Of Marathons & Qualifying Times (Here Be An Announcement)

Remember those days when bloggers would, like, *announce* that they would be *making an announcement* like they were some kind of celebrity and everyone was just waiting around on tenterhooks to hear about what was happening next in their lives? It always made me think that maybe the announcement was something so terrible, so horrific, so shocking that we all needed to collectively prepare ourselves and brace for impact. 

And then after days upon days of Twitter-stalking or hitting refresh on their blog, the "huge announcement" would be, "Hey, I'm an ambassador for this race!" or even just "I'm running this race!" or "I am running a *different kind of race* than I usually run!" or even "Some random brand gave me some socks to give away" or something.

Like Jesus, Stacy. I thought you were giving birth to octuplets or starring in your own limited-run HBO mini-series. Don't toy with my emotions like this.

Which is all to say, sorry if I am taking you off guard, just MAKING AN ANNOUNCEMENT all WILLY NILLY like this without warning you first and giving you time to prepare your smelling salts and fainting couch.

So, like. Here is the announcement:

Gears for Days + Race Week!

Sorry for the delay, things have been so busy in the last couple of weeks! When I've had the time to update the blog I haven't been able to find the energy, and when I've had the energy somehow I just couldn't find the time. But I am home recovering from a routine medical procedure today & taking the opportunity to get a couple of new posts up!

My Giant Race 10K race report is up! My race was not great and also the race *itself* was not great, so if you want to go read about all the hilarious reasons why, be my guest!

In the mean time, let us review my last training week before that race and how it went down.

Race Report: The Giant Race 10K 2022

Why did I sign up for this race?

The Giant Race is a mainstay of the San Francisco road racing scene, historically offering a pretty flat & fast (not to mention scenic!) 5K, 10K, and half over two days (though this year there was no half), but for one reason or another I've never run it. Actually I know one reason I've never run it and that's because of the price. The 10K cost me $90 and the 5K was $75, and those were the early bird prices before service fees, optional bib mailing, if you want the swank VIP package, etc. 💸💸💸

Especially when I first moved to SF 14 years ago, that was farrrr to rich for my blood. This year I was willing to swing it for a few reasons:

• I wanted to get in a mid-distance race this summer but my dates were pretty constrained due to dumb amount of travel over the summer & early fall & a bunch of weekends already booked up with stuff, so my options for local races, especially in the 10K range, were pretty sparse.
  
• The start/finish is a very quick and easy BART ride or a very reasonable 3-mile warm-up jog from my house. No driving or getting up butt early required!
• Related, no hotel needed, making this one actually *cheaper* than two of the four races I ran this past spring. (These two reasons alone pretty much clinched it for me.)
  
• The course has historically been pretty flat & fast.
• In terms of favorable August weather conditions, SF is about as dependable as it gets.

 

And then what happened?

April 2022 Reads! (I know I know I know)

Hi friends, I apologize that I've gotten distracted with running and travel and fallen behind on posting my books. If you get *really* lucky maybe you'll see May 2022 Reads before the end of this month, but maybe don't hold your breath.

In case you missed it:

January 2022 Reads
February 2022 Reads
March 2022 Reads

(21) The Eighth Detective by Alex Pavesi (2020, 304 pages) (psychological drama). Audiobook. Definitely one of the leading candidates so far for my best read of the year! Book editor Julia Hart has sought out hermit-like mathematician Grant McAllister with the goal of republishing a unique collection of mystery stories he wrote years ago. Each of the seven "perfect" murder mysteries were constructed in such a way as to demonstrate one of the "mathematical boundaries" of such stories--for example, there must at a minimum be a victim, a detective, and at least two suspects. So how small can this set be and still qualify as a murder mystery? In what ways can the different roles potentially overlap? But the more the two discuss the stories, the more Julia begins to realize that some things about the stories don't add up. She may turn out to have an odd mystery of her own on her hands.

Road Warrior Kitchen: Tacos Edition + One Week to Giant Race!

Just one more week until The Giant Race 10K!

This week was once again a little odd because we spend the weekend camping with a *different* group of friends. Why? Frankly, because we both love camping and are really terrible at actually planning it, so our strategy is mostly to sidle up to other friends we know like camping and are better at planning, talk about how much we like camping, and then glom on to the group camping trips that *they* plan. It's working out pretty well tbh, so I've got no real plans to do anything differently.

Each couple/family on this particular trip took on one meal to prepare for the group, so we made build-your-own tacos for Saturday night. We made everything except the guac at home in advance so that the only thing we had to do at the campsite was heat up the ingredients & set them out.

Too busy having fun to take photos during the camping trip it so please enjoy this documentation of me crushing an entire head of garlic to make carnitas for Saturday night camp dinner

Camping in Big Sur + I'm not really into goal setting, BUUUUUUTTT........

Hello! I am just back from a lovely weekend camping with friends in Big Sur, which I solidly recommend. Ask me anything about how to do it.

Enough frivolous joy & natural beauty, on to running stuff.

My strength coach (who is not a runner, but very knowledgeable about strength training in general, and has been very enthusiastic in learning more about running and coaching runners' strength work) occasionally asks me about what my goals are for upcoming races. 

And back in the day I used to get super into that stuff, setting "A" goals and "B" goals and so on down the alphabet, investing each with certain levels of meaning and import and in some sense kind of judging the whole endeavor by how far up the alphabet I managed to pull off on one random morning. 

But to be honest I've kind of been dodging that question every time he asks, tossing out noncommittal responses like, "Oh, you never know what will happen, I'm just going to try to run my best," or "It doesn't really matter, I just want to feel like I ran an honest race." 

Which isn't untrue; I've definitely accepted the reality that there are a LOT of things on race day that you can't control, and you can definitely work hard and do everything "right" and still not have the day you want.

I'm also more apt now to think in terms of process goals rather than outcome goals; you may not be able to control every variable on race day, but you CAN set process goals that you have a lot more control over. Time goals for me have really been out the window since before the pandemic, but I have been all over some serious process goals in the last say year or so, including but not limited to:

Home Again, Home Again + Dissociating is Underrated

Friends, I am here today to preach the good news of completely dissociating while running. Okay, maybe not completely dissociating. But largely. And not 100% of the time but, y'know, a lot of the time.

People will be like, "You gotta be fully engaged in the run! You gotta FEEL IT in ur BODY, get ur MIND all INTO IT!" And you know what, if that works for you, great. Get it. Feel your body or whatever. Some of us, though, only have so much mental "in-it-ness" or whatever you want to call it, and we have to be careful about where we spend it. 

I've always had a sense that, at least for me, running "hard" (whether that's racing, speed work, tempo runs, or some other workout where you're trying to hit a particular pace) doesn't only take physical effort; it's mentally taxing as well, in the same way that playing a complex and stressful game or taking a timed and detail-oriented entrance exam can be. (Think Chess tournaments, LSAT/MCAT/bar exam, etc.) In addition to being physically rested and recovered, you also need a certain "mental freshness" to do it well. I wasn't sure whether this was just me or a real thing until I read something Shalane Flanagan said about racing marathons: