Week 5 started off great but kind of fell apart at the weekend. A friend of ours was renting a house in Tahoe & invited us to come up and stay with her, and given the epic snow conditions lately, we decided to take her up on it.
It's such a fine line between "Sounds awesome but I can't, I'm prioritizing training right now" and "Life is short and you're not a pro athlete, don't let training turn you into a monk." I have really been trying to prioritize getting in pretty-ok-to-decent shape for Victory Half but I also really like to ski and with everything else I have going on nearly every weekend between now and May, I wasn't going to have a lot of chances.
So, like any other respectable modern woman, I decided that choosing was a false dichotomy and with enough effort and hustle, I could "have it all."
If you've ever tried to "have it all," you can probably guess where this is going.
As I have many times before, I made a plan for both skiing and getting all the running in. Originally, we were going to leave Friday late-morning so as to not drive during either morning nor evening rush hours; I would work in the car, then do my easy six miles when we arrived. On Saturday (my rest day) I would ski, and then on Sunday I'd do my 13-14 mile long run (which I've done in Tahoe a number of times; there is a nice paved seven-mile bike/footpath that runs from Palisades to Tahoe City that is mostly flat (at least no crazy hills) that is kept relatively well-cleared even when there's a lot of snow, and ponying up for IceBugs a few years ago was one of the best decisions I ever made re: being able to run in icy conditions.
But no. On Friday a) we left later than expected, b) the trip took longer than expected, and c) a miscommunication with our friend meant we didn't even connect with her until after dark. So I started the weekend six miles behind, and immediately started doing all the mental calculus of how I would fit everything in.
No worries, I thought; I'll just leave the mountain a little early Saturday and get the six miles in (something I've done plenty of times), then 13-14 on Sunday.
But...again, no. Instead I basically didn't sleep and woke up Saturday feeling like absolute garbage. There was no way I was getting up to go ski. But I thought maybe if I could get a little extra sleep, I could at least get the six miles done. It was sunny and pleasant out and not actually that cold, so running was actually appealing.
But then I started looking at the weather and realized that Sunday wasn't just supposed to be "a lot of snow" as I'd been imagining. No; it was supposed to be a full-on white-out blizzard with like a foot+ of snow and crazy wind. Ie, pretty sketchy (and potentially dangerous) conditions for a 13-14 mile run to the lake and back.
OK fine, I thought. Long run today. Short run tomorrow in the blizzard.
And, after a little pep talk, I *did* get a long-ish run in. For the first few miles running was actually fairly comfortable, in spite of my lack of sleep; I did eventually start feeling the altitude any time I had to run up even the tiniest little uphill, but overall it wasn't awful. Yes, I feel like shit, but this isn't going to be impossible, I thought; just keep going. One mile at a time. Doesn't have to be fast. Just has to get done.
So I kept going, mentally calculating where I'd need to turn around to arrive back the cabin at 14 miles. But about a mile short of that point, it got super windy--like, I-am-not-totally-sure-I-am-moving-forward windy.
And I realized my phone was about to die and I didn't actually know how to get back without Google Maps.
OK fine, I'll just turn around now so I can be sure I know how to get home, then tack on a little 0.5-1 mile out & back from the cabin.
And then I hit the main road back towards the cabin, a super sketchy, mostly uphill road with lots of fast traffic and blind curves and no shoulders (because they were covered in giant piles of snow). This is when the altitude and the wind really, really started getting to me; I would like to say I'm joking that I'd sometimes be able to run all of .05 miles before I had to stop and catch my breath, but that's how it was. Sometimes I'd be like "I think I can make it to a whole 0.1 mile this time." But usually no.
And then the road just got steeper.
At this point I was just hoping I'd get to 12 miles without collapsing. Like yes I suppose technically I could have taken a minute to recover, then done a little out-and-back to get to 13 or 14, but a) I would have had to do it on the super sketchy, hilly, twisty road, and b) when you're already at the point that you can't run much farther than two tenths of a mile (**at best**) before you have to stop and catch your breath, I'd argue that the benefits of 1-2 more junky miles after you've already d r a g g e d yourself through 12 are marginal at best. Ultimately I decided that 12 miles was just fine (especially given the difficulty and what my heart rate had been doing), ate, showered, and collapsed on the couch for a nap.
By the time I woke up for dinner, the snow had started. And by 'snow,' I really mean 'epic blizzard.'
Since we had to check out of the cabin by noon, Don and I talked through the logistics of my possibly trying to get this other six mile run in on Sunday; the only way it seemed even kinda-sorta plausible was to pack as much of my stuff as possible into the car for Don to drive to the ski resort, do my run Sunday morning fairly early, shower & finish cleaning up the cabin, pack the rest of my stuff into my backpack, and take the Mountaineer shuttle to the mountain to possibly do some skiing or possibly just chill.
Welp, friends, the weather Sunday morning when I woke up made it ABUNDANTLY clear that there would be no running. I can run in a bit of snow and ice, thanks to the IceBugs, but six inches+ on the roads, especially very hilly ones, just isn't that practical. More critically, though, it was absolute white-out conditions, which meant that cars could barely see each other even without the blind curves, let alone one tiny runner on the side of the road (remember no shoulders). Honestly trying to do any running in those conditions seemed dangerous to the point of outright stupidity, so finally, I just let it go.
Instead I finished cleaning up, packed up, & took the shuttle to Alpine to meet Don for lunch. He was parked pretty close to a lift so I figured I might as well throw my skis on and get a few runs in until he was ready to leave. By 3:30, though, he was getting nervous about the snow and road conditions (specifically whether I-80 would remain open so we could get home), so we decided to head out.
I'll spare you the absolutely mind-numbingly boring details, but suffice it to say it was the longest drive home from Tahoe EVAR (about eight hours total) & took us nearly 4 hours just to get from Alpine to I-80 (about 11 miles), which normally takes about 30 minutes.
We finally got out of the mountains around 9:15 and stopped at a Taco Bell for some food, the only thing we could find open near the freeway. (But TBH I'm not mad about it, I have a nasty little soft spot for Taco Bell and kind of enjoy a $2 bean burrito once a year or so.)
Our view for a solid 4 hours (and 11 miles) on 89.
So, yeah. I spent most of Sunday low-key beating myself up for even coming to Tahoe this weekend and especially for not looking at the weather ahead of time. See what happens when you try to have it all?? Misery. Misery and despair.
By Monday morning, though, I was mostly over it. These things happen, inevitably, and you do the best you can with the circumstances you're in. I still got a kinda-long-ish run in, and while I didn't get the MP intervals done, it was still a pretty hard run by the end.
On to Week 6!!
Grand Total: 34 miles
🐌 Easy: 28.75
🏃🏻♀️ Moderate: 0
🐎 Speed: 5.25 miles
⚖️ Easy miles vs. fast/moderate miles: 15.4% vs. 84.6%
🎧In my ears this week:🎧
- The Burning White by Brent Weeks (Lightbringer Book #5). Still chipping away at this (fantastic) read and its nearly 1,000 pages/40 hours of prose!
- Keeping Track (podcast): Lauren Fleshman. I love this running podcast hosted by Alysia Montaño, Roisin McGettigan, and Molly Huddle. Highly recommend if you're interested in keeping up with issues that affect women in sport, particularly women and girls. With her new book Good for a Girl just out, Lauren has been making the rounds on like every running podcast out there. I always enjoy hearing her and it was fun to hear her talk so frankly (and hilariously) with these three other women about key issues she addresses in the book.
- Nobody Asked Us (podcast): Also Lauren Fleshman! Total coincidence! I saw that Kara and Des had dropped a new episode, and surprise! They were also talking with Lauren. While there was obviously some overlap with the Keeping Track interview, this conversation was fun and insightful in its own way. I thought it was particularly interesting to hear the three of them discuss what it's like to come in fourth at the Olympic Trials and go through all the processing as alternate, an experience they all have in common.
Monday 1/30: Rest. I dunno, I felt really good on this day and not like I just ran 13+ miles the day before and thought, "Maybe I should throw in a few easy miles?" But I'm still wary of overdoing it so I stuck to the planned rest day.
Tuesday 1/31: 1 hour strength + 8 easy. Haha, I should have run the day before! I was soooo tired on Tuesday. Not feeling that easy 8 AT ALL but still got it done.
Wednesday 2/1: 2.75 warm up, 8x2:00 @10k race/1:00 jog, 8x200m fast/200m jog, 2.5 cool down = 10 total. (ETA: Oops, apparently I miscounted & only ran seven 200ms! Now everything is ruined. 😬😅) I didn't feel terrible on Wednesday but I didn't feel fresh and peppy either. In the last few months I've only ever done a very few workouts so they have necessarily NOT been particularly long or difficult. And this one isn't really either, but I still kind of looked at it and went "Damn, Coach, first track workout of the season and you give me, like, TWO track workouts???"
It was definitely one of those days when my mind was like "This sounds terrible," so between that and being tired enough that the prospect of running all the way to the track, doing two track workouts, and then running all the way back sounded just unimaginable. But hey, Atomic Habits, man; all you have to do is put your shoes on. All you have to do is outside. All you have to do is jog one block. Then the next one. Then the next one. And so on.
Now, despite having run a really good half marathon and a really good 5K in the last year, no one is more aware than me that I have continued to strike out with the 10K over and over and over. The last time I ran one at low 7's pace was early 2020, so it seems not quite legit to say that's my 10K pace currrently. On the other hand, pick a race time prediction calculator, any race time prediction calculator, enter that half marathon time, 5K time, or both, and it spits out basically my 10K PR every time (~7:10 pace). So we're going with it.
I didn't know how attempting to run 7:10 pace (even just for 2 minutes!) was going to go, but I was happy to find that 2 minutes felt very manageable, and though my pacing wasn't perfect, it also wasn't that far off, with all my intervals between 6:56 & 7:08 pace if we believe Garmin. The 200ms, though--oof. Good lord. Between my lack of pep and the fact that I haven't run 200ms in like six months, I kind of felt like an elephant in lead boots. All of my intervals were between 44-46 seconds, and I am not really sure I could have run even one second faster.
But, as my coach reminded me, speed comes back with practice, and if you were already able to run nice snappy 200ms with good form you wouldn't really need to anyway. More proof that you don't have to feel good doing it; you just have to get it done*.
(* Please don't do stupid inappropriate workouts or run through serious illness or injury, that is not what we are talking about here, do not @ me.)
Thursday 2/2: 4 easy. It's been a while since I've done a workout hard enough to make these short little mid-week runs feel like they actually deserve the name "recovery run"! On the schedule this was "four to six miles" and friends, four felt like plenty. PLENTY.
Friday 2/3: 6 easy. Bah.
Saturday 2/4: Ski day! 8-9 easy + 4 x (1 mile @ MP / 3:00 jog) = 13/14 total. 12 easy-ish. But kind of hard-ish??? Bah.
Sunday 2/5: Ski day! 6 easy Like 1.5 hours of skiing in an epic blizzard + 8 hour drive home, sigh.
In Case You Missed It:
Victory Half Week 1 of 8Victory Half Week 2 of 8
Victory Half Week 3 of 8
Victory Half Week 4 of 8
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