Browsed by
Month: August 2010

A reflection… and some admittance of fear

A reflection… and some admittance of fear

Since the Chicago Marathon is inching closer and closer, I find myself reflecting more on my training these days… and comparing it to that of last summer.  Some things I’ve noticed:

  1. Quality.  This summer’s quality has been much better simply because I’ve been more diligent about mixing it up – going long on the weekends, doing some sort of speed each week (hills, tempos, or 800s), and doing the standard “run how you feel” jaunts.
  2. Quantity.  Thanks to a much more forgiving summer schedule this time around, I’ve had way more time to devote to running.  Last summer, I was in the throes of grad school and consequently juggling FT school, an unpaid, PT internship, and FT employment, so my days were quite long, and only sometimes included running.  I haven’t checked last year’s log to officially know, but anecdotally, I think I’m least a hundred or so miles ahead of where I was last time around.
  3. The enjoyment factor.  Closely related to #1 and 2, I enjoy running when I do it often, in no small part because it is not obnoxiously taxing.  Don’t get me wrong, I love a good challenge, but it’s nice when “easy” runs are actually “easy” and not “death-defying.”
  4. Mixing-up the race calendar.  Like many, I tend to be a creature of habit, and in the running side of my life, this often means doing the same races year in and year out, just for the hell of it.  Since winning the Chicago Athlete contest earlier this year, I’ve been fortunate to not have to pay for many race entries (since I’m mostly only running what they’ve paid for me to run!), and I’ve also ventured out and have tried some new ones like the Sunburst Marathon or the San Francisco Marathon.  I’m still eyeing some other races later this summer and into the early fall, but suffice it to say that variety is the spice of life.
  5. Additional camaraderie.  Last summer, typically Jack and I were chugging out the miles together most Saturdays.  This summer, we’ve added my Boston Bound buddies to the group, and this additional camaraderie has been great.  Now I have a whole group of people to keep me accountable and on my toes (especially during speedwork!).   Running with a core group of buddies has also been fabulous during the summer because even though there will almost always be someone unavailable to run (due to vacation, work, whatever), chances are, there will almost always be at least someone ELSE who’s willing to run at 5:30 a.m. on a Saturday to beat the Chicago humidity 🙂 Kristin Armstrong, over at Runner’s World, recently articulated these very same sentiments as she wrote about how humbling it is to train—hard—alongside running friends.  I encourage you to check it out here.

It’s a bit exciting, and also slightly terrifying, to think that we’re <50 days to the Chicago race.  I say “exciting” simply because that’s what I think races are—usually, tons of fun, and a great way to explore a city (be it your hometown or just somewhere you’re visiting for the week)—but also “slightly terrifying” in that, at this point, I’m about 90% certain I want to go for it and hit 3:35 this time around.  3:35 seems doable, given my training this summer, but is still a good 2 minutes faster than my marathon PR… which is enough to make me second-guess this… but if we don’t push ourselves outside our comfort zones, we don’t know what we can accomplish, right?

On that note, I’ll leave you with a few bits of sage wisdom that I’ve read lately that resonate with this “hunkering down” portion of my fall training schedule:

“You have to wonder at times what you’re doing out there. Over the years, I’ve given myself a thousand reasons to keep running, but it always comes back to where it started. It comes down to self-satisfaction and a sense of achievement.”

&

“A race is a work of art that people can look at and be affected in as many ways they’re capable of understanding.”

–Steve Prefontaine

“You only ever grow as a human being if you’re outside your comfort zone.”

–Percy Cerutty, running coach (courtesy of RW’s “Daily Kick in the Butt” email from 8/24/10)

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

I’m now officially over the hump.  It feels good to say that now, since we just closed out week 10 of Higdon’s Advanced – I marathon training program.  Last week I was just shy of 48 miles for the week and closed out over 1,100 miles for the year.  And we still have another good 7 or so weeks of training before I put it all out there and pursue that 3:35 at the Chicago Marathon.  Terrifying to articulate, and especially in as transparent a venue as this blog, but hey… it’s part of the goal-pursuit process, no?

Along those lines, I’m finding that I’m sleeping a lot these days – at least 9 hours a night.  When it doesn’t happen, usually on Friday nights because I choose to wake up so early on Saturday to avoid the August heat and humidity, I’ll get up to run, then have breakfast afterward and shower, and go back to sleep for a couple hours.  Same thing for Sunday, more or less.

I consider myself extremely lucky to be able to sleep this much, and as well as I am, because the literature out there suggests that there’s a good connection between sleeping, training, and weight management.  This Running Times article from a couple years ago talks in pretty good detail about what happens to our bodies during our sleep and underscores how important it is to get in a good night of interrupted sleep—and especially so for marathoners (and runners of all distances, really).  Likewise, this Runners’ World UK write-in question talks about the possible ways that running can affect our sleep patterns, and this concise about.com article quickly makes the connection between running and weight management.

When I started marathoning in 2007, I effortlessly got up to run my long runs on Saturday, and then proceeded to go about the rest of my day without a nap.  How I managed to do that befuddles me.  Elite runners often work a daily couple-hour-long nap into their days as part of their training regimes.  While I don’t have that luxury, I don’t mind taking the time to nap on the weekend, especially when I’ve spent a couple hours churning out the miles.

I know some people can operate on fewer hours of sleep and still run as well and as often as they’d like… but at this point, I’ve learned that I’m just not one of those people 🙂