Boston Marathon Week 11 of 18: How Not to Plan Your Training Week

So, at least for now, it seems like I've gotten back to a normal training load, just in time to turn 37 last Friday. I decided against the Saturday 10K, for a lot of reasons, including 1) running 6+ miles at 10K race pace is REALLY DIFFERENT than a run-of-the-mill speed or tempo workout, and I don't want to risk my hip relapsing so soon after it's started to feel normal again; 2) I reallllly need to prioritize long runs right now given my distinct lack of them as of late, and racing on Saturday makes a Sunday long run potentially miserable or a bad idea or both (if not impossible); 3) $60 is pretty pricey for a 10K I haven't even really been training for; but mostly 4) I wanted to go out for a fun dinner on my birthday Friday night without having to worry about what I'm eating or drinking and going to bed early and getting up at the butt crack of dawn or feeling like crap at the starting line.

So. I'll race something else later. Right now we are seven weeks out from Boston and it seems prudent to keep one's eye on the prize so to speak.

As for week 11? Well, on the face of things, it looks like, "Hey, wow, a normal-looking marathon training load! Woohoo!" And there's some truth there. My hip has felt 100% completely fine (because you can bet your booty I wouldn't be running this mileage otherwise), and it DOES feel super good to complete all the workouts and finish the full long run and even hit all the paces. (I've even been doing the strength work!) So, in a lot of ways, #winning.

But there was also a little comedy of errors going on this week in terms of how I ended up running all those miles & workouts. So let us talk about how, in an ideal world, one would perhaps NOT structure their training week!

Desperate Miles, Desperate Measures

It's been a rough couple of weeks.

I've run many (er...several?) 20+ mile training runs in my life, but never when I've been traveling so much for work, dealing with a sketchy leg constantly on the cusp of injury, and sick for much of the week prior. On top of that we've been dealing with a tragic family situation, which has made everything that much harder. Between all that I have barely been holding it together most days. So maybe it is not shocking that for a lot of last week, I didn't really think the 20 miler was going to happen.

I mean I'm a serious optimist here, people, but I just couldn't see it. I double-dog couldn't see it when I woke up at noon Sunday morning with all kinds of aches in my feet and hips and glutes. But still, I kept telling myself it was going to happen, counting it in my mental weekly mileage tally, & even justified making the blueberry crisp I hadn't made the night before because "It'll be good for refueling when I get back from my 20." (Carbs! Antioxidants!)

Under any other circumstances, I don't think I would have done it. I felt like crap. Everything was sore. I was sad and distracted and afraid it would wreck what was left of my leg and honestly just could not muster the least little bit of enthusiasm about running at all. But with all the problems with my hip post-SF2HM/18 mile long run two weeks before, I was on the brink of waving the white flag in terms of Santa Rosa, and I knew I needed to at least try to run those twenty miles in order to see if there was any hope of running twenty-six of them two weeks from now.

Oh hey! Haven't had one of these pics in a while. Aren't you
reassured that I still have feet & don't wear the weird toe shoes?

I have never been big on running with music, mainly for safety reasons but also because I've seen the research about running with music being correlated with dissociative running, which is correlated with higher rates of injury & decreased performance. Even so, I do have a running playlist on my phone which serves as a kind of "in-case-of-emergency-break-glass" type of thing. If I absolutely, positively can't get myself out the door any other way, the playlist is my carrot of last resort. This was the second time in eight years I've had to use it.

The plan was simple. I'd start running, see how my hip felt, & go until I felt too ill/too in pain to continue ("Run Vaguer Run Faster (?)"). No worrying about pace. No feeling bad about stopping at traffic lights and water fountains. Just run with good form, for as long as possible, & find out what the leg can take.

Not exactly what it said in my training plan but close enough.

The only way I got through this run was by not thinking about which mile I was on or how many more were left until 20. In fact, I'm pretty sure that if I'd told myself, "We are running twenty miles today come hell or high water and that is FINAL," I would have given up after three because it just seemed so completely impossible. Instead it was more like, "Good job, you ran some miles & aren't broken yet! Maybe run a few more & see what happens?"

I'd even made a deal with myself that instead of running entire loops of the east side of Golden Gate Park which includes two or three big sucky hills, I could just run back and forth along the part without the sucky hills, but that proved too complicated for my brain to deal with. "NO GOING BACK, ONLY FORWARD," it insisted, so forward we went, big hills and all (and I don't know why but I swear they got easier on every lap, probably because eventually my soul just became too numb to notice or care.)

When I'd run 16 miles and was four miles from home, I knew I'd make it. Because I kind of had to, or face the shame of having to call Don & have him put a towel down in the passenger seat. Let's be clear that if I'd had to run by my house at mile 16 and keep going for another four miles, I am not altogether sure I would not have quit. I was keeping up more or less the same easy pace with no problem, but I can only carry six gels at a time & realistically probably needed nine, & that on top of still being kind of sick led I think to a kind of mild bonking that was more mental than physical.

I really can't describe the relief of getting to this moment without any pain in my right leg, and only very occasional & manageable pain in my feet.

(Not that it makes any difference whatsoever, but I'm pretty sure there were some Garmin hijinks in those last two miles. The first & last two are almost always my slowest because they're back in my neighborhood & inevitably involve more weaving in & out of pedestrians/cautiously approaching intersections/slowing to stop at lights/etc., but I don't remember them feeling particularly worse or harder than the few right before and honestly don't think they were THAT slow.)

On the other hand, apparently this is just a thing that happens now:

I don't even feel it anymore. Hooray for nerve damage!!

In case you're interested in what got me through that run (besides a shitte-tonne of emotional apathy), here's my playlist; analyze away.

"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!!