Tuesday, January 23, 2018

Boston Marathon Week 6 of 18: Winter Running: Take 2

Friends, we are officially a third of a way through this training cycle and I'm not exactly sure how that happened.

There's something about hitting 50 miles a week for the first time in a training cycle that makes it start to feel real. All through training for RNR San Jose and even through November and December running in the low to mid 40s felt physically terrible, as if I were training much much harder than I actually was, and it was hard to imagine getting back into that 50-60 mpw marathon training zone. Thankfully in the past few weeks something seems to have shifted and longer, harder workouts are finally--FINALLY!--starting to feel good again.

{proceeds to cross alllll the phalanges & knock on alllll the wood...}

~*~*~ Boston Marathon: Week 6 of 18 ~*~*~

Grand Total: 50 miles
    * 25.4 easy
    * 5.25 speed
    * 5.35 HM pace
    * 14 long

Monday 1/15: Rest. Super, super sore & painful left hip after Sunday's 16 miler.

Tuesday 1/16: 2 warm up, 1600m @ 10K pace, 1600m @ MP, 1200m @ 10K pace, 1600m @ MP, 800m @ 5K pace, 1600m @ MP, 2.75 cool down = 10 total. Lol you guys this workout was nuts (in a good way). It really deserved its own separate post.

Wednesday 1/17: Rest.

Thursday 1/18: 8 easy. A cold(-ish) wet one! Didn't feel great due to some poor sleep the night before, but my slow-and-easy effort level still resulted in a weirdly fast run for an easy day.

Friday 1/19: 3.4 warm up, 5 x 1600m @ HMP / 1:00 jog, 1.25 cool down = 10 total.

    I probably should have done this run all on pavement in Golden Gate Park as I'll be running a half marathon there in just a couple of weeks, but my feet were feeling beat up so I instead ran the 3.4 miles to the track, did three of the intervals there, did the last two on the way back home, and ran the rest of the way as an easy cool down.


    Home away from home

    In some ways I think this also might have been a mental cop out because I was thinking, "Well, HM intervals on roads always feels super unpleasant but 10K mile repeats on the track feel sort of equally unpleasant, so doing mile repeats on the track except 20-30 seconds slower should feel like a cake walk!"

    And, I have to say, I think it kind of worked? As with any workout, yes, obviously, it wasn't easy, but most of the difficulty felt related to a) the work of pacing correctly and b) the mental load of "Ugh, I have to do 4 more/3 more/2 more/ANOTHER of these." But physically, I think they felt a lot easier than in the past.

    Full disclosure, I did not do a great job of pacing them. They were all a bit too fast. And I know humble-bragging about OOPS I RAN MY INTERVALS TOO FAST BUT THEY WERE SOOOOO EASY I COULDN'T HELP IT is a thing, but the truth here is that I still have a really tough time clicking into 7:30 pace & just holding steady there. For whatever reason it seems like I have a kind of "groove" at 7:20 pace where it's very easy to click in and hold, but if I try to ease back just a bit it's like the next available "groove" to easily click into is 7:45-7:50 range. So when I try to run 7:30 I sort of end up oscillating between the two, and like most other people I think I just tend to err on the side of going a bit too fast than a bit too slow (for better or worse).

    I know the last two look really terrible from a pace perspective, but they were also both noticeably downhill, so it's not *quite* as bad as it looks.

Saturday 1/20: 8 easy.

    We went up to Tahoe for the weekend so Don could ski, which meant I had a chance to get away from my usual routes in San Francisco & enjoy some cold, snowy, extremely scenic miles.


    As I said on The Instagrams, the last time I ran this trail I nearly passed out from the heat. A very different run this weekend!

    I've never worried too much about getting special winter running shoes or attachments, but since we're going to be in Park City, UT for a week in February and also up in Tahoe for several more weekends, I decided to be safe and finally get some Icebugs so that I don't have to worry about losing training days due to ice. (They'll also potentially come in handy in Spokane. There were definitely a couple of days this past Christmas that I potentially could have saved if I'd had the right shoes.)



    Obviously there has been no way to test them out in SF, but I jumped on the chance to take them up to Tahoe for a test run. It hasn't snowed tons and tons lately but there were definitely plenty of icy patches for trying them out on, and the mix of snow, ice, and wet/dry pavement gave me the chance to see how they worked and felt on a variety of surfaces. I'll do a detailed post about them later on, but so far I'm pretty impressed with them!

    Friday's tempo workout didn't seem that crazy at the time, but I woke up Saturday morning with what I can only describe as a running hangover, almost as if I'd raced (though I really don't think I pushed that workout inappropriately hard!). My whole body felt cranky and beat up and I was not, not, NOT excited about running eight miles, even at an easy pace.

    But, after some breakfast, a cup of tea, and a little time to relax and catch up on the internet, I felt a bit better and finally got out there, thinking I'd just suck it up and get it done. But to be honest, the whole run felt weirdly easy, and in spite of the fact that we're about 6,000 feet higher than I'm used to my pace even at a nice, moderate, comfortable effort was bizarrely fast. (I've noticed that I don't notice elevation much when running flats, but I REALLY notice it going up hills.)

    Also the whole thing felt like it flew by. Before I knew it I'd hit 4 miles and it was time to turnaround. I've had several easy runs like this lately (though this was the most dramatic, I think) and I really do not know what gives but I WILL TAKE IT.

Sunday 1/21: 14 long

    Cutting the long run back a bit this week. This run definitely felt a little harder than Saturday's 8 miles; on the other hand it was warmer and more comfortable. I took the opportunity to jog down to Tahoe City & snap some pics of the lake (none of which were that great).


    I did run in the Icebugs again, and was curious to see how 14 miles on the studs would feel in my legs. They're definitely not *as* comfortable as regular shoes just because of the studs, but I feel like I can confidently say that they're maybe 95% as comfortable. They were definitely not UNcomfortable, even running on wet or dry pavement most of the time, and I feel pretty confident I'll be able to do runs of pretty much any distance in icy conditions.


    come at me winter running

One more biggish week next week and then it's time for a mini-taper before Kaiser Permanente Half Marathon on February 4! Fingers crossed that things continue to feel this good....



====

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

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

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

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...

3 comments:

  1. Hurray for hitting your groove! I was reading your comments about certain paces just being easier to hold on the track, and I also have noticed that, especially for shorter intervals. I can most definitely run 1:30 quarters, over and over, but 1:32? No, can't do it. I get stuck at 1:30. It probably doesn't help that my training groups are all faster than me, so I don't have any help pacing!

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    1. Agreed - it's weird! I find it easier to hold 8:00 pace OR 8:20 pace than anything in between; anything that's supposed to be in between drifts toward one or the other, like I have some sort of weird internal metronome.

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  2. That snow looks so cold but I'm glad you had a great week of running and some awesome workouts. It's neat that the faster paces felt good, that says a lot about your fitness. I hope you keep feeling good and that the half marathon race goes well, too.

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