclines. 

Well, okay, exactly as planned except that on my cooldown after Tuesday's run, I tripped on the treadmill.  Kourt was trying to point say something to me, and I leaned too far over to try and hear her and stepped off the belt a bit.  Ended up hitting the emergency stop button on accident, and while I didn't actually fall down, the contortions I went through to stay on my feet were pretty jarring.  As we left the gym I felt just a little tightness in my muscles, but it seemed to go away by the next day.

My sister wasn't available to do our long run on Friday night, so I had to go it alone.  The trail we've been using is a straight out and back, and since it's not lit at night and I wasn't sure what time, exactly, the sun would set, I wasn't comfortable with the prospect of finding myself still two miles out with no light and all alone.  So I went to the park we used to walk at before I started training this time around.  It's lit at night, there's a lot of people around (especially if there are baseball games going on, which is almost every night in the summer), and therefore is a lot safer for somebody running alone.  The downside is that it's a 1 1/2 mile loop, so it can get monotonous.  It's also not flat like the new trail.  There's one hill with about a 23' vertical rise over about an eight of a mile.  Short, but kind of brutal.

The temperature was 86 degrees when I arrived at the park and the humidity was high, but it makes all the difference in the world when the sun isn't also beating down on me.  It made so much difference that I set the goal of running it with the same strategy I'd like to use for the race:  run 1/4 of each mile.  It's easy on this trail, because the distance is marked off in 1/4 mile increments, so I could leave my phone in my pouch and just run to the distance markers.  I managed the whole run, feeling good.  I felt like a runner.  I caught a glimpse of my shadow as I ran around a bend and was kind of impressed:  shoulders back, confident stride.  As the run progressed, though, the uncomfortable tightness in my muscles from the trip on the treadmill came back, and worsened with each mile.  It didn't hurt, per se, so I didn't stop (except to stretch briefly here and there), but it was noticeable.  I stretched thoroughly when I got home and took a rest day on Saturday, and haven't noticed a twinge since. 

But no more trying to talk to me on the treadmill!!!

Miscellanea

1.  I have my race shoes!  I've known from the beginning that one pair wouldn't take me all the way from February to race day, so I've gotten a pair to use on outdoor runs (and then for the race), and my existing pair will be for gym workouts.  I was super excited to see that the ones I've been using were still available to order, although I'm a little bummed that my sister got her pair for about $20 less because she ordered them months ago, but whatever.  I like the way they feel, the pair I have has served me well, so I don't feel bad about paying full price.  And most of all they're so pretty!  All hot pink and neon green! 

Now all I need is a different colored pair of laces, so I know which pair is which.

2.  During my internet down time, I hit another 10-pound weight loss milestone and took more pics.  The odd thing is that between the first pic (210 lbs) and the second pic (200 lbs) I didn't feel like there was a big change in my body, but the pics show noticeable difference.  This time (190 lbs), I feel so much smaller and more toned, and yet it just doesn't read that way in the pics.  But whatever.  Maybe it's the tighter workout pants.

3.  I really thought I had more to write about, but I can't come up with anything else.