Eugene Half Taper Pt 1 (Eugene Half Week 7 of 8) Apr 15-21

ICYMI, on April 13, I made an arguably (smart? stupid?) choice to spend one of my days in Philadelphia driving 2+ hours to a local community 15K so I could get one more race experience in before Eugene. (Originally I was going to run the Prospect Park 10 Mile in Brooklyn on Sunday April 14, but my conference talk got moved and when I knew I wouldn't be able to make it back in time, I had to shift to a Saturday race.)

While the race itself was generally a good experience, the drive back was not kind to my knee. By the time I finished running, it was a bit stiff and achey, and then after three hours sitting in the car driving back, it was a bit swollen and not too happy with me putting weight on it. I had planned to run seven easy miles that Sunday the day after the race, but when I got up that morning I knew it was absolutely NOT happening.

Thus, the theme of week 7 became, "For the love of god, Angela, don't wreck your knee again." Thankfully, being just two weeks out from the race, all the work was already done, and as we recently learned, extra rest is almost always only going to help you.

In case you missed it:

Eugene Half Week 1
Eugene Half Week 2
Eugene Half Week 3
Eugene Half Week 4
Eugene Half Week 5
Eugene Half Week 6

 ~*~*~ 🦆🦆 Eugene Half Marathon Week 7 of 8 🦆🦆 ~*~*~

Grand Total: 16 miles

🐌 Easy: 12.25 miles
🐎 Fast: 3.75 miles

⚖️ Easy miles vs. fast/moderate miles: 76.6% vs. 23.4%. 

Blue = daily strain, red/yellow/green = daily recovery

Race Report: Ninja 15K (Apr 13 2024)

Why did I sign up to run this race? 

I wanted to run one more race before Eugene, ideally something longer than 10K (so I could treat it as kind of a Eugene dress rehearsal/long tempo) but less than another half marathon (because I didn't want to risk getting over-excited and blowing Eugene by all-out racing two weeks before). 

One of the main reasons I wanted to do this was because back when I ran NorCal Redding 10-miler in March, I did not run a good race tactically. I knew I'd had a rough week and was not fully recovered and epically misjudged my initial effort level, and when that happened and I suddenly started to feel really really bad, I sort of had a little mini-panic attack. I spent the whole race really unhappy and desperate to quit and also watching my pace creep up and up and up no matter what I tried to do. It got a little better in the last two miles but I *really* wanted another chance to practice the mental & strategic side of things, and bonus if it was a day when circumstances are not 100% perfect (as is usually the case, if we're honest).

Originally I was going to do this 10-miler in Brooklyn on Sunday since my talk was scheduled for Saturday, but then just a few days before the talk got moved to Sunday and there was absolutely no way I was going to make it back in time. So, I poked around a bit and found this little community race about two hours from Philly put on by this group offering a 1-mile, 5K, 10K, 15K, and half marathon (!) and signed up for the 15K (which is ~9.3 of The King's miles for those keeping score at home).

And then what happened?