Discount Code: Race to the End of Summer!

Hi Bay Area friends,

Just a quick reminder about one of my new favorite local races as you begin to think about your fall race schedule. In both 2016 and 2017 I ran the Race to the End of Summer 10K in San Jose, and had a great time! There's also a 5K as well as a half marathon option. AND, I have a sweet $7 discount code (AK2018) for you to use for any distance.

The race is Sunday, September 2, & takes place near the Coyote Creek trail in San Jose. It's not a super pricey event, BUT the first increase is coming up on March 15, so if you register soon and use the code, that's $18 for the 5K, $23 for the 10K, or $43 for the half. Not a bad deal!

Race Report: California International Marathon 2016 (My Race)

Sooooo it turns out that if you get your act together and actually, like, train hard for stuff, pretty amazing things can happen.

WHO KNEW besides everyone?

On the plus side (at least as far as CIM was concerned), my talk in Monterey on Saturday was cancelled, which meant I was actually able to get some good sleep Friday night and get to Sacramento before dinner time. Don & I got to the expo on Saturday around 4pm, a little later than intended due to bad traffic, but still in plenty of time for me to grab my bib & shirt & hunt around for a pair of sunglasses (having left mine in Palm Springs a few weeks back).

Race Report: Crissy Field parkrun 5K

I'm super, super excited for my running buddy bt and her husband Mr. bt who are taking a year sabbatical to relax, travel, & generally go have tons of fun in Places that are Else. (Ok, also a little bit jealous. Ok maybe a lot jealous.) To see her off, some of us met up at Crissy Field on Saturday for the weekly parkrun 5K that happens there.

I first learned about parkruns from Cathryn's blog. They started in the UK and are wildly popular there. From the website:

"parkrun organise free, weekly, 5km timed runs around the world. They are open to everyone, free, and are safe and easy to take part in. These events take place in pleasant parkland surroundings and we encourage people of every ability to take part; from those taking their first steps in running to Olympians; from juniors to those with more experience; we welcome you all."

In the last couple of years, parkruns have started popping up in the U.S., and we've now got one here in San Francisco up at Crissy Field, literally in the shadow of the Golden Gate Bridge.

Crissy Field

Now, this is more of a casual timed run than a real race (there are sponsors to handle the few costs involved), so you shouldn't expect anything like medals or shirts or timing chips or anything like that, and the course probably isn't perfect. But anybody can show up and run, and if you want a time result you just have to register at the website (you only have to do it once) & print out the bar code they send you so that it can be scanned at the finish.

Jen & Layla & I showed up around 8:30 to get a few extra miles in before the race, then met bt at the start a little before 9:00. The volunteers in charge for the day welcomed everyone, gave a little background on parkruns, explained the course, then directed us all to the start area. bt wanted to go all-out, but the rest of us just used the race as an excuse to get in three more easy, scenic miles.

#bloggerlyfe

Karl [the San Francisco fog] eating the Bridge again...

Post-race coffee & donuts!

Such a lovely way to spend a Saturday morning & see a friend off on a year of adventures!

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~LOGISTICAL STUFF~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Location: Crissy Field, San Francisco, CA

Date: Every Saturday at 9:00am

Price: FREEEEEEEEE!!!!

Deadlines/sellout factor: No cap.

Field Size: I dunno, 50? I heard that the week before was their biggest turnout ever with 65 finishers. (The week we ran was Crissy Field parkrun #78 as I recall.)

The Course:

The start is basically right in front of The Beach Hut Cafe at 1199 East Beach St. The course runs along the Bay Trail for a little over a mile, then makes a sharp left, does a little triangle-shaped lollipop, and retraces its steps back to the parking area. A lot of the Bay Trail is gravel, but it's pancake flat.

It's completely exposed, but since Crissy Field is foggy & cold 95% of the time, sun is almost never an issue. (On the other hand, it can get REALLY windy. We had an insane headwind for the first outbound stretch, but the tailwind was nice on the way back.) No aid stations but there are water fountains here & there all over Crissy Field if you get really desperate.

Staging:

Basically, everyone just kind of gathered at the parking area by The Beach Hut. Pretty informal, since they do this every week & it's free. No bibs/shirts/etc. to pick up so obviously that's not an issue. Crissy Field is a popular recreation area so trying to park in the middle of the day can sometimes get dicey, but there is nobody there at 8:30 in the morning so it was easy to park right in front of The Beach Hut.

Swag:

It's free, you guys! What you get is a time result emailed to you, if you want it. They also post finisher pics on their facebook page (see above) so that was nice too.

If you decide to run:

Just remember, parkruns are free and run completely run by volunteers, so manage your expectations accordingly. Also know that a lot of the course is gravel and it can be windy.

Overall Assessment:

I had fun hanging out with friends and seeing what parkruns are all about! It was great to get out of my neighborhood and run somewhere different for a change, and it was a really fun, friendly atmosphere.

Back to the Oval

Two years ago when I was recovering from Hip-mageddon 1.0, Coach Tom invited me to come do speed work with SF Track Club, which he coaches, once I was healthy again. It made a lot of sense since they worked out at Kezar on Tuesday nights, just as I did, if a bit later. (I usually did my track work 5-7ish whereas they started at 6:30.)

I was super excited about this, but sadly it never panned out. Just as I was getting back to some speed work & starting to feel comfortable on the track again that fall/early winter, I ended up with a stress fracture, so it was another six months before I set foot on a track. And while technically, yes, I was marathon training that summer, I was still having problems with my hip & only did like three track workouts during that training cycle. But lately I've done some faster running out on the roads and felt pretty good, and since I'm officially into my 12-week for-realsies SRM training cycle, I decided to finally go.

I arrived at newly renovated Kezar Stadium a little before 6:30 to marvel at the sharp, new lane lines, plush, bouncy inner lanes, and rehabilitated numerals on the starting line. I hadn't been out there since the city finished fixing it up last fall, and the sight, along with the smell of freshly cut grass, brought a metaphorical tear to this speed-lover's eye.

I hadn't done a track workout with a group since college so I was a little nervous about it. One of the reasons why I do most of my runs alone is because I don't have to worry about keeping up/holding other people back/pushing others too hard/etc.; I can just cruise along & do my own thing. Also despite 2.5 years of internet coaching, Tom had never seen me run before, so there was also maybe a little of that performance anxiety/for-god's-sake-don't-embarrass yourself feeling. Plus this would be my first time testing my right leg (which has been getting much better!) at speed around curves & I didn't want to be the lame-o that pulled up in the first lap like, "Sorry, I broke myself, but nice meeting you all!"

Thankfully, all disasters were averted. Tom put me with a group based on my guesses about my current 5K/10K paces, and instead of my assigned RunCoach speed workout of 6 x 200m / 30:00 GMP / 6 x 200m, he had me run 6 x 1K with them at ~7:25ish. I was relieved to find that this was quite an easy workout for me at this point, and was also reminded of one of the great perks of doing speed work with a group where someone who is not you is assigned to watch the pace, which is that you can pretty much turn your brain off; all you have to do is keep up & not pass anyone.

I know everyone grumbles about speed work & it's supposed to make you cry & want to die & all that, but MAN. Coming around the corner on that first lap was sheer joy for me. After months and months of nothing but base training and really focusing on my long runs and then verrrrry gradually dipping my toe back into the waters of fast running, whipping my body around that oval again after nearly a year away was pretty much bliss.

The one down side to this workout was that together with our ten minute warm-up jog, it only came out to about five miles, as opposed to the 9.5-10ish that my assigned track workout had called for. Tom said this was okay since the 6 x 1K's had really worked out to more like a tempo/threshold workout for me anyway rather than speed work, so I could just do the 200m's on Friday instead of my assigned tempo/threshold.

So, on Friday, back to the oval I went. And MAN, was it hot [SF translation: moderately warm with no clouds]. After a super hard/crappy "easy" run on Thursday, some worse-than-usual pain in my left foot & shin, & then waking up sick in the middle of the night (nothing major, all better now), I was only maybe 60/40 on whether I'd actually be able to do do the longer 200m's workout.

Once I got out there, though, the 200m's felt surprisingly easy:

Last summer I was doing these pretty consistently in the 0:42-0:43 range (5:30-5:40 pace), but given that I'm only just getting back into speed work after many, many months of mostly base training, I'm actually pleasantly surprised to be doing them in the 0:44-0:46 range. If I can get back to those faster times or even a second or two faster by the time I taper for SRM, I'll be happy. If nothing else I was at least pleased to be managing some kind of consistency, which I've always struggled with on shorter intervals (Garmin numbers being pretty much unreliable over that short a distance).

The 30:00 @ marathon pace, though?

Ugh. Uuuuggggghhhh. Pretty much the same as last week's sucky runs, just faster. I mean yes, it was quite warm, but the entire 3.7 miles felt like I was low blood sugar or sleep deprived or both (neither of which was the case). It wasn't that the pace felt hard cardio-wise; just as if the messages from my brain to my legs to like, run & stuff weren't getting through. (Ever had the experience of telling a teenager over & over again to do something super effing easy & they just keep pretending they can't hear you? It was kind of like that.)

I feared this didn't bode well for my second set of 200m's, but for some magical reason I don't understand, busting out half-laps in 45-46 seconds still felt pretty easy (at least until maybe the last 1-2, and even then it wasn't all that terrible.)

I clearly have a ways to go to get my speed back (as expected), and I kind of think maybe my sucky easy runs lately are just my body still adjusting to two harder workouts per week. Still, considering that last August I couldn't even run one hard 200m without feeling like my pelvis was about to snap, no complaints here!

#trackselfie

SRM WEEK 8 OF 20: Pleasanton Ridge Trail Run

This ended up being a low mileage week with only three runs, but all three of them were more challenging & sufficiently different from most of what I've been putting my legs through over the last nine months or so that I still feel like it was a pretty productive week training-wise.

First, there were of course my two speed(ish) workouts. Normally I would have done an easy run Friday, taken Saturday off, & then done my long run on Sunday, but this week I had plans to run trails with friends in the East Bay on Saturday. We were planning on 12 miles, and since a) I'd done two speed workouts already this week for the first time in many many months, b) I almost never run trails, and c) this would be my longest trail run ever by 100%, I figured it was smartest of me to take Friday off & then tack on a few easy miles Sunday depending on how I felt after the trail run.

Jen, Cathryn, Jess, and KP scoped out the situation at Pleasanton Ridge Regional Park in the East Bay, and Layla, bt, Debbie, & Amanda joined as well, so there ended up being a solid group of us.

Trail runners were indeed mighty that day.
(As always, carrying on the proud tradition of awkward running photos.
I call this one the "Hurry-up-I-have-to-pee.")

For the next 2.5-3 hours we ran-hiked along dirt trails over golden hills and did our best not to spook the cattle.

There were a good number of hills and many of them were quite steep, so we definitely did a fair amount of hiking as well as actual running. Different people turned back at different points, & the last group of us went out five miles and then tacked on a two-mile loop, which saw both our fastest miles (sub-10, baby!) as well as potentially the longest, steepest hill I have ever "run" in my life.

Again...photos utterly fail when it comes to communicating the actual steepness you're dealing with.

If it looks like we're kind of dragging ourselves up, it's because we were.

As a non-trail runner, the downhills were definitely the trickiest thing for me, of which there were many (particularly on the way back).

Jen's selfie attempt becomes an artsy shot of me.

Then, of course, there's the aftermath.

#dirttan

I don't get to do a ton of social running thanks to my schedule (or much trail running thanks to where I live), so it's always super fun to get in some miles with friends on new and different terrain.

Thanks for a fantastic morning, ladies! :)

~*~*~SRM WEEK 8 OF 20~*~*~

Grand Total: 28 miles

* 8.2 easy
* 7.8 speed/tempo(ish)
* 12 trail/long

No strength work this week because apparently I can't get myself to bed on time lately. Mostly I blame the daylight for consistently tricking me into thinking it's earlier than it is. This is fast becoming a serious problem that I'm not entirely sure how to solve.

Monday: I did nothing but rest & recover on Monday. PSA: Do not run 14 miles & then forget to eat anything but roast pork while drinking heartily.

Tuesday: 2 warm up / 4 progression / 2 cool down = 8 speed

I don't know if I would normally call this workout "speed," but that's how it was listed in my little mini-intro-to-speed plan I'm doing, so what the hey. I was a little hesitant since lately any amount of fast running has angered the gods of my right leg, but after the whole engaging-the-power-ray experiment went well during Sunday's 14 mile long run, I decided to give it a try. And it was not horrible! Hard from a cardio standpoint, yes, but the leg held up pretty darn well.

Wednesday: Karate.

Thursday: 2 warm up / 15 x 1:00/1:00 fartleks / 2.2 cool down = 8 speed

McMillan says the actual pace of the fartleks don't really matter; the point is just to run "pretty hard" for a minute, then recovery for a minute, wash/rinse/repeat. This, I have no qualms about calling speed work. I still clearly have some work to do to get my speed back, but I was happy to see that I could push it pretty hard & still have my right leg feel okay and get through all 15 feeling like I could have done more.

Friday: Rest

Saturday: 12 trails

My schedule called for 16-17, but at 2.5+ hours, I feel like this run got the job done time and effort-wise. We spent almost the entire run either running or hiking up steep hills at a good clip, with only one significant pause (5-10 minutes or so) plus a few other quick ones for water/fuel/etc. Much has been made of running different types of terrain in order to work different muscles, and that much was *definitely* accomplished.

Sunday: 8 easy Rest

Another way I can tell the trail run was a solid "long" workout is that WOW, did I have some sore glutes & hamstrings the next day! Also, I can tell I was using my feet more effectively as well. They definitely have that sore-from-hard-work feeling (as opposed to the overdoing-it/injury-type soreness). I probably would have done a shorter easy run if I hadn't been so sore, but as it was, letting my body recover seemed like the smarter choice.

Next week, my SRM training officially officially starts.

Dare I say it:

BRING. IT.

Hell Yeah Mellow March

So like I mentioned before, in the days immediately following NVM, I had all these grand plans about getting back to srsbzns training sooner rather than later, because what is a non-race pace marathon besides a glorified long run?

Of course I quickly accepted that, DERP, clearly according to my body, a marathon is still a marathon, even if you don't attempt to actively blow the doors off the thing.

So my March weekly mileage has looked like this:

• Week 1: 0 miles
• Week 2: 23 miles
• Week 3: 15 miles
• Week 4: 16 miles

In some cases I would have run more had I not been traveling for work or out of town for the weekend, but since my body has been *quite* clearly communicating sentiments along the lines of "Six miles is plenty at once, plzthnx" and "Maybe not so much with the two days in a row for now," that's actually kind of been good timing.

Other things I have been doing shall we say less-than-much of include 1) eating like any kind of remotely serious athlete and 2) strength work. I did have a session with AT this month (where we worked on deadlifts, HELL YEAH DEADLIFTS) but other than that I've been to the gym maybe 4-5 times. Probably 4. (Though I would be remiss if I didn't mention that on one of those visits, I straight-up DEADLIFTED MY BODY WEIGHT for the first time since probably high school. And since I definitely weigh more now than then, deadlift PR FTW.)

It was pretty much like this.

But otherwise I have been mostly embracing Matt Fitzgerald's very reasonable-sounding philosophy that no one can eat like a serious athlete 100% of the time (not even serious athletes) & that, much like having a relaxed recovery period after a training cycle, letting yourself have a bit of time where you eat more or less whatever you want, whenever you want (and knowing you'll let yourself do that for a while after a goal race) can help give you the resolve you need to eat well when you're in the middle of training for something you seriously care about.

Seriously all the Trader Joe's snack dips.

I'd originally planned to start some easy hill workouts in the last week or two of March, but with "easy" runs still not quite feeling easy enough yet for my taste, I decided to push it off until April, which seemed to make a lot of sense given that we'll be in Colorado skiing (or hiking, or maybe swimming?? Only the weather will tell) this weekend.

But after that, it is ON.

Hill sprints, get your game face on, because I am coming for you on April 7.

(Er....assuming I don't break myself skiing. :-/ )

Miss Zippy (who I always want to call 'Mizzippy')'s Year of Running Link-Up!

I am almost done recapping Week 4 (it's kind of a doozy & you'll understand why once I get it posted), but in the mean time, it's time for Miss Zippy's Year of Running post, 2014 edition!

Best race experience? Probably my first race back after my stress fracture, the Get Lucky 5K in Rohnert Park in March. I had just got the clearance to run three straight miles with no walking, so HELL YEAH, the first thing I'm going to do is go race a 5K. An all-time PW, but it felt so good just to get out and run fast (or at least what felt fast at the time).

Best run? Oh geez. No idea. I don't keep track of these things. My Halloween run was pretty great. That first race after the stress fracture was great. But honestly, I can't pick out anything anymore specifically than that.

Best new piece of gear? No contest, my Mio wrist band heart rate monitor. I've been meaning to write a proper review for it--I promise I'll get to it soon! Basically there is no way I could possibly wear a heart rate monitor for every run otherwise.

Best piece of running advice you received? It's a tie between "Eat more protein, preferably at every meal" and "SLOW THA EFF DOWN on the easy runs." Since September I've slowed my easy runs down from 8:00-8:30/mile to 10:00-10:30/mile, and I've seen some significant aerobic gains as a result. (Here's hoping that translates into faster race times in the spring.)

Most inspirational runner? This woman I just learned about called Aimee Mullins, who is the fastest woman in history with prosthetic legs. I heard an interview with her on NPR & then saw a TED talk she did, and her story is just amazing. Also she is DEAD hilarious

If you could sum up your year in a couple of words, what would they be? An educational roller coaster ride. I've had some high highs and low lows, and definitely learned a LOT about smart training and racing and generally taking care of a runner's body that I'm looking forward to putting into practice even more next year.

You can check out everyone else's link at Miss Zippy's page by clicking on her picture above!

no but wine, music, & realtors are basically the same as running right?

This week was going pretty well until the weekend. Which is not to say the weekend was not awesome; just that I completely failed to think ahead & plan my running around the awesome, so 18 weekday miles + 17 weekend miles turned into 18 miles total & that was all she wrote.

At least the week day miles were good ones. I now have four weeks of base training down (er....sort of. Not sure these last two really count, but hey, you do what you can do), eight more to go. Right now I'm planning on two more weeks of all super easy running, & then beginning to add in some goal marathon pace miles (although early-on I suspect it may be more marathon effort than goal pace) on Tuesdays.

I will now recount for you the Things I Learned This (zero-mileage) Weekend.

• Wine tasting in Napa is hard, even when you pre-plan. This is part of why we never go there & instead stick to Sonoma & Paso Robles. Yes, there are places you can drive right up to without an appointment, but most of them suck and/or are full of dumbass bachelorette parties in monogrammed sequin tank tops & penis hats (which...I suppose still technically sounds as sucking).
  
  One of the only normal-looking pictures we would take all day. We did not take it because we were super excited about taking pictures in the barrel room. We did it because the guy pouring assumed that we *obviously* wanted to take pictures in the barrel room & we did not want to hurt his feelings. (It seemed to make him really happy.)

• Even at the good wineries where you have to make appointments, some jackasses will still do their tasting & then light up a ciggy twenty feet from where the rest of us are just starting. (Don, sarcastically, as we sniffed a lovely merlot: "Hmm...I get hints of smoke & some tobacco notes..." Me: "I mean I know it's French but it's not THAT French." Lovely woman doing our tasting: "Excuse me while I go regulate up in hurrr." Bitches, man.)
• If you're making an appointment at a Napa winery & you don't want the wine n00b song/dance/tour/FiveDimensionalExperience, you should tell them in advance; otherwise they might spend an entire hour explaining to you how wine is made & what it means to be in a wine club & try to impress you with aspects of their winemaking & club that are entirely par for the course.
  
  Charter Oak. They also have some gorgeous art here.

  
  Good wine here but I could have done with less talking / more drinking.

  
  This is my "They-just-made-me-punch-down-the-fermentation-tanks-because-it's-authentic" look.

• Go to The Terraces. You have to make an appointment. They are cool as hell there & won't care if you start taking punchy selfies because you haven't eaten in six hours. Oh, and the wine is excellent as well.
  
  We weren't even drunk. Just punchy as hell.

• Remember that everything takes longer than it's supposed to at fancy appointment-only-Napa wineries & work this into your food planning ahead of time. Originally we'd planned to hit two wineries, stop for lunch, hit the second two, then head home around five, leaving me enough time in the evening to get my run in. As it was, we spent the day sprinting from one appointment after another, inevitably running late, so by the time we left our last stop, we were all desperate for food & just ended up having dinner in Napa.
  
  Dinner time. Still punchy.
• Everything about buying a house is scary & complicated. We officially started interviewing realtors this week, & the Sunday meeting that I assumed would take maybe an hour actually took two. At that point it was only about an hour & a half until the piano fundraiser we were going to, which isn't even enough time for half a long run once you factor in shower / travel time.
• There is this awesome organization in San Francisco called The Center for New Music, founded & run by a musician friend of Don's from college (and whose wife, coincidentally, is a teacher that I worked with a couple of times before I even knew she was connected to Don). You may remember that in a past life, I was a composer/singer/musician, so discovering this place was a huge treat.
  
  Less talking more piano.

  

• Plan your eating plan your eating plan your eating. By the time we left the concert, we were starving again, & after stopping for food, we didn't get home until nine. Weekend running thwarted again.

When I have an imminent race I'm pretty darn good at mercilessly putting a fence around my running time, and God help the man/woman/child/natural disaster that tries to get in my way. I think what I'm finding now is that I've got to start being a little more ruthless in that way, even though I'm not *really* training for anything right now.

WEEK OF 10/13-10/19

* 18 miles, all easy
* 2 x 45:00 strength workouts

Monday: afternoon 5 easy / p.m. karate

Normally Monday is my post-long run rest day, but since there was no long run on Sunday and the intensity of karate workouts has been less reliably lately depending on who is there, I decided to get a few easy miles in before class, just for the sake getting in SOME physical activity. And then, surprise! A pretty decent workout at karate as well.

Tuesday: a.m. strength work / p.m. 7 easy

I love you, fog. Our love is meant to be. I hear that Chicago song in my head every time you're near.

Wednesday: a.m. strength work / p.m. karate

Thursday: a.m. massage / p.m. 6 easy

Friday: Rest

Friday was one of those bizarre days where I flew to LA at 8:30am & then back 12 hours later, so not really much time for anything except work.

Saturday: Napa

Sunday: Realtors/concert/near-starvation

I SWEAR I AM ALMOST DONE WITH THE RUNSAFE POST. It's getting posted this week if it kills me.

"Easy" Runs & SF Marathon 2nd Half

Sometime not long after what I think of as my return to "serious" (y'know, for me) distance running in 2008, I ran across a quote by some popular-slash-important running person (Bart Yasso? Meb? Who knows) about how when training for something you care about it's important to keep your easy days truly easy so that you can kill it on the hard days & get as much benefit from them as possible. It didn't resonate with me much at the time because I had a reasonably good fitness base & wasn't running that much mileage. I ran pretty much all my runs hard & it was never a problem.

Once I found myself deep in the trenches of training for my first marathon, though, it was a different story. The day after a hard track or tempo workout, believe me--there was no risk whatever of my running an easy run too hard. Were the miles accomplished? Good enough. The end.

Which is basically where I am now. Six weeks or so ago I didn't have a ton of endurance, but most runs still felt pretty easy, so occasionally I would let myself get a bit carried away on easy days (because for me running fast is fun and awesome & running slow is boring torture) & it really didn't have any noticeable effect at all on subsequent harder workouts. These days, although I still finish my hard workouts feeling not like death (which I think is a good thing), the lingering effects + the cumulative effect of just plain running more mileage means that when it's time for an easy run the next day, I have precisely enough energy & brain space to care about three things:

1) Git 'er done

2) Keep good form

3) Listen for pain (as distinct from "I'm uncomfortable because I'm running & would just rather be done.")

That's it. Speed? Chicking annoying dudes? Looking hella cool/baddass?

Just don't care.

On Sunday I'm running the San Francisco Marathon 2nd Half, which is exciting because when, after years of bad timing, the scheduling finally worked out for me last year, I ended up unable run thanks to the Hip Strain from Hell. Originally I'd intended to actually train for and RACE-race it, partly because I haven't run a serious, balls-out half in a while and partly because I got a sub-seeded invitation, which for some reason makes me feel kind of bad about slummin' it & running just to finish & get a medal. But that was before my December stress fracture bumped my 2014 marathon from March to August, so sorry, SFM; as fond as I am of you, I care about not screwing up my marathon a whole lot more.

So, I'm resigned to jogging the five miles from my house to the start & then running the race at probably around an 8:20ish pace or so and, as at Berkeley, likely being the slowest person there with a sub-seed bib. OTOH, it turns out that some cool & fun girls I know (you may know these three in particular) will apparently also be around, and also this guy, so it should be a good time.

Anyone else planning to be at SFM or SF2HM in particular? Come say hi!!

SRM WEEK 2: The Slow Burn

On Sunday we cooked a whole pig in our backyard, and it was delicious.

We used to roast it out in the open on a spitz over hot coals. While that method does make for a damn tasty, fall-apart tender pig and there is nothing like waking up to a house permeated with the smell of bacon, that method takes like 15 hours for an 80 pound pig (talk about a slow burn), and after putting out one too many grease fires at two in the morning, we switched last year to the caja china method.

Cooking the pig in the caja has the advantage of taking only 4-5 hours, and also of fewer grease fires at two in the morning. And it still makes for a damn tasty, 95%-as-fall-apart tender pig.

The pig is pronounced tasty.

* * *

In non-pig-related news, most of my runs for the last two weeks have been about three miles. Some of them have been surprisingly difficult (particularly those on warm days and/or involving hills), but on other days they've felt pretty darn good. With week 2 now in the books, I've almost reached the point of finishing a twenty-five minute run & going, "That's IT? Really? When does marathon training *actually* start??" I won't lie and say that I have been super duper excited to run every single day, but there have definitely been times when spending twenty-three and a half hours out of a day not running has felt really strange and there have been a few mornings only twelve hours post-run when I've been so, so ready to lace up the shoes & head out. "Let me at that pavement. Bring it right the hell on."

Of course, those things are easy to say when you've got 36 miles down and 575 left to go.

I definitely have a history of being incredibly gung-ho at the beginning of marathon training (Every mile!! Every run!! All the cross-training!! No sleeping in!! Unplanned/complete rest days are for wimps!!), and then about six weeks in, realizing I am tired and sore and grumpy and unmotivated and screw it, I'm taking half the week off, because otherwise I may never feel like a normal human ever again.

This time around, I'm trying to remember the extremely meta advice that I've given several first-time marathoners: Marathon training itself is a marathon, not a sprint. The first few weeks aren't supposed to be that hard; if they are, you're probably doing something wrong. I keep reminding myself that Coach Tom scaled these first few weeks back for me, and he did it for a reason.

Which is to say, I am taking everything week-by-week, run-by-run. So far I've been able to do everything on the schedule (with one swap in Week 1), and though I've been slightly sore at times, there's been nothing insurmountable yet. Still, I'm making a deal with myself to remember how those past marathon training cycles have felt and not wait until I'm exhausted and burned out to take an extra rest day if I need to, skip the cross training occasionally, etc. It may seem counterintuitive, but it turns out (for me, at least) that skipping a few miles here & there early-on often means not skipping a whole bunch later down the road when it matters more.

* * * WEEK 2 * * *
(13 to go)

Grand Total: 21 miles, all easy

Plus:

* 30 miles bike
* 1.5 hours strength/stretch/roll

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

Not that I didn't already know this, but WOW have I lost some muscle in (basically) 5 weeks. 15 push-ups with the 25 pound plate is no longer a thing I can do; at best I can manage ~5-6. For the time being I've gone back down to the 10 pound plate. I went down 10 pounds for my back squats & deadlifts as well. The deadlifts felt about right, actually (sigh) but the backsquats felt too easy, so I may go back up to where I was pretty quickly with those. I wanted to get some biking miles in as well, but alas there was no way to fit it in with Monday's work schedule. Maybe it's for the best, though, considering that my legs still felt like Jell-O after karate.

Tuesday: a.m. 15 bike / p.m. 3 easy

Barely one week back from vacation and I am So. Stinking. BORED of my usual routes I could just wretch. Finding novel routes to run that start at my house is tricky because I live in the land of a) traffic lights and b) hills. I am not talking about nice, friendly, domesticated, everyone-should-run-hills-sometimes-it's-good-for-you hills; I am talking about the big, nasty, feral, soul-destroying, barely-runnable-if-at-all behemoths of central San Francisco, the types of hills from which no real benefit can be gained, in terms of marathon fitness. (Not least of all because coming back down the other side puts you at not-all-that insignificant risk of tripping & falling & breaking your neck.

Runnable in the most literal sense of the word, but not very useful training-wise.
(This goes on for like 4 blocks, BTW; the sidewalk actually turns into stairs at one point.)


It's less the going up & more the coming back down.

So, on Tuesday, I went a different direction & tried to figure out a new route near home that wasn't too heavy on the traffic lights or un-runnable hills, and mostly succeeded! I even found a nice view to look at.

Not too shabby as urban running goes!

Wednesday: a.m. strength work / afternoon 3 easy / p.m. karate

On Wednesday I went back to doing back squats with the same weight as before vacation, and they felt fine, so I'll probably stick with that for now. Hopefully I'll be able to add the ten pounds back deadlifts soon, too (and honestly...I keep being told I'm not using as much weight for either of these as I could / should, so maybe sometime soon I'll get brave & try adding a little more.)

Continuing the spirit of finding new routes/places to run, I stopped on my way home at the north entry to Sawyer Camp Trail. When I lived on the Peninsula back in the mid-'00s, I used to do my runs out-and-back from the south entry of this trail all the time, but I've never run from the north end.

Easy on the eyes, but MAN, that grade! Those crazy turns! That insane camber! I totally sucked it up on this run, so obviously I will need to try it again sometime soon.

Thursday: 4 easy

No bike this Thursday thanks to working from SF. Instead, I had a wicked sports massage in the a.m. I have recently procured a brand-new pair of Kinvara 4's as well as a pair of 5's & did my easy four-miler with one on each food. (Keep an eye out for a post comparing the two a la this one.)

Friday: a.m. 15 bike / p.m. 3 easy

Since I missed my Thursday morning bike I went back & forth on whether to make it up Friday morning or do my strength work as planned. It seemed more fair to make it two-and-two than three-and-one, so bike it was. After work I took Tuesday afternoon's route through my neighborhood, and BOY do hills suck right now. Which probably means I should be running this route more often.

Starting to have some annoying pain on the upper outside of my right calf. I've had it on & off over the years; what freaks me out is that that's exactly how the stress fracture on the left side started. :-/ Fortunately, running doesn't seem to be making it any worse, so for now it's watch-and-consult.

Saturday 3 easy

A quick one through the neighborhood; same old, same old, more or less.

Sunday: 5 easy + stretch/roll.

Squeezed this one in amidst pig roast prep & made it down to the Panhandle for the first time in five months, which was quite exciting! The pain in my right calf came & went, but never really got any worse, and actually felt a little better afterward, so fingers crossed.

On tap this week: 26 miles and (drrrrrrrrrum rollllllll) a track workout! On an actual track! Here's hoping I can remember how that sort of thing works.