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A reflection… and some admittance of fear

A reflection… and some admittance of fear

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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)

Bah-stun 2010 … revisited

Bah-stun 2010 … revisited

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The past week or so has been quite the whirlwind.  Pre-Boston, work was hoppin’; we signed a new lease and knew that we’d have tons of move-related stuff to do; and did I mention that the thesis is still under construction?  Oh yeah, and we went to Bah-stun for a little vay-cay and so I could run my 13th marathon on 4/19.  And since we returned to Chitown on 4/20, we’ve had all the aforementioned tasks ahead of us, times a million (or so it seems).

::exhale::

Well, as my previous abbreviated post indicated, the vay-cay and the race were equally awesome and much better the second time around.  The weather was pretty lackluster for Friday-Sunday, which made for some creative “what can we do that doesn’t require romping around outdoors?” plans.  From seeing KickAss (awesome!), to doing a DuckTour (amazing!), and then discovering an ancient Egyptian Tomb over in Fenway (5W!ts = loads of fun), it was a ball.  The pre-race dinner with the FF BB group was lovely (thanks, Filippo’s, for accommodating my no-meat-no-cheese-nothing-fried wishes), and come Sunday night, I actually got a healthy amount of sleep.

This year’s Boston experience was similar in some ways to last year’s.  The FF BB group also chartered a private, bathroom-laden bus out to Hopkinton, so we had the luxury of chillin’ on it for several hours pre-race.  Unlike last year, I actually ate quite a bit pre-run, so I think that (and the sleep factor) got me off to a good start …

Here, I’ll mention that I really despise reading running-related blogs when the author recounts every single mile split, or tree, or child, or whatever she saw on the course.  I’d rather pluck my eyeballs out than read that stuff.  That said, I’ll spare you the mile-by-mile details (especially since you know the ending already!) and list what I think, in one way or another, contributed to my improved performance.  (I bested last year’s Boston time by 7 minutes, didn’t crash and burn, and managed to BQ for 2011 by the skin of my teeth… not that my skin have teeth, but whatev):

  1. Food: I already mentioned that I consumed a fair number of calories pre-race.  During the race, I threw my fear to the wind and took oranges, bananas, popsicles, and maybe a couple other food items from perfect strangers.  I still ingested water and Gatorade, but I barely made it through 1 gel since I instead ate the “real food” that was available.  I think this kept my energy levels high and allowed me to stay one-step-ahead of depleting my glycogen stores.  (Seriously, the course is like a traveling buffet and could put Old Country Buffet to shame.  There’s a lot of food out there).
  2. Pacing: Experience is the best teacher out there.  Last year taught me to a) slow the fuck down for the first 16 miles and b) be patient.  For much of the first 16 miles, I didn’t hit my exact splits, sometimes missing them by as much as 20 seconds (plus or minus).  I’d begin to mentally fret for a second before I remembered that the hardest was yet to come (miles 16-21) and that whatever I “lost” by not hitting right on, in the beginning of the course, would more-likely-than-not be to my advantage later in the race.  Learning how to pace Boston is something that, I think, only really comes from running the course at least once before.  Again, experience is the best teacher out there.
  3. HAVING FUN: Taking food and drinks from strangers is probably only socially acceptable on race courses… a bit dangerous, sure, but fun as hell.  I’ll take a sugary popsicle over a gel any day of the week.  Giving high-fives to all the kids on the course also makes running 26.2 miles willingly a bit more entertaining.  The kiddos think you’re a celebrity, so let them revel in the fact that your sweaty, sticky paw and their little hand made contact.  Hearing them brag to their parents afterward (“She gave me a high 5!”) is worth it.  And finally, though I didn’t smooch a Wellesley girl like I had planned to, I did it by proxy (smooch hand = touch smooched hand to cheek of girl requesting smooch).  It still got a heightened scream 🙂

I think all these factors compounded to make me run really relaxedly—so much so that, in the first part of the race, I had to have a mental moment with myself to remind me to be NOT so relaxed.  Seeing the race as “just another training run” that was fully supported gave me a healthier perspective on it, allowed me to have fun, and when I realized that I could BQ for 2011, let me lay the pedal-to-the-metal (or my foot to the floor, I guess?), knowing that, in my mind, I had already had an awesome time that day… regardless of what the clock told me at the end.

A corollary to point 3, about having fun, which made this year’s Boston experience so lovely was the company of folks with whom I dropped many a Wednesday night and Saturday morning (hello, gang!).  For many of them, this year’s Boston was their first, and their nerves, anxiety, enthusiasm, and excitement were mega-contagious, to say the least.  Last year, I think I was more nerves than excitement, which, in retrospect, probably seeped into my race + travel weekend experience.  You’re only as good as the company that you keep, and my company was friggin awesome.  So thanks, friends 🙂

The marathon was the icing on the cake of a wonderful vay-cay with C.  I’m not certain if I want to run Boston again—of the 13 races I’ve done now, I’ve only repeated about 3 of them (Chicago, Akron, Boston)—but I guess I have time to decide.

Next up: Sunburst Marathon in South Bend, Indiana in early June, followed by the San Francisco Marathon in late July, and finishing off the year with the Chicago Marathon.

Happy trails to you and yours.  Sorry for the longish post.