Fall Speedfest, Week 2 of 18: trendy strava ennui + workouts are hard

Happy Monday!

This week was my highest mileage week since Boston training at 48.5 miles. I did ramp things up fairly gradually but still definitely felt the increase towards the end of Sunday's long run--no pain or injuries or anything like that, but definitely some general fatigue in the legs in those last few miles. Which, hey, is the whole point, so.

Happily, this week tapers off a bit for Race to the End of Summer. I know I won't be able to taper for everything I run this fall, but I want to try to use RTTEOS as a kind of fitness gauge, so I'm trying to get there as fresh as possible.

Now. Let's talk about Strava for a moment.

You know how it's kind of trendy to every few months write a paragraph-long post about how Facebook is making you unhappy and ruining the world and you are officially taking a Hiatus "for the foreseeable future" and your "real friends" will know how to contact you?

It seems like recently something similar has begun to happen with Strava (or maybe it isn't new at all & I've just begun to notice it). People will post things about how they've gotten "disillusioned" with it or "just [aren't] motivated" by segment PRs or KOHs or whatever anymore & are just gonna "disconnect" for a while by unlinking their Strava account/running without GPS/running without any watch at all.

Which, hey! You do you. But honestly, how "illusioned" were you with Strava to begin with, and why? Like, what did you expect it to do for your life besides announce your every workout to the world? Creating profound and lasting satisfaction/deep and meaningful inner happiness out of your hobby is a lot to ask of an internet app, guys.

I also just do not get the weird obsession with segments. If you've suddenly lost your running mojo because segment accomplishments aren't doing it for your anymore, I have to wonder just how robust was your running mojo to begin with. (Also...could it be that worrying about those segments is causing you to do things on your runs that you shouldn't be doing on those particular runs? Like trying to run a mile PR in the middle of your long run? Just sayin'.)

When you think you're getting faster for a minute but then realize it's just people creating new Strava segments. XD

So I guess what I'm saying is that if Strava or GPS watches are ruining your running life, it might be worth examining how you're using them and what kind of relationship you've created with those things in your mind and whether perhaps they are a bit unhealthy. Strava/GPS/etc. are sort of like credit cards; it is possible to use them in a healthy and productive way, and can even be super rewarding. But not everyone is capable of using them responsibly, and if you know you're one of those folks, you can just stop. You don't owe anyone an internet essay about the reasons.

I sort of have the same feelings about Facebook and other social media. If using it isn't improving your life, then maybe consider the issue is how you're using it? Something/someone making you unhappy when you see it in your feed? UNFOLLOW IT. Like. It's not hard. If the stuff making you unhappy is coming from your friends, maybe you need better friends, or to reflect for a bit on why it is that what your friends post makes you unhappy. Or if you really do want to quit x social media thing for other reasons, you can just quit. No need to announce it to the world with a paragraphs-long treatise. Really.

I'm staying on Strava for now, but just about everything about how I use it is automated. My runs are posted automatically (all I do is change the title or maybe add a photo if I feel like it) and I almost never spend time scrolling through other people's workouts (I just can't bring myself to care that much). I remain blissfully unaware of segments (unless they pop up on the screen afterward) so they have zero impact on how I do my runs. Mostly, I just kind of like having all the data stuff you can do on Strava & I find the interface more user friendly than Garmin Connect.

But, I dunno. That's just me.

~*~*~ Fall '18 Speedfest: Week 2 of 18 ~*~*~
Grand Total: 48.5 miles

* 41.95 easy
* 3.4 speed
* 3.15 threshold

Monday 8/20: a.m. strength work / p.m. karate.

Tuesday 8/21: 3.6 warm up, 1600m @ 10K pace, 2 x 800m @ 5K pace, 1600m @ 10K pace, 3.6 cool down = 10.6 total.

Every time I go back to the track after some time off or just doing easy miles, I always get super nervous. What if I'm slow now? I think helpfully. What if my legs don't remember how to move fast? What if I can't hit the paces and trying actually kills me? I AM happy to say that this has never happened, though it was fear of losing speed that kept me from working on my (really really terrible) aerobic base for so long.

But guess what? At my fittest I've run mile repeats in the 7:05-7:08 range, and guess what? After eight weeks of no running and about six weeks of super-slow walk-running, I ran the miles on Tuesday in 7:04 and 7:05 (and the 800s in between at 6:49 and 6:43 pace).




So, yes. You can take a complete break or take some time to do pure aerobic training and it does NOT mean that you will lose your speed.

(Now anaerobic fitness? That is another thing. You WILL lose anaerobic fitness. I'm super pumped to be able to run a 7:05 mile pretty comfortably, but I absolutely do NOT expect that this will translate in being able to run that pace for 6.2 miles on Sept. 2. Still a lot of work left to do in that department.)

I don't want to misrepresent this workout and say it was easy. I had to work for those paces a bit. But to be honest, I think the physical work/discomfort required was about what it should have been. It wasn't lung-searing fall-over-and-die hard. But mentally I am clearly very very out of practice in dealing with the body saying "Heyyyyy this is kind of hard, would rather go slower/stop plzthnx" and the mind going "OMG OMG OMG BODY IS SUFFERING MAKE IT STOP!!". So every time I started having those thoughts I would try to ask/tell myself the following:

1) If you stop panicking and just objectively feel the effort/discomfort right now, how bad is it really?

2) Answer: Not all that bad, actually. More "work" really than actual "pain."

3) Cool, so instead of trying to avoid it, maybe just kind of lean into that discomfort and know it's not that bad & is coming to an end very soon.

It's kind of amazing how well that works, actually. Though it DOES take a lot of mental focus & concentration to do that rather than just panic & suffer, and I can tell I'm out of practice. Like I think maybe the bigger barrier to me having what I'd consider a "good" 10K on Sept. 2 relative to my current fitness level is less my physical ability to run a fast-ish pace and more my mental ability to keep my foot on the accelerator in the face of the discomfort it's causing.

Wednesday 8/22: afternoon 6 easy / p.m. karate

Thursday 8/23: 8 easy

Friday 8/24: 3 warm up, 3 x 1 mile @ HM pace, 3.85 cool down = 10 total

Or, "The cushiest threshold in the history of ever," which is what you should be doing, I guess, when you haven't run a threshold workout in over four months. But, having just busted out some 10K pace (not really) miles the previous Tuesday with no problem, I just could not get intimidated by HM pace ones, even if it is only one minute of rest.

But, as has happened plenty of times before, I found myself a bit humbled by something that looked like a cake walk on paper.

Running 7:04-7:05 miles on Tuesday: "Welp, this is taking some effort, but I am surviving & it's not actually that awful."

Running 7:25-7:30 miles on Thursday: "This is the worst thing ever and it might actually kill me."

Tuesday: "OK yeah, I could maybe do this for six miles on a good day."

Thursday: "How in the holy heck did I ever do this for even two miles, let alone 13??"

This was the pattern for me for a lot of 2017 (track days hard but doable & threshold/tempo days nigh impossible) & part of me wonders if it's a day-of-the-week thing. Like running hard is just easier earlier in the week and by Friday I just don't have much left in the tank speed-wise.

Saturday 8/25: Rest/cook amazing "Y" food with friends.

If you've never had yak before, it's pretty darn tasty! My favorite thing about these alliterative dinners we do is experimenting with new ingredients and flavors that I probably wouldn't have tried otherwise. This time around I experimented with yam ice cream (a bit grainy, but tasty!), yuzu juice, yam leaves, & Yucatan cuisine. So tasty!




Yucatan pepita dip with yambean for dipping (jicama)


Yellowtail poke with yuzu dressing


Yellowtail collar (hamachi kama)


Yak yakitori


Yak yakiniku (grilled meat)


Yellow salad (yellow peppers, yellow squash, yellow corn, yellow peaches) with yam leaves


Yam ice cream (purple ube) with yerba buena yogurt whipped cream

Sunday 8/26: 14 long. (Still feels weird to refer to something less than 16 miles as 'long'.)

Like I said, I could feel the week's mileage in my legs, but it was just fatigue, nothing scary. Also WOW it was cold & windy on Sunday. Do other places get uncomfortably cold in August or is this a uniquely San Francisco phenomenon?

=~*=~*=~*=~*=~*=~*=~*

Fall Speedfest, Week 1 of 18: Let the Fall Season Commence!