Run Long, Travel Strong!

10 years ago • 1 Comment • Motivation, My Running

20080804-DSC_5341-001 — Greg and I on a dinner tour of the Seine in 2009.

I’m excited because for the first time, EVER, I’m going to spend a weekend in a beautiful city as a running tourist!

Greg is going on a business trip, and on his way back he connects through Paris where I’m meeting him for a few days, no kids. (YIKES!) We’ve been together once before, our last vacation as a couple before I became pregnant with Will. I loved it. It was beautiful. Heaven for someone with my appreciation of champagne and baguettes.

Before we had children, back when I wasn’t a runner, of my least favorite things about traveling was how tired I would get. It was hard to be on my feet all day sight seeing. Even with breaks for leisurely meals, walking the city and the museums most of the day took a toll on me.

Now, that I can run for 2 hours and 17 minutes without stopping, I can handle being on my feet for more of the day. Think of how much I’ll see on a 5-7 mile run along the Seine, soaking in Parisian culture and architecture. I’ll see so much more than I would on a two mile walk. And I’ll probably still have enough energy for a 10 mile bike ride in the afternoon!

I can’t wait to put on my running shoes and experience Paris on foot. Then I can’t wait to rent a Velib bike and experience Paris by bicycle! The beautiful Bois de Bologne, is only a few miles from our hotel.

Living an active lifestyle will have real-world rewards when I hit Paris. My endurance training for half marathons will translate not just to seeing more of Paris, but having the energy to enjoy what I’m seeing. The thought of wandering the Louvre for a few hours won’t make my legs want to cry. They can handle it.

I can’t wait to take this new body on vacation and see how much life it can enjoy.

20080804-IMG_2021 — I remember how tired I was in this photo. Look at my posture, and how defeated I look. Look at how many stairs I have left. Think it’ll be different now that I’m a half-marathoner? I do.

The First Run After A Big Race

10 years ago • 2 Comments • My Running, Running Thoughts

It’s a beautiful time of year to run in no particular hurry!

I love the first run after any big race, because there’s no pressure. You’ve run your big event. There’s no pressure to go fast, or far, you’re just there to ease back into your running routine. You can go wherever you like, as fast or slow as you like, as long or short as you like.

It’s beautiful, and it helps me remember what I love about running.

You might wonder why, if I enjoy this running freedom, I train for races at all.

One benefit is that the weeks of training make me appreciate the weeks that I’m not training, and vice versa. I like having some running months where I’m taking it easy because it’s winter, some where I’m pushing hard towards a goal that I’m excited about, and some where I’m just enjoying the beautiful fall weather with as many miles as I feel like.

I’ve also noticed that I enjoy running after a big race more because I have the endurance I’ve built during my training, but I’m running fewer miles. Suddenly, instead of pushing hard each week, I’m running more than I would have before my training but it’s easier. You don’t feel the benefits of all your training while you’re still training, because you’re working close to maximum capacity and doing more each week. It’s not until after the race when you head out for a casual run that you realize it’s easier than it used to be.

I used to be nervous the first run after a big race. After all, you taper your mileage before the race, so it feels like you’ve kind of quit running, then you recover after the race, which feels like you quit running, and suddenly you’re out going for a run with no purpose or schedule telling you what to do.

It feels strange!

But it’s incredibly freeing, too.

Happy racing – remember to use those new legs after you recover! You’ve earned them 🙂

Maine Half Marathon! Race Recap

10 years ago • 9 Comments • 13.1 Training, My Running

I completed my fourth half marathon! It was a perfect day, with temperatures in the mid-fifties and partly cloudy for most of the race.

Race day strategy: My goal was to head out at my PR pace (around 10:30) and try to pick it up the last few miles if I felt good. Mostly, I was chasing a feeling – I wanted to run strong for the entire race without having to walk. I never walked, although I did stop to drink water at three water stations (I find it just spills everywhere if I run with it, and I am in the way of other runners if I try to walk). Coming into the finish, I thought I was set up for a PR (under 2:16:12) but I hadn’t mathematically adjusted quite enough for the two slow miles I had (with water stops and hills, averaging in the 10:40s for pace) and for the fact that it’s a long course.

13.1 – more like 13.27! Since there are lots of curves and turns, if you’re not running tangents and hitting every corner using the shortest distance to get there, the Maine Half Marathon race course is more than 13.1 miles. My Garmin said I ran 13.27 miles, and that extra .17 cost me some time. It meant the difference between averaging 10:24 pace according to my Garmin vs. 10:31 pace according to my official race results. My time was 2:17:49. I’m happy with that!

I’m learning to pace myself: The good news? I worked hard, and I couldn’t have worked much harder without jeopardizing my ability to finish the race. After crashing at mile 7 of my 3rd half marathon in June, it was really important to me to pace myself and finish the race strong. Racing long distances means finding the balance between working hard enough to finish with no reserves, and not working so hard that you don’t finish. Could I have run a faster race without needing to walk in the last three miles? I’ll never know. But when I woke up at 3:45 this morning to take Advil because my legs hurt, I felt pretty confident that I nailed this race in terms of putting in just enough effort to make it to the finish line on empty.

I’m going to be honest – I didn’t pick it up much until the very end, when Greg came to run me in towards the finish and I could see all my amazing spectators.

Spectators: My in-laws got up at 5:30 a.m. to drive us over to the starting line and watch us race. My parents and my sister watched Will & Andrew overnight (so we could sleep at my in-laws and get rested!) and drove them over to the finish line where they saw both of us finish. (Including the 45 minute wait in between!) My brother and his wife and their two year old and 3 month old came over to watch also! It was a pretty impressive turnout, and I felt grateful that all of these people supported us enough to drive over and stand in the wind and wait for us to cross the finish line. It’s a pretty big deal to me, still, that I’m able to run a half marathon, and it meant the world to me to have ELEVEN people waiting to see me finish! (Ok my youngest niece slept through most of it and MAY not have seen me finish.) What a joy 🙂 It made it very worth traveling to my home state to run! I really had 12 spectators, because Greg’s brother watched us on the course just after the halfway point! I was really touched that he waited to see me go by, because he had to stand at that spot for half an hour after Greg passed him to see me go by. I was so excited that as I ran by him I shouted “I’m running the race! I’m running the race!” He agreed that I was, in fact, running the race.

Greg finished in 1:31:00, 54th overall out of 1977 people and 10th in his age category. He’s amazing and inspirational, and it still cracks me up that I’m actually running the same race he is, regardless of how much longer it takes me.

Will and Andrew watch with my mother in law as Greg runs me towards the finish.

I like to look forward to a shower and a beer after every big race – it’s a ritual I love to think about at mile 12!

Why I probably won’t sign up for a half marathon next fall

10 years ago • 5 Comments • 13.1 Training, My Running

My last few weeks of half marathon training before I taper have been a challenge! Will’s school teachers caught a nasty cold virus that led to respiratory problems, and they were short-staffed enough to close for two days last week… so I unexpectedly missed a long run that I’d scheduled for Friday morning. I moved it to Saturday, but didn’t get out of bed in time, so decided I’d go Sunday. Sunday rolled around and there were thunderstorms when I was supposed to be running 10 miles outside, so I ran 2 miles on the treadmill and folded laundry and cleaned the house while the babysitter was there instead. I needed to get caught up, because Greg was gone on business and wouldn’t be back until late Tuesday night! On top of having him gone, Will’s school had reopened but Will and Andrew had colds and couldn’t go. No running Monday morning, either.

I could have done better at shifting my schedule to accommodate these changes than I did. But it’s hard to spend all my free time running, and watch the house deteriorate around me, and my resiliency fade because I’m running when I could be sleeping.

It was exhilarating, exciting, and challenging when I made these types of sacrifices to train for my first half marathon. It’s draining and unsustainable making these sacrifices month after month to train for my fourth half marathon.

I’m not ANYWHERE close to giving up running, but I think there’s a strong chance that I’ll train for a 10k next fall, instead. Or perhaps run just the Chilly Half Marathon in November, which would give me a little extra time in the fall while the boys are in school to prepare.

I post these thoughts not to complain, but because it’s worth examining whether running half marathons is something that works well and adds value to my life right now. I’m not sure it is. I think fitting an hour long run in instead of a two hour run makes a huge difference to the amount of time required. It’s the difference between making it back in time to join the boys for breakfast on a weekend, or squeezing the run in while they’re at school and still having time to grocery shop. It’s not inconsequential.

I talked to another mother runner about this recently, and she actually trained for a MARATHON after her first child was born. She was nursing at the time, so she would run 10-12 miles, come back, nurse her daughter, and then run 5 more miles on the treadmill. It was an amazing accomplishment, and she’s an incredible woman! But she said that afterwards, it was a relief to be off a training schedule.

When you’re training for something, you’re supposed to run speed workouts on a specific day, you schedule your long run for when you can do it, which might not be when you WANT to do it.

She said it was a huge relief after the race to once again be able to decide what she’d do after putting her running shoes on. What do I feel like doing today? Speed workouts? A few miles easy to clear my head? The freedom to just keep going and turn a 5 mile run into an 8 mile run because you FEEL like it sounds amazing.

I’ve never run 8 miles because I felt like it. I’ve always run those miles because I was training for an event and the schedule told me to.

Maybe I just wouldn’t do it… but I’d love to think I would, and it’d be for me, not for the race, and it’d be beautiful.

In the meantime, I’m squeezing in whatever mileage I can, and taking full advantage of the beautiful fall weather to get the boys outside, doing some exercising of their own! Long walks, biking in the driveway, and hiking through the local trails. Doesn’t get better than that!

Think about your race schedule. Is it motivating you, or taking over your life? If you’re also having trouble training for distance events, a 5k or a 10k might be a good solution for you, too. After all, people run 50 miles per week training for 5ks if they’re going for speed! But you can manage a 5k running only 10 miles a week. It allows you to do as much or as little as brings you joy, starting with a base that’s enough miles to keep you healthy, and going above that when you have the time or it brings you pleasure.

Because anything above 10 – 15 miles a week isn’t really necessary for good health… so make sure you’re enjoying it!

Why Track Repeats Are Great For Beginners

10 years ago • 4 Comments • My Running

This summer I fell in love with track repeats. I’d done intervals before on the road, running faster for a quarter or half a mile, and then recovering.

But it’s not the track. Nothing’s like the track.

It’s a spiritual feeling when you walk onto the track. Every time I’m there, I remember the laps I’ve run before. It’s as if all the time in between track repeats fades away, and all that exists, all that’s important, is me and the track.

It feels like a sanctuary. I know when I enter that I’m about to work hard, lay it all down, feel the burn, leave feeling accomplished. I know when I’m at the track, it’s because I’m going to run hard enough to think of nothing else but the running. No blog posts will be born. No meals planned. No to-do lists prioritized. I will run, I will burn, I will BECOME running, because there will be no room for anything else.

The track has a magical quality of making me run harder, faster, longer. There are no excuses. No stop lights, no hills, nothing but cushy, uninterrupted track and the calmness of knowing that if I push too hard, I am never more than an eighth of a mile from the gate. That security, knowing I can quit at any time and not be too far from home, keeps me from quitting. I have my safety net, and it makes me fly.

I wish I had used the track when I first started running. I was too nervous, I felt too fraudulent. The track was for RUNNERS, and I was just starting the couch to 5k. I felt queasy and sweaty and like I was going to get yelled at for trespassing the first time I stepped onto the track. (One it’s ok for me to use, by the way.)

It took some time, but the track has become a surface I’ve run too many times not to belong. I absolutely leave the inside lanes for other, faster runners when they’re there. I don’t worry at all what they think when they run by me, because I’m THERE, and that’s what matters to me.

The track is a beautiful place for beginners because it’s a flat, cushioned surface that reduces impact and strain when you’re first learning to run, and because it’s a great place to work on your speed or up your distance knowing that you can slow down or stop at any time without being further from home than you wanted.

If you want to run between four and 6 miles, making the last two of those miles track repeats means you can stop exactly when you want to, without needing to use a treadmill. That’s pretty fantastic if you’re adding distance for the first time.

The track is where I ran my fastest mile (7:45, what’s up NOW!). It’s where I ran my fastest quarter mile, half mile, and three quarter mile. It’s where I’ve found the power to work hard for just a LITTLE longer, never worried that I’ll do too much, because I’m always so close to the gate home.

You know how you can eat an entire bowl of popcorn just by doing it a little at a time? Well the track is like that. Just one lap at a time, manageable, manageable, manageable… and then you add it up and realize that shoot… you’re awesome.

Check out this beginner’s guide to track workouts from Runner’s World to get started! If you aren’t up to their recommended mileage base, you can use the track to add distance or work on your base, first.

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