Browsed by
Tag: training

Modesto Marathon training: the second bit

Modesto Marathon training: the second bit

Comments 4 comments

I think it’s safe to say with over 237 miles for January – with weeks looking like 50+ (x2) & 60+ (x2) – that we are in the thick of marathon training. YAY!! I really like it here.

Aside from the typical general aerobic and recovery runs, the key workouts and a high-level overview:

1/9: 11 miles with miles 4-7 at tempo (6:55-7:05 tempo target, 7, 7:06, 7:10 actuals)

Totally got my ass handed to me the first time I tried this run. I ran to a cinder and dirt track near home, and between just feeling off, the rain, the puddles on the track, and the wind (why is it always windy on tracks?), I couldn’t dial in the paces to save my life. I also had some GI issues right up until I began the tempo portion. This was a little mentally frustrating because not long before, I had nailed a 3 mile tempo (and had PR’ed my 5k in the process), but that’s running sometimes. I was frustrated but just thought of the big picture and kept going.

legs.jpg
muddy stems

1/10: 17 miles with Meredith along the rollers (7:45-8:45 LR target, 8:04 avg)

Always thankful for running buddies for the long runs, though this morning’s run started out a bit rough thanks to a random creeper just hangin’ out. Ugh. Once that nonsense stopped, the run was actually pretty smooth, and Meredith and I had a good time running across my city and the neighboring ‘burb and a little over 400’ of rollers. Most of the uphills aren’t until the ‘back’ portion of the run, so it’s an especially good Boston simulator for her, and it just makes it extra fun.

1/16: 11 with miles 4-7 at tempo (6:47, :54, :47)

Another dreary Saturday in the early morning hours, so I decided to go to a different, non-dirt, non-cinder track for my tempo miles. I have been trying to make a conscious effort to dial in the pace on these tempo runs a bit because paces are prescribed for a reason. Running on a rubberized track when it’s raining and windy, and therefore hitting the prescribed paces, FTW, baby. This was a confidence-boosting run.

1/17: 17+ LR in pieces: 13.17 @ 9:23 avg (with 1,107′ gain) + 4.35 @ 7:47 avg

Saurabh had arrived back to the Bay Area the day before, so we decided a meet-up to run-up Monument Peak was in order. Apparently I had stupidly not taken into consideration how incredibly muddy and wet the trails would be – the pull-your-shoes-off-your-feet, take-one-step-up-the-hill-and-slide-back-down type of mud – and after just a few miles of that, we (at my lead) decided to bag it since I wanted to finish the LR as quickly as possible. We ended up just running around the park instead, picking up some decent non-super-muddy hill climbs. Saurabh stopped around 7 miles, and since I had been gone for a while by now, I felt my milk coming in (breastfeeding FTW) and knew that I’d just get progressively more uncomfortable, so I left my car at the park and just ran home. Do what you gotta do sometimes! I eventually got home, and literally as I was walking in the door, the baby was waking up, ready to eat. It wasn’t until much later in the day, post-brunch, that I got out to finish up the balance of the LR, but I did it. I don’t want to make a habit out of breaking up my LRs like this, but I gotta accommodate life (and my boobs), so whatevs. It worked. And hooray for actually feeling pretty great post-MP attempt, despite my lack of climbing over the past month and change.

23809967664_f3ff8b1879_o

24438435735_ca1f4e1a11_o
still pretty

1/23: 12 miles with 4-8 @ tempo (6:46, 49, 52, 45)

Back to my fav rain-friendly track since, again, it was a pretty dreary morning. I was pretty dubious that I wouldn’t die of GI distress during this run because my husband and I had a lovely date night the night prior, and my dinner consisted of movie theatre concessions… and popcorn is full of delicious fiber, gang. Fortunately, my guts held it together and didn’t decide to party until the CD miles. During the tempo, just like the week before, I tried to stay within striking range of my prescribed paces but started too quickly and began a slow burn before rallying for the final mile. I’d much rather start a tempo too slowly and negative split it than start too quickly and positive split. Pretty sure my stomach hurt for the rest of the day though. Lesson learned.

1/24: 18 solo miles @ 8:09 avg

18 miles can be formidable, and this run was replete with tons of mental negotiating and bargaining. I was alone – sans buddies or music – and felt like I was convincing myself with each mile to go just a little farther. My stomach again felt like ass for the first 4 miles, which sucked. I thought of about a million different scenarios that I could do – breaking up the run, bagging it entirely, you name it – but I ultimately just went with it. The funny thing is that I was never more than about 3 or 4 miles from home for the entirety of the run (hence the ever-present possibility of bagging it). I didn’t really begin to feel great until about 10 miles in, and by the time I was done, I was stupidly proud of myself because I worked through a ton of mental bullshit over 18 miles. Mental callousing, baby.

1/30: 12 with 4 @ tempo (6:55, 54, 49, 42)

“Dreary Saturday morning” is a thing these days in SJ, apparently. Back to my rain-friendly track for some fast running action, and I was determined to be smart about my pacing and hoped to reverse the “go too fast, kinda die, and then rally” tone from last week’s attempt. It’s so funny to think how the tempo running has been different for me postpartum than it was before I most recently got pregnant, and that’s probably a blog post in itself. I go into these runs a little anxious but more excited than anything – I get to run fast for a half hour or so! – and while I am concentrating on the paces, I feel fairly relaxed and as though I’m not digging or knocking on death’s door. HOORAY POSTPARTUM PROGRESS.

24736103565_ebec700983_o.jpg

1/31: LR in parts: 4 @ 8:44 solo + 14 with pickups w/Meredith @ 8:22 avg

With a slight discrepancy in prescribed distances, and thanks to the baby’s eating schedule in the early morning, it worked out for me to run 4 easy miles by myself in the rain and dark before Meredith arrived. The two of us eventually set out to run 14 and change over the rollers again and took it easy on the front half before a nice progression and negative split home. The final miles for me went 8:29, 14, 08, 7:36, 29, 26, and 22, and I felt great on all of them. I’m still trying to find what my GMP is, and throwing in some fast finishes on my runs has helped clarify that a little.

The executive summary: all good. I’ll write another post on some ancillary stuff that I’ve been working on with this marathon cycle – some of it is specific to the postpartum period – since I’m already over 1,000 words for this post (sorry, friends’ eyeballs. Remember to blink periodically). I’m happy with how things are going and am excited to see what lies ahead. Here we go, February!

24494593156_19cbcf2c49_o.jpg
obligatory
Krissy Moehl’s Running Your First Ultra – book review

Krissy Moehl’s Running Your First Ultra – book review

Comments 2 comments

I’ve eventually learned that if I don’t record obligations in my calendar, it is highly likely that I will forget about them. Unfortunately, that was the case with helping to promote top female ultrarunner Krissy Moehl‘s new book, Running Your First Ultra, and her tour that landed her in the Bay Area a week ago. Though I wasn’t able to attend any of Krissy’s events, I wanted to still share my impressions of her book. (And yep, her people sent it to me for free – disclosing those sorts of details are good – but my thoughts are my own).

I immediately noticed that Krissy’s book is impressive, not just in the sundry details that comprise ultrarunning and appropriate training for an event that goes beyond 26.2 miles, but also in the book’s sheer aesthetics. It’s nearly 250 heavy pages – the type of book that stays open and is “hands free” (think recipe books) – and is replete with tons of charts, graphs, workbook-type of note-taking sections, and beautiful – beautiful – photographs of Krissy on her runs and races. It’s not exactly a coffee table-style of book about running, but dammit if it isn’t effortless to just turn page after page to look at all the pretty pictures and charts.

51pU67V71IL._SX442_BO1,204,203,200_

 

Readers of my little corner of the internet know that my running is entrenched in the roads/marathon realm, but at the end of 2014, shortly before I got pregnant (and apparently thereafter as well), I trained for and ran my first trail 50k over in Woodside. It was awesome, I enjoyed the training and the racing and the whole ultra vibe, and when my kiddos are older, I’d love to return to the ultra distances. I followed the Relentless Forward Progress training for my 50k, read a ton of stuff from accomplished ultra runners online, and heeded much of the advice and wisdom from my friends who had run ultras. I preface my review of Krissy’s book with all this information simply to show that while I consider myself a decently experienced marathoner, my amateur expertise (that’s a thing, right?) doesn’t lie in the ultra world – though I have what I consider to be a solid working knowledge of the training, nutrition, and gearing aspects inherent to the sport.

Let me just say this: if you want to dabble in the quixotic world of ultras, Krissy’s book has your back. Aside from the fact that she’s got a 15 year career in the business, she also has run more than 100 races, has 55 F wins, 2 OA wins, and has run and record-broken at some of the world’s most grueling ultras (think HURT 100, Hardrock 100, and more). When I taught writing, rhetoric, and discourse, we often talked about authorial ethos, the credibility (or lack thereof) that a writer/rhetor brings to a piece of writing. When writers don’t know what they’re talking about – when they are lacking in credibility – it undermines everything they say in their writing; they leave their readers questioning at best, challenging at worst, every argument they put forth. On the flip side, when writers actually know their subject matter, it’s evident. Mini WRD lesson over … Suffice it to say that Krissy has imbued her book with page after page of authorial ethos. She knows her stuff.

Running Your First Ultra has the typical stuff in many books about ultrarunning – info related to training plans (including week-by-week plans), injury prevention, mental training, race day prep – but also specialized information related to being a female ultrarunner. This is really the only area of the book where I think readers could benefit from some elaboration or clarification. Being that Krissy is a) a woman and b) devoted an entire chapter, albeit a short one, to women running ultras, she talks about the implications of (ultra) running through pregnancy. She makes it clear that her judgement isn’t coming from personal experience and instead, just from observations of and conversations with other female ultra runners. Krissy discourages women from running ultras while pregnant for all the obvious reasons – imploring readers to consult with their practitioners to develop a safe running plan while pregnant to maintain fitness – and reminds pregnant runners to continuously listen to the feedback their pregnant bodies give them. I totally agree with everything she says in this section.

Where she loses me a bit though is when she gives pregnant runners the tip to exercise at a conversational pace (right on, totally agree) and/or with a heart rate monitor (oh no) and try to keep the HR below 150 (no no no), noting that of course, this HR number will depend on the pregnant woman’s fitness level in the first place. Though she obviously hedged her recommendation with the “keep it conversational” and “your HR will depend on your fitness” pieces, I think she would have done a greater service to her readers to not include the HR number, simply because runners often are very detail-driven and fixate on numbers; I’m sure all of us know or can identify with trying to exactly hit our metrics and not go an inch above or below them. She says 150, so I bet there are runners out there who will strive for exactly 150.

I’m not faulting Krissy here – again, she says up front that this is coming from observations and conversations, not from her personal experiences – but I’m surprised that more people don’t know that HR-based training during pregnancy went out the window some time ago. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) is pretty explicit in their recommendations of using a 15-point perceived effort scale to guide a woman’s training while pregnant – not heart rate – and detail their opinion here. Regardless, the faulty HR recommendation isn’t enough for me to lose interest or discredit this otherwise descriptive and thorough book – a manual, even – for how to plan for, train, and run your first 50k to 100 miler.

Rambling aside, I enjoyed reading through Running Your First Ultra and would recommend it to anyone considering venturing down the rabbit hole that is ultra running. If you’re not in that camp (yet … wink) and know someone who is, I think this book would make an excellent gift, too. Fair warning though: if you’re on the fence about making the jump to the ultra world, this book will probably seal the deal… and then you can come back and tell me all about how awesome your first ultra was.