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November 2018 training recap and pre-CIM thoughts

November 2018 training recap and pre-CIM thoughts

Goodbye, penultimate month of 2018, and hello December (and very soon, CIM).

Staring down both the final month of what has turned out to be a weird-as-hell year, in addition to the last few days pre-marathon, makes for a great existential exercise. It’s just bizarre how both fast and slow this year has gone by. It doesn’t seem like the SF Marathon was all that long ago, but here we are, an entire other marathon training cycle behind us, and the Big Day is greeting us all on Sunday with open arms to come and get it.

blurry pic, blurry month. deep!

November is always a sentimental month for me, between my birthday, my wedding anniversary, and Thanksgiving, and this year was no different. I celebrated my 35th birthday by having (wait for it) … a baseline mammogram! Thirty-five is a pretty young age to get your knockers smooshed between a vice, but my family history sorta necessitated it (grandma’s diagnosis was at 65 and mom’s at 55, though nope, extensive genetic testing shows that we don’t have BRCA1 or 2). It wasn’t painful or anything — uncomfortable and kinda weird, sure — but I think I’d take that any day over another MRI of my head. ::shudders::

first mamm, first pair of specs. hello, 35.

My in-laws visited at different points of the month, which was quite lovely, so C and I were able to get out for some nice quality time a bit, too.

anniversaring at the Mystery Spot in Santa Cruz

And in keeping with our every-other-year tradition, the fam bam and I spent Thanksgiving with all our favorite Disney friends in Anaheim. On the whole, it was a good month.

we’re going through that awkward stage where G sorta kinda always smiles like a bulldog

 

I *almost* had it. Sorta.

 

fambam wide-angle selfie at Disneyland

And then, of course, everything went to hell once the wildfires began. The Camp Fire, nearest to us here in the Bay Area, was still a good 200+ miles away, but holy hell did it wreak havoc on our air quality for nearly two solid weeks. The destruction and devastation that inferno brought further field, up north, seemed purely apocalyptic, and for days, every.single.time I read the news updates about it, I just wept out of powerlessness.

It was so profoundly sad and tragic, and strangely, though the towns most affected by the fire were pretty small in population, numerous friends of mine here knew someone, personally, who lived up there and who lost their homes. So many lives lost and so much property destroyed; knowing what the AQ was like here, so far away from it, I cannot fathom how bad it must have been in the immediate surroundings. It hurts my heart.

With the AQ tanking for nearly two weeks, naturally, my running in November took a hit; that was to be expected. Instead of closer to 200+ that I would have likely posted, I was closer to 158. No matter. Shit, for two weeks, all types of outdoor events were cancelled or postponed multiple hours north and south of us, including a couple of A’s swim meets and the PA XC championship race. It’s pretty hard to complain about not being able to run outside for a while knowing how devastating and damaging the fire was to so many people’s lives. I mean, that goes without saying. A little perspective goes a long way.

In the wake of the fire, I missed a couple long runs — a 22 miler and a 14 — because I wasn’t keen to do them on treadmills out of trepidation more than anything; running that long on a treadmill relatively close to my goal race wasn’t a calculated risk I was comfortable taking. Fun fact: prior to the Camp Fire, I hadn’t run on a treadmill since I was pregnant with A back in 2011 (it was the day of the “Groundhog Day blizzard”), mostly because I don’t like how broken my body feels after running on them.

Way back in the day, like over a decade ago, when I first began training for marathons, I used to run on treadmills a lot, and it never bothered me. Then, for whatever reason, something happened, and anytime I ran on a treadmill, afterward I just felt like absolute garbage, like every part of me just felt broken. The remedy: never run on a treadmill again. Always run outside or don’t run at all. Done.

treadmilling with some teammates and not impressing anyone with my “countries of the world in alphabetical order” trick (PC: Janet)

The unsafe AQ during the Camp Fire meant that if I wanted to run at all, I had to suck it up and hope for the best on the ‘mill and just do what I could. Fortunately, by Thanksgiving, the rain arrived and helped to send the trapped, smoke-filled air out to sea. Right around that time, the fire had been fully contained, and our skies have since returned to their lovely hue.

Anaheim running over Thanksgiving and just being thrilled to see blue skies for the first time in nearly two weeks

So here we are, right before CIM, my second go at this particular race. When I compare notes from last year’s CIM training to that of 2018, it’s almost laughable how different everything is and importantly, how different (read: how much better) I feel this time around. That, by itself, is a huge win to me.

The tl;dr version: last year, for an indeterminate amount of time, my liver was fucked, though we didn’t learn about it until my birthday in early November, a month before the race, at my annual physical. I was running hard and training hard last year, but post-SF marathon, I felt pretty bad — extremely fatigued — a lot. When it was all said and done, my then-GI determined that I was likely experiencing a rare-but-documented side effect to the medicine he had prescribed me for my microscopic colitis (which, another fun fact, my current GI doesn’t believe I have. Cool).

I went into CIM ‘17 hopeful for a great weekend, trusting in my training but unsure about how my body was going to respond (thanks to that excessive, suffocating fatigue and all). Just a couple weeks prior to CIM, I debated whether running it would be a good idea because I had felt so awful during a half marathon; how in the world was I going to run twice the distance and faster!?! Magically, I managed to eke out a three-second PR at CIM, despite feeling like just about everything was stacked against me for the better part of the quarter. (In addition to my liver nonsense, during that quarter, my husband had pretty bigtime surgery and was recovering from it; my eldest’s teacher up and quit before the first month of school was over; yadda yadda yadda. When it rains, it fucking pours!). Anyway. Three seconds in a marathon isn’t much, but to have pulled that off despite the shitstorm that was September-November ‘17 just floored me. It was hard not to laugh at the sheer absurdity of it all.

from CIM ’17. my heart swells with love for Connie and Meg (PC: Meg’s IG)

 

This is minutes before the end of the race, and I look like I’m talking about dinner plans. What the hell, self!? (I remember working very hard here, as hard as it may be to believe from the photographic evidence!) So fun that Tiffany picked me up at mile 21 and ran me in dressed up like a slice of pepperoni (PC: CT)

 

and my heart swells for my team. lots of love to these harriers. since CIM is the US marathon championship race and on the PA circuit, there will be lots of us out there again on Sunday. (PC: WRC)

Regardless of the time I post on Sunday, race day, race weekend is going to be excellent. 

Anything can happen, — alas, that’s the exhilarating and heartbreaking speciality of the marathon — but I know that the totality of my training has prepared me.

I am immensely looking forward to toeing the line with tons of friends from all over the country and to seeing friends on the sidelines, too.

What great joy and fortune we all have to be physically capable of doing this hobby for no real reason other than because we can.

seriously, we are so lucky and fortunate

It’s so, so easy to romanticize the marathon, to think that this brutal distance somehow owes us something after we’ve committed weeks and months of our lives to it. The fact of the matter is that this distance isn’t for the faint of heart. It owes us nothing, though we (I) may feel like we (I) owe it quite a lot, in fact.

It is through training for this behemoth distance — training to not only cover the distance, period, but also to cover it as quickly as we can possibly sustain — that we are given numerous opportunities to learn about ourselves and our capacity for growth, change, you name it. A lot goes down, both mentally and physically, in all those training and racing miles we post in advance of The Big Day. 

For being something intangible, something inanimate, something insentient, this distance sure makes for a powerful teacher.

It’s something for which I am profoundly thankful.  

who knew that one foot in front of the other, repeatedly, for very long distances, as fast as you can possibly sustain, could be such a game-changer

When it comes down to it, the marathon will test every ounce of us and expose any vulnerability we have.

We will have superb patches, miles where we’re convinced that we’ve got so much latitude still to work with and tricks in our belt to pull out.

And like that, practically without fail, there will also be patches that are just insufferable and that leave us grasping for anyone, anything, to help us and save us from this self-imposed tribulation.

It’s likely that we won’t understand why we do this in the heat of the moment, but when we finish, we will.

The reasons, the meaning, will be crystal clear.

We’ve trained for all of these moments, all this facilitative stress. / let’s go

Trust yourself and in your training. / it’s there

Believe in the process. / journey > destination

—–

Racing: The only November race on my plan originally was the XC champs, but it got postponed a week because of the fire. The new, postponed date was just after Thanksgiving, once we returned from Disneyland. I wanted to do a LR after not doing one for two weeks, so I didn’t partake after all (sad face). Also, belatedly, I received a very nice award from the BSFM for placing fifth in my AG at that race in July. (Quite unexpected that they created awards five deep, but many thanks!).

Reading: I re-read Peak Performance this month and finished reading The Sun Does Shine, which was very powerful and very, very disturbing. 

Listening: Nothing out of the ordinary here, though I enjoyed binging on just about every NYC Marathon-related podcast I got my hands (ears?) on. Man, I love NYC. Maybe I’ll go back one day… Oh, and I recently rediscovered my love of Juanes. Lots of Juanes.

Watching: Again, nothing comes to mind here except for when the fam and I saw Ralph Breaks the Internet right after Thanksgiving. C and I are going to start listening to this podcast about the top 100 movies of all time … or something … and then watch the movies they talk about, but it’ll probably take me decades to make it through the first five at the rate I watch movies.     

Running: I’m queueing up my 2019 racing schedule… what’s on your list?!

Speedy vibes, fellow CIM racers!!!

 

December 2017 training recap

December 2017 training recap

It shouldn’t take too long to talk about December’s running and training simply because there wasn’t too much of it. With the big goal race being CIM on the first Sunday of the month, December played out like this: race CIM, reverse taper, go to Mexico with family, and then come home and do the holidays. In a nutshell, December was simply race and then r&r like a boss. It has been great.  

As I wrote about in detail earlier in the month, CIM was excellent. How I managed to squeak out a tiny PR — 3 seconds is like a literal blink of an eye in a marathon — still kinda blows my mind and makes me laugh out loud, but a PR is a PR is a PR. I’ll (gladly, enthusiastically, gratefully) take it. Honestly, I’m pretty proud of how I raced that day, and I’m confident that I’ll be able to race it more strategically in ‘18. That’s how the marathon hooks you; as long as you think there’s room for improvement, there’s always a reason to return to the distance. I’m so happy that Lisa took a chance with coaching me, especially given my crazy quarter, and I’ll be working with her again in ‘18, too. We’ve got something good going. 

CIM cruising. Sadly, those Hokas destroyed my feet. (PC: CT/WRC)

Post-race my body felt great, which makes me suspect that I had more left in the tank than I realized, which is pretty frustrating but just fans the flame for future 26.2s. I began running again (leisurely) shortly post-race, but as the month wore on and we began the holiday break, running took a backseat to travel and family/holidays stuff. In terms of mileage volume, December was my lowest by far of 2017 — 88 — but I welcomed it.

change of scenery for mid-December

The other, rather shitty highlight of December was when my girls and I had a big scare when we were run-ride commuting home from school right before break. To make a long story short, we were *this close* to being hit by a car. We were all standing at a crosswalk — me pushing G in the stroller, A on her bike, around 2:45 pm on a beautiful, sunny December day — and car 1 stopped at the crosswalk and gave us ample clearance to proceed. Another car (car 2) pulled up behind car 1, and car 2 also stopped, with a good clearance between her car and car 1. I should have begun to go by then — both cars were stopped, the drivers saw us (and I saw them) — but for whatever reason, I didn’t. It was serendipitous, too, because car 3 came hurtling down the road and slammed into car 2 — who then slammed into car 1 — with the end result being a pretty horrible-looking three-car pile-up, eventually accompanied by cops, an ambulance, and a fire department (and a shit-ton of profanity, tears, and a near brawl between car 2’s driver and the mother of car 3’s driver).

What’s most terrifying is that there’s not a doubt in my mind that had my girls and I begun to cross the street when we should have — that if we were mere two or three bars (like four-five feet) into the crosswalk — one, if not all three, of us would have been hit and badly (if not fatally) maimed. It was very scary, and I’m glad my girls and I were ok and that the drivers walked away from it (though driver 1 and 2 went to the ER due to neck pain, AFAIK). Rationally I realize that running or riding anywhere, but particularly on city streets, always carries with it an inherent sense of risk and danger, but man, it is absolutely scary how fast one person’s lapse in judgement can change your life.  

this was Car 3, the one who didn’t stop and consequently plowed into stationary Car 2 (who then hit Car 1, who would have hit us). Scary stuff for sure.

 

coincidentally, I just spotted a Vision Zero sign on my run a couple days ago, just about 1.5-2 miles from where we were almost hit.

I’ll soon write a 2017 overview that will highlight my running from the past 12 months. I’m still trying to figure out what I’d like to accomplish in 2018, so I think writing out my thoughts will help me clarify my ideas (or more likely, further confuse me, but hey, hope for the best, right?).

Have a fantastic (and safe) new year, friends. XO

—–

Reading: HRC’s What Happened was excellent, and I cried a lot while reading it, which was rather unexpected. Hillbilly Elegy was also interesting and one that I’d probably recommend. I started The Evolution of Beauty but haven’t gotten very far into it yet, though I’ve read that it’s fascinating. Apart from books, this multi-part NYT read about addiction is pretty eye-opening. And, of course, I can’t go another month without loving another tirade about the nonsense that is #eatclean.

Listening: There were so many breakthrough performances at CIM, and I’m pretty sure the entire running internet world was rooting for Kris Law and celebrated alongside her when she notched her OTQ. Hearing her interview with Lindsey on Lindsey’s podcast was really awesome. I’m so happy for her. 

Watching: My family and I have been (very slowly) working our way through all of Star Wars in episode order, and we finally got our shit together and finished it right after Episode 8 came out. I don’t think I had ever seen The Empire Strikes Back or Return of the Jedi until a couple days ago, and man!! They are so good!! (I still haven’t seen episode 8, so keep the spoilers to yourself!). Oh, and related: this new Bad Lip Reading video, Hostiles on the Hill. I kinda love hearing my kids sing “I wish I wasn’t so dang sweet, so dang sweet, so dang sweet,” hahaa. 

Doing: Lots of family time, thanks to a two-week holiday break (a week+ in Mexico with my parents, sister and her family, brother and his, and my own), followed by a week here for Christmas. Not a ton of running during the holidays this year — fairly atypical for me — but it was a nice change of pace.

dark picture, boo, but the one time of year when we’re all together, so yay