Boston Marathon Week 3 of 18: Foiled by Weather & Travel

Happy 2018! (I mean. We can all hope, right?)

The first 22 posts in my reader are all 2017 retrospectives, so I'm going to assume you don't need to read yet another of those. Instead here's a list of most-read posts from 2017 that more or less sums up my year:

January 5 - Process Goals & New Year's Resolutions

January 12 - Evolution of A Distance Runner: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Going Slow

February 1 - Something is Wrong and I Don't Know What It Is

March 1 - Race Report: Victory 10K

March 10 - Time to Step Back (and some pictures, because pictures)

April 28 - Big-Hairy-Audacious

May 19 - Pretty Sunsets + My First Track Meet (...in ~20 years)

June 5 - Aloha, Again

June 20 - Race Report: SF Track & Field Club PrideMeet 5K

September 6 - Race Report: Race to the End of Summer 10K

October 10 - Race Report: Rock N Roll San Jose Half Marathon

December 12 - Race Talk: You Have A Right To Your Disappointment

Week three was a bit of a dud, thanks to some weather & travel issues that I couldn't do much about. I've never tried to for-serious train through the winter holidays & all its attendant travel & logistical hassles before, and alas this was exactly the kind of thing I was worried about. Given where I live I've never thought too seriously about procuring specialized winter running gear like Yak Trax or Icebugs, but when I stop and think about the fact that I'm in Spokane in the late fall/winter once a year and also attempting to run in Tahoe or some other ski area at least a few times each winter, it might be something to think about for the future. My trail shoes served me well in light dustings/slush, but once there's a significant amount of snow and/or ice, they just don't really cut it.

But hey, at least after a week in teens and twenties and snow and ice, we got to spent New Year's weekend cooking with friends in Bodega Bay, which was not exactly tropical, but a HECK of a lot warmer than Spokane (and the rest of the country as I am given to understand):

~*~*~ Boston Marathon: Week 3 of 18 ~*~*~
Grand Total: 25 total miles

* 19 easy
* 6 MP

Monday 12/25: Rest

Tuesday 12/26: 2 warm up, 6 x 800m @ 5K pace / 2:00 jog, 2 cool down = 9 total 5 easy.

I had really done my homework re: getting this track workout done in Spokane. I found a nice little open-to-the public track just a few minutes' from Don's folks' place and figured it would be easy enough to get Don to drop me off & then pick me back up. Unfortunately the weather had other plans. On Christmas Day it nuked like crazy, providing us with the most picturesque of Christmas landscapes but also coating the roads in a solid inch or two of snow. A day later most of that snow had been packed down, de-frozen, re-frozen, and re-covered in another dusting of snow.

Only the most critical of roads were plowed so of course no one was *touching* a local running track. I thought, "Eh, I'll just go out and do the mileage," but a few miles in it was clear to me that the footing was only maybe one step above treacherous and with every dicey step I had visions of slipping and pulling a muscle (or worse). So, I took the turnoff for the shortest, simplest loop and called it good. Sometimes you have to admit defeat and live to run another day.

Wednesday 12/27: 4 easy Rest.

See above, then add a solid few more inches of fresh snow, and subtract any meaningful plowing. We went out in the car to grab some groceries for dinner and even that felt a bit sketchy in places. It's the kind of thing where if I lived here year-round and had no choice I'd probably get some Yak Trax and a treadmill and suck it up, but as it is, I know my limits and did not not not want to risk an injury this early. (Honestly, I didn't do any workouts at all in my first two weeks of CIM training last year, so I'm not worried about it training-wise.)

Thursday 12/28: 6 easy Rest. On this day you couldn't even *see* the roads.

Friday 12/29: Travel day.

Too bad, because this was the first day it warmed up and melted a little so I might actually have gotten a decent run in.

After a bunch of ridiculous travel hijinks that cost us a good half a day, we arrived in Bodega Bay to spend New Year's weekend cooking with friends.


Snacks!


It's not a party 'til you're sabering champagne bottles.


Homemade cinnamon rolls!


Tide pooling :)

Saturday 12/30: 2 warm up, 6 @ MP, 2.25 cool down = 10.25 total

Hey, look at that, I actually got a workout done! Bodega Bay is SUPER hilly, but there are plenty of solid roads, including one stretch that was flat enough for the MP miles. (Generally I don't mind the hills during workouts, and this time around I actually DO need to make sure to do some MP miles on hills both up and down, but the hills in Bodega Bay are shall we say a bit on the insane side--10-20% grade--and just way, way crazier than anything I'll have to deal with in Boston, maybe 2-3% grade at most, I think. So great for building strength on easy days but less than ideal for workouts.)



Killing it at Doran Regional Park

Sunday 12/31: 13 long 10 easy

The point of cutting back to 13 miles for the long day was because of having two longer, harder workouts this week, but since I only actually did one of them, I thought, Eh, might as well do 16. But that was before I did the workout on Saturday, not Friday, and while the Saturday workout felt great, it left my legs pretty trashed (probably as much because of the hills as the 6 MP miles). Later in a cycle I might be strong enough to do a double-digit workout followed by a 16 mile long run, but I wasn't quite there this week.

Beginning of run: "Oof, this feels awful. Really, any amount of running is *completely* fine. Let's see if we can get to 4 miles."

Later: "Ah, three already? Things are starting to loosen up a little, six seems reasonable."

Five miles: "What the heck, let's just run out to the campgrounds and back for an even 10."

Seven miles, running 10:30's up a not-that-steep hill, then 10:45's, then 11:00's: "Oof, this was a bad idea."

Seven & 1/2 miles: "This was a REALLY bad idea."

Eight miles: "I think I might actually die before I get back to the house."

Eight & 1/2 miles, shuffling up a ~15% grade at 12:00 pace: "How much shame would be involved in calling someone to come get me."

Nine miles: "Okay, now getting to 10 is just a point of pride."

I'm happy to report that I DID finish 10 easy miles without collapsing or having to phone a friend, but my legs were beyond trashed at the end and trying to run six or even three more miles would have been the height of stupidity. I'm a firm believer that if you finish a "long" run on fatigued legs, you've probably done something useful.


Hillllzzzz.....

Now that the holidays are behind us, I'm looking forward to getting back on track & not having to deal with snow & ice for a good while!

====

Boston Marathon Week 1 of 18: On your mark, Get set...

Boston Marathon Week 2 of 18: speed, snow, & vertical

Boston Marathon Week 4 of 18: There's "hills" and then there's HILLLZZ

Boston Marathon Week 5 of 18: Not the greatest of weeks...