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Let’s do this thing… er, things

Let’s do this thing… er, things

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Thanks for the commentary on my earlier post about training plans. I’ve decided to give the Pfitzinger 55 mpw plan a try (from Advanced Marathoning). I’m going into it already with solid mileage, so I think it’s totally doable. I have also heard and read some great things about it (including my training partner who used it and ran his PR), so I’m cautiously optimistic.

In other news, I bought my airfare to Oregon for the Eugene Marathon on 4/28; this s— just got (more) real!

"running in the footsteps of legends"
“running in the footsteps of legends”

Last week ended up being surprisingly high mileage for me–almost 50–and I’ve been feeling great and totally unfazed (and not at all like I just did a marathon on 1/13). I think this is a good sign. I’d like to think I’m smart and experienced enough to avoid committing the TMTSTF mistake–too much, too soon, too fast–but seriously, words cannot adequately describe how energized I am at knowing that what used to be decently high mileage for me not that long ago now doesn’t have the same lasting effects. It’s interesting.

To that extent, a friend–my buddy, Dan, whom I met at Houston and ran with for the majority of the race–and I have been talking about women endurance runners and their performance versus their age, and he sent me this really interesting article about that very topic. Check it out at your leisure (and let me know what you think; I’m curious!).

In other news, Chicago is having freakish weather this week (high in the mid-40s yesterday; high-50s today; and oh, yeah, it’ll be sub-20 tomorrow), so I’m looking forward to taking advantage of some nice temps to run with A today. I haven’t taken her out in a few weeks, thanks to the marathon, said recovery, and then the Siberian temps we had last week. Pics forthcoming…

And finally (short post today), I’m pretty stoked about this 10k race I’m doing at Soldier Field on Sunday. For starters, I haven’t run a 10k since I was about… oh… 14 weeks pregnant (give or take a few weeks), back in late October 2010. I haven’t done a ton of 10ks in the first place, so I’m eager to see what I can do on Sunday with my fitness being what it is now (note: that’s a horribly veiled way of me saying that I want to annihilate… whoa, violent… my PR). It should be an awesome day, between what looks to be decent weather, a friend doing it as his first road race ever (awesome!), and catching up with some other awesome runner friends… lots of pics to follow, for sure.

Let’s go, 2013

Let’s go, 2013

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Again, I blame the travel whirlwind for throwing off my writing game, but I finally got around to doing some math on my mileage for 2012, and the magic number?

1818.98

…miles for 2012.

As much as I can tell, that’s my highest-ever mileage for a single year since I started doing this crazy business in 2007, so that’s kinda cool. (I don’t know what I did in 2007… probably not much, since I had just started; 1500 in 2008; about 1300 and change in 2009; 1543.23 in 2010; not much in 2011 because of the pregnancy).

What makes me even happier (maybe even prouder) is that 2012 was my first full-year of training after having A in May 2011.

Man, doesn't feel that long ago. She's on me here.. and is fewer than five minutes old. Yowza
Man, doesn’t feel that long ago. She’s on me here.. and is fewer than five minutes old. Yowza

I still can’t really truly account for what seemed to *click* physiologically for me in 2012, but hey, I’m not asking many questions. Maybe I should… In the interim, I’ll take it and run (ha ha, HORRIBLE pun) with it 🙂

So, here we are, 2013. What’s up for me this year? Let’s revisit what I said in 2012 and build accordingly.

1. Drop time in 5k and half-marathon: ideally 21 flat 5k and 1:35 half — check and check; I posted a 20:30 at the 5k on Mother’s Day and a 1:35 at the Polar Dash, a 1:33 at F^3, and a 1:35 at the Alpine Races half in Lake Zurich

2. Go sub-3:35 in the marathon — check, went 3:34 at Champaign

3. Rock the NYC marathon on my 29th birthday; it’ll be a 26.2 mile birthday party! — nope, Hurricane Sandy had other plans

4. Do a new race this year: a trail run or an ultra.  Or both… — hmm.. check! Completed Ragnar Madison-Chicago 200 mile relay as part of a team of a bunch of strangers… It was a blast! Totally exhausting but totally fun! (I have a lot of posts about this; here’s where they begin).

5. Be a better cross-trainer (read: begin cross-training, and do it regularly) and start CrossFit to become a more balanced athlete and runner — check! Started CrossFit at Windy City CrossFit in May 2010 and went 1-3x/week through the rest of the year. I think it greatly contributed to my running and overall health and athleticism, and I’m excited to return to it, now that I’m not travelling for six weeks at a time. It’s an ass-kicker to be sure but totally worth it.

6. Seep my running passion into other areas of my life in an effort to make me a better mother, wife, sister, daughter, friend, family member, and human being — this is always a work in progress.

For 2013 then, I want to:

a) stay healthy and injury-free

b) go sub-3:30 in the full (my major goal) and

c) 1:30 in the half. This is very much an ancillary goal. If this happens on my way to realizing point b, awesome. If not, no problem. (that sounds wishy-washy… suffice it to say my focus is on points a and b).

I’d like to drop more time in my 10k, since that was the one of the only distances I couldn’t race in 2012, but it’s not *as* important to me as the marathon.

I guess, now that I’m actually sitting down and writing this out, I’m not really sure what I want to do for 2013. I never imagined hearing myself say that.

I feel cautiously optimistic that I’m not yet fully realizing my potential–wow, that sounds simultaneously ridiculously pompous and also very condescending (like what a math teacher would tell you, ha)–but I’m not really sure. I guess I need to think about this some more.

Some stuff I know I want to do–see the aforementioned points a, b, and c–as well as goals that don’t really carry with them a specific metric; for example, I know I need to continue going to WCCF to get in some much needed strength and agility work, but I’m not really sure if I want to commit to a certain number of times/week… or just let it adapt as my training schedule adapts. I don’t know.

Maybe my 2013 goal is to not have a goal, aside from the big two (points a and b).  I guess I need to think about this some more, after all, and revisit this in, say… March 🙂

At any rate, here’s what’s on the 2013 calendar, effective as of today:

1. Houston Marathon – 1/13/13

2. ChiTown Big Game 10k- 2/1/13 (my first 10k since I was pregnant, whoa)

3. Shamrock Shuffle 8k – 4/7/13

4. Eugene Marathon – 4/28/13 (always a special day; 4/28 was A’s due date)

5. NYC Marathon – 11/13

I’ll likely add more races (halfs, some 5ks, whatever else seems to work) to the mix, but I’m committed to five as of now.

I’m cautiously optimistic that 2013 will be a good year for my running. As I said in my Houston race report, I’m super fortunate to be able to glean a lot of running wisdom from my training buddies and the fine folks at RYBQ, twitter, and dailymile, so I can only hope that it’ll all combine to form the perfect storm of running wonderfulness… one day at a time.