Ran the plan, man!

So here I am today after my FIRST half marathon...which, I found out later, I happened to have run with Joan Samuelson!! OK, I didn't exactly run "with" her as there were something like 7,000 people out there and she apparently was the 4th female finisher and I was, well, 1,072nd... BUT I was running on the same course as she was for a small period of time!!! I wish I'd have known earlier that one of my all time heroes was doing the race...but oh, well, it's cool to know it now.

I wrote out my whole race plan earlier this week and am happy to report that I stuck to the plan pretty darn well, if I say so myself (there were some of those moments like the old snoopy cartoons where he has conversations with various body parts--see challenges section below-- and discusses their complaints, but mostly we all got along). My plan was to go out slowly, relax and settle in for about 4 miles...then "Keep it loose, keep it tight" and bring up the pace a little bit for the next 5 miles...then run how I felt the last 4 miles, just observing how the end would go more than trying to control the pace. My goal time was 2:05 and I ran a 2:03:58, negative splitting the course. I never felt like I was pushing super hard---none of it felt as fast/awful as tempo runs lately have, but I was definitely ready to be done by the end, that's for sure. I had a strong, consistent run and that was the goal. This was prep race for Tucson in 2 weeks and my first half marathon, so I gave myself a few breaks and didn't go out on a suicide mission.

Things that went well: taper and workout prep this week was great...I felt rested and not sluggish. Slept and ate well/lots the last few days (scale had me about 1.5 pounds heavier than usual this morning...oops, should've tapered on the pumpkin pie, too, I guess). Glycogen stores were up, for sure. Pre-race schedule and timing of coffee/breakfast was fine. I carried my water bottle and that was good, too...no screwing around and running into people at water stations. My only nutrition on the course was one Clif Shot Block that I put in my mouth at mile 9 that still hadn't dissolved at the finish...just didn't feel like I needed any calories. I got all my mile splits, but decided earlier this week not to use the HR monitor. It would be cool to have that data, too, but I know where I was on RPE and having the splits helps. It really helped to have several pieces of the course be familiar...I felt strong on those stretches in particular. I also had amazing race support from Seujan...chauffer, bag schlepper, food finder at the finish area, french toast maker post race, and "I'm proud of you" sayer. And she didn't even complain about getting up at 5:15 a.m. or hanging out in the cold rainy crap all morning the day after she ran 18 miles...

Challenges: Weather sucked. It was 37 degrees and raining/slushing for much of the race, with the occasional breeze. Puddle stomp-o-rama. Fortunately, we found rock star parking and I was able to stay warm in the car until shortly before the race started...took me 3 minutes to get to the start line, but once I got going, I was pretty warm. My numb toes checked in at about mile 3 and actually felt normal by mile 4 and after. Hills. None of them were as long/hard as the hill I regularly run home from Greenlake, but there were a damn lot of rollers. My quads let it be known at about mile 9 that they were starting to blow up and said loudly, "take note of where we are going to be really sore tomorrow..." Note taken...they are already sore now. Mental gymnastics. Mostly I stayed focused and my "my pace, my race" mantra prevailed. I had a couple of freakouts in the middle where I thought I was running a bit too slow and where I worried about whether I had enough reserves for hills and all the miles...but I let the doubts go in and back out and stayed pretty steady.

My splits are below. I averaged 9:27 and placed 1,072 of 3,458 women.

Mile 1: 10:36
Mile 2: 10:04

Mile 3: 9:53

Mile 4: 9:28

Mile 5: 10:06
Mile 6: 8:57

Mile 7: 9:25

Miles 8 and 9 together in one split: (where the hell was the "8" sign??) 19:09
Mile 10: 9:51

Mile 11: 7:45
Mile 12: 8:53
Mile 13.1: 9:45

Total Time: 2:03:58

Below is last week's workouts...just under 10 hours for the whole week.

Tryptophan happiness

We started Thanksgiving by sleeping in then running intervals...nothing like a turkey trot to start a good holiday! Fortunately for me, it's a taper week and I only had to do 6 x 400 at the track which was almost fun compared to recent interval workouts. Although my legs were a bit tired on my cooldown, it was a good workout and I held all of the 400's between 1:45 - 1:47, so I was happy with it. The next 2 days will be swimming only before the race on Sunday...will go to the Expo tomorrow to pick up my number and we'll probably take our little sister to see "Happy Feet."

With the exception of some dinner rolls that behaved as if I hadn't included yeast and got tossed and replaced by a last minute Safeway run by Seujan late in the game, Thanksgiving was a success...2 days of cooking produced a good mountain of food and lots of leftovers, so I can be lazy for a few days. The brined turkey turned out well, Seujan's cranberry martinis were a hit, Stacey helped us figure out gravy production, and I somehow managed to not eat(or drink) to the point of being stuffed and in pain. Seemed our guests were happy with the day, too. Good holiday!

Yesterday's workouts:
3000 yd. swim at swim team
30 min. Greenlake run
Lifted weights
(and cooked 3 pies, cranberry sauce, and sweet potato casserole!)

Today:
18 min warm up run
6 x 400 (1:45 - 1:47 for each)
18 min cool down run

win a few, lose a few...

This morning I decided to sleep in a little and flex my navigational skills by taking the bus to work. I won't expand on all the painful and embarrassing details, but let's just say I confidently set out for a 20 minute "express" trip downtown and 2 busses, 2 bus fares (because why would I ask for a transfer when I thought the first bus was going downtown), an hour and a half, 2 satsuma oranges and a banana (thank god I had snacks), a bathroom stop (good thing the first bus went the wrong direction near a Tullys coffee shop) and several ipod songs later...I arrived at the office. I now know to read the fine print on the Metro website and that busses 65, 66, and 67 are probably not interchangeable just because they might stop near my house with their nose pointed towards downtown. Whatever. I wasn't particularly excited to get to work, anyway, except for the fact that my cereal was there.

My midday luck was much better than my early luck today...I went for a nice aerobic run at lunchtime which included a small piece of the Seattle Half Marathon route (wanted to leave myself some good energy on the course for Sunday). I thought through my race plan for Sunday while I ran and, although it was a bit windy at the end, it was a nice, dry run with some actual sunshine at the beginning. About 30 minutes after I got back to work, a big thunder and hail storm hit the city...everyone in our office could hear the hail slamming on the windows. I'm glad my bad luck for the day (knock on wood, yes I do realize the day is not over) went into transportation and not weather.

Here's a good photo of the storm, along with stats about how this will probably be the rainiest month in Seattle history:

http://www.komotv.com/news/4711956.html

Anyway, mapmyrun.com says that I ran:

5.86 miles at a 9:13 pace. (54 minutes)

I didn't wear my HR monitor...we're not friends lately and I decided just to go on RPE.

To brine or not to brine...

I think I've decided to brine the Thanksgiving turkey this year...I've read and heard conflicting reviews of brined turkeys, but more seem to be positive than negative, so I'm going to try it. I've done at least one endurance grocery shop and am almost ready for Thanksgiving...the cook-a-thon will officially begin on Wednesday afternoon. We've located and test driven a really good cranberry martini recipe, so my goal is to have our guests somewhere between happily mellow and completely hammered by the time the turkey is done anyway, so it won't even matter whether it's good or not! Regardless, I'm looking forward to the holiday...and, of course, the half marathon calorie burn-off next Sunday.

Yesterday was my long run day and it was only 9 miles this week...went around Lake Union + Portage Bay with a little extra at the end. The weather was abnormally dry and really nice, so after my run, I biked out to Marymoor and met up with Seujan and Diana who had been biking already for a few hours. It was really fun to ride a comfortable pace on a completely flat route, with a tailwind at the end...didn't take my HR monitor or even a watch. As we got home, our friends Marci & Ann and their little one-year-old, Madison called and stopped by for a visit. After we sat around a while, I was starving, so we ordered pizza...fortuituously, one of our neighbors delivered a "welcome to the condo" chocolate cake (we've lived here since July, but her timing was excellent). So...a strong training day and week capped off with a nutritional bomb of 2 beers, 3 pieces of pizza, and chocolate cake. BOO-YEAH! Oh, well...moderation, right? I don't eat that crap every day...ok, the beer, but not the rest. Enough confessions.

The summary of yesterday's better behavior and the week's workouts below:
Long Run: 9.25 miles
Time: 1:27:00
Power surge up to 162 bpm from 46 - 51 min.
Power surge up to 166 bpm for one mile from 1:12 - 1:20
Avg. HR = 154, stupid-high...not sure if it was my faulty monitor, caffeine, or what.

Fun with numbers...

My friend, Erin, told me this week about this website: www.mapmyrun.com. I'm hooked. Not only will it map out running or cycling distances (already worth it to visit), but check out the cool calculator on the left...gives you avg. pace, mph, and calories burned. And the numbers it generates are more favorable than my HR monitor, making me like it even more. I mapped out my tempo run route today and was able to compare my pace for the last 6 weeks on the same course. Looks like my speed range for a 3.2 - 3.8 mile tempo run has ranged from an 8:03 to 8:29 minute mile...today's tempo torture run was at an 8:22 mile pace. This website will continue to bring hours of fun number crunching, I'm sure.

Today's tempo run was OK...felt my legs a bit from 2 spin classes this week, but survived.

Yesterday's workouts:
2950 yard swim at swim team
44 min. spin class at lunch (avg. HR 137)

Today's workouts:
Tempo run: 10:45 min. warm up, 31:45/3.8 miles hard (HR = 153 - 163), 14 min uphill home.
Total = 6.06 miles

Almost injured by soup

Yeah, that's right...soup. So last night I pulled out a soup recipe I'd made once a few months ago and thought it'd be an easy dinner...it was a chipotle', chicken thing with some great spices, potatoes, etc. Did I read past the ingredient list to assess the process? Of course not. As I started, I realized that the project would take longer and was more complicated than I remembered...various steps of broth prep, chicken boiling and shredding, off the heat, back on the heat...and an intermediate process where you have to take what's done so far and, in thirds, put it in the blender (the number of large pans by this point is at least 3 and we're barely halfway done), then back on the stove, add more stuff, simmer, etc. (sidebar: this is why people eat canned soup, yes, I know). So the first third, no probem...blend, into 2nd pan, repeat. The second batch, however, caused a bit of a hot, steaming, spicy eruption and I swear the goddam blender was aiming right for my left eye. It hit the mark with a nice sting from the chipotle pepper and adobo...and my sweatshirt was pretty well covered in soup debris...and the kitchen floor yelled for the Swiffer. Amazingly enough, Seujan, who was safely across the kitchen patiently enjoying a glass of wine, didn't even laugh at me and came to my rescue. I ended up somehow locking up the blender which we never fixed, but the soup was salvaged (don't worry, I didn't squeeze it out of my sweatshirt, I already had enough from the first round)...and it was damn good if I say so myself. Fortunately, there are even leftovers to continue savoring the experience. Other obstacles yesterday included there being no hot water at the gym, resulting in an arctic splash after spin class rather than a real shower. Thus, by the end of the day, I was probably a little sticky around the edges from residual unshowered spin class sweat complemented by soup debris. Happy Monday.

Despite the trials of my Monday, I did have 2 good workouts (swim and spin) and this morning I had a strong interval run...cold, DRY morning (whoo-hoo!).

11 min warm up
2 x 1200: 5:38, 5:33
1 x 1600: 7:25!!
18 min aerobic/cool down run

End of weekend...

Sunday was a nice rest day...we walked around Greenlake with "the kid" and lifted. Mellow day, but it went by way too fast and we're back to Monday already. Swam this morning...will probably to to spin class at lunchtime.

Here's last week's summary:

Longest run of my life...

I know, I say that almost every week...but it really is true. Today was long run day and I did 14 miles...ran from Madison Beach to Seward Park and back. No rain, some sun breaks, and a tail wind on the 2nd half...not bad at all for Seattle in November. As I was approaching Seward Park, I realized that my halfway/turn-around point was the same distance that I would've considered to be a complete "long run" just a few months ago. It's kind of fun to be building and hitting consistently longer distances. Of course, I now feel like I've been hit by a truck and will return to the couch soon with some Advil, but the run (ok, finishing the run) felt good! I also caved this week and bought an easy-to-carry amphipod water bottle...tried it out today and actually liked it, although I had a little bit of a knot in my shoulder when I was done running.

I have learned that I can eat about an hour and a half before a long run (bagel or equivalent) and it's fine...now that I've tested this a few times, I feel more confident about the pre-race food part of my race plan. I've also learned that I really do need to take one rest day per week...last weekend I did a recovery bike ride on Sunday and never totally rested...legs felt a little heavy by today, even though yesterday was a swim-only. I only did about 10 hours of training this week, but running is hard on a 40 year old body...the good news is that even with the fewer hours, I'm not gaining weight (knock on carbon fiber) and I'm still eating my normal amount (i.e. LOTS!).

Gritty details:
14 miles, 2:20:21
Avg. HR = 148 (too high, but the first 25 minutes the monitor was crazy high and I think it skewed things a little).
Nutrition: Drank about 15 oz. of water, had 2 Clif Shot Blocks, starting 1:20 in.
Felt good, but didn't rally for a fast mile in the middle or at the end...was a little anxious about just finishing that distance.

Haven't blogged since Wednesday...Thursday was Tempo run and lifting, yesterday was a swim-only day. I'll post the week's spreadsheet tomorrow when Seujan (queen of tech support) shows me how to do it :)

All coached up again...

Seujan and I went to meet with Cheryl, our coach, this morning. Seujan thought that we were "in trouble," but actually it was just a check-in and we're both pretty well on-track. I got in trouble for not having a better hydration strategy on long runs (and I thought my stop-at- drinking-fountains thing was working pretty well...busted), so I may actually carry some water on the long one this weekend.

The main result of the meeting is that I have goal times in writing for the Seattle Half marathon ("C") race and the Tucson Half Marathon ("A"). I guess this means I'm committed as writing things down somehow makes them real. The problem is that I prefer to under-promise and over-deliver (in training and in life). I think these are realistic, but I don't think I can over-deliver too much on them:

11/26/07: Seattle Half Marathon Goal = 2:05 (9:32 avg. mile pace)
12/10/07: Tucson Half Goal = 1:55 (8:47 min/mile pace)

I ran an easy Greenlake this morning (29 min.) and swam 2800m at lunch again. Had my own lane, got a good swim.

Hearty Seattle Puddle Stompers

As far as I'm concerned, there are 4 adverse running conditions (rain, cold, wind, darkness), and when any 3 of them happen simultaneously, a trifecta occurs whereby I won't play outside (or I pout and it's not pretty). This morning when I woke up, only 2 were present (rain and dark), so I went to Greenlake to do intervals. The track was a sloppy mess, but I splashed out the prescribed 5 x 800 and by the second one there was enough daylight to not only hear and feel the puddles, but also to see them...and my watch, too. When I got done, I decided to run a longer recovery since it was warm and I had the time, so I ran about 1.75 miles on the inner paved loop of the lake. Along the way, I realized that less than a trifecta might be the same criteria other Seattle residents use to determine whether to cancel their morning consitutionals, too. I saw a lot of people...walking dogs, running, walking with their coffee, chatting...most without umbrellas and in the pouring rain. And they didn't even look that grumpy. OK, there weren't as many out as there are on sunny days, but it still made me feel proud to be part of such a hearty and active city (or maybe it just gave me a feeling of solidarity with other wackos). My "dryfit" shirt was soaked when I was done and I needed a wet wipe to clean off my legs BEFORE I could event get into the shower, but it was a very successful workout, with my fastest 800 being the last:

Warm up: 11 minutes
5 x 800: 3:45, 3:42, 3:42, 3:41, 3:40
Cool down: 18 minutes

I also got in a 2800m swim at lunch today...pool at S.U. has been jacked up due to a broken filter, so I've had to swim on my own a bit.

Missed a few days on the blog, too:

Sunday, Nov. 5: 30 mile easy recovery bike ride...avg. HR 116 or so and 2 social chat breaks...nice.

Monday, Nov. 6: Morning Cardio smorgasbord (35 minutes of an awful spin class so I bailed + 10 minutes treadmill + 10 minutes elliptical). Lifted at lunchtime.

Growing flippers

I bought myself some new running shoes about 3 weeks ago, but have not yet used them...I keep waiting for a not-rainy day so I they don't look like crap already on their very first voyage. Yeah, right. I think I may have to just suck it up and get the new shoes dirty as there's no end in sight to the rain. I think we're all growing flippers.

Got in another short double yesterday (EZ 3 mile run a.m. around greenlake, swam at lunchtime) and due to a work-related event on Thursday night, work was over at noon yesterday, giving me all afternoon to leisurely buy groceries at Whole Foods and then cook while blasting my ipod for a few hours. My favorite kind of afternoon...I was happier than a pig in...um, a happy pig place.

Today was long run day...Seujan went out for 18 miles and I did 10ish (1:37:30). I decided to just enjoy the fall color and schlep through the (constant) rain and a few hills at a relaxed pace with no fast mile in the middle or at the end...I busted it enough this week and running should be fun on occasion, right? I did my Lake Union- up Eastlake and the Howe St. stairs- to 10th- through Interlakken- back on Boyer loop...I love running through Interlakken and it was an enjoyable, albeit soggy run. I felt good, kept the HR mostly in the 130's, and both SJ and I got our running in before the "wind and storm advisory" scheduled for this afternoon started kicking up. All those pretty leaves will be blown off the trees today, I think, and they may take some branches with 'em.

There might be a small window of opportunity for a bike ride in between storms tomorrow morning...but I'm not holding my breath.

Is it weekend yet?

Got in a double yesterday (swim a.m., spin class at lunch) and a tempo run this morning (barely daylight, 41 degrees, rain...blech)...and lifted at lunch time today. I've been sneezing a lot the last few days and feel pretty tired. If someone could change today from Thursday to Friday, I'd really appreciate it (hmm...calling in sick tomorrow sounds like a good idea...). It's supposed to rain from today until, I think, 2010. I'd like to fortify my training with some hours on the couch with Triathlete magazine and the stack of books I'm accumulating for inspiration. Oh, and also the "What It Takes" DVD that arrived last week, but has not yet been opened...can't wait to watch it, though.