NOT DEAD YET (Part 2)

Heyyyyy you came back! Always a good sign.

If you missed Part 1 of this little update, you can find it here.

Onward, shall we?

JUNE, CONT'D
When we left off, I had just run one of my slowest 5Ks ever despite not terrible training. The next race on my docket was Tracksmith Twilight 5000m on the track at Kezar Stadium on July 19th. We had a vacation scheduled for early July, so I thought, "Maybe Stow Lake was just a bad day, let me get a bit of rest and some solid speed workouts in, and then I'll run one more 5K before we leave & see where I'm at." I picked the Stars & Strides 5K in San Jose since it was July 1st & we were leaving the next day. 

Not much else of note happened in June, BUT I did make this delicious cherry clafoutis!

Unscheduled rest days? We do that here. (Victory Half Week 7 of 8)

Monday morning I dragged my suitcase up my front steps at 10:00am, so bone-deep exhausted I was almost sick with it.

Actual footage

I'd left DFW airport (Texas) at 7:00am central time; this meant setting an alarm for 4:00am, but it turns out you don't actually need an alarm when you're awake all night (like literally allll night, not even even a bit of light dozing). It's not that I didn't try to sleep but I often have a hard time sleeping when I have an early alarm, and unfortunately none of my usual tricks (melatonin, diphenhydramine, reading) were helping.

So yes. Up at 4:00am, out the door at 4:30, returning my rental car at 5:15, at the gate for my flight at 5:45. (It wasn't boarding until 6:30am so I was earlier than I needed to be, but that's because everything went perfectly and you can never count on everything going perfectly when air travel is involved.) 

After ~3 hours of fitful airplane sleep, I touched down at SFO, took an Uber home, said hi to my cats, and tried (in vain) to get some real sleep on my couch. (My bed wasn't made and I was not not NOT in a place to make it. So, couch.)

The kitty welcomed me back home and by 'me,' I mean 'my body heat.' (She's like one of those sea creatures that can only thrive in the extreme heat of hydrothermal ocean vents.)

O hai, perhaps you want some running-related content...

Who wants to date themselves by explaining the photo? Go on, I dare you. 🤣

Lately this has been more of a book blog than a running blog, but to be honest there hasn't been much of note to write about running-wise, unless you include one running-related injury after another "content."

So, yeah. It's been quite the month, with at least three distinctly different injuries, and I can't say I've had a single week in all of November that's felt like it warranted its own training journal. But perhaps a quick round of highlights (and lowlights) to catch us up to the present day??

 

 

 

Saturday 11/5: 14 miles at Indiana Monumental Half Marathon! This was my last running-related post. You can read the race report if you want, but the tl;dr is that I went ahead and went, though I was not even remotely fit and was still getting over a bad cold. People kept going on and on about the weather in dramatic fashion and how horrible it was, but friends. I was at CIM 2012. I was at Boston 2018. Both were much, MUCH worse. The only issue at Indy was some rain and some admittedly forceful wind in hours 3/4/5 (so, I feel a lot worse for the marathoners than the half marathoners). But the rain was more a drizzle than a downpour, and it wasn't even cold. Now, was it perfect PR weather? No, so I felt much less bad than I would have about the fact that I had an asthma attack around mile 6 and had to run the rest of the race a mile to a half-mile at a time with lots of breaks.

Mid-Jan Kaiser Half Update

Hello friends. I hope you are still safe and healthy as we all ride out this stupid omicron wave. Not much happening lately that's super photo worthy so please enjoy this shot from last August when I went to Seattle for work and took the opportunity to bust out 10 carefree miles around Lake Union.

I am over here getting a GREAT start on 2022 Injury Bingo. Just two weeks into the year (not even!) and I've already been struck down by tendonitis in my left foot/ankle. As man know if it isn't one thing then it's something else.

Of course, this has meant scaling back on running just as I was starting to get into the swing of it again. Several great-feeling 3-5 mile runs during the first week of the year! Then, waking up Saturday morning 1/8 unable to put weight on my left foot. It felt a little better Sunday morning so I gave my scheduled seven-mile run a shot and knew two miles in it wasn't happening. So, four it was, and the tendonitis a little bit worse as a nice bonus. (The next time you hear someone say, "It can't hurt to try!," punch them in the neck for me.)

I took Monday 1/10 through Wednesday 1/12 off running but did my Monday morning weight training as usual. Thursday 1/13 it was feeling much better so I decided to test it out by running to the gym (about 1.25 miles), thinking worst case I could just walk. While it's clearly not 100%, it felt MUCH better, just a little discomfort still. All in all I ran to the gym plus a bit more, then back home after for a total of three miles. The next day (Friday 1/14) I ran another 3 miles; I had a tiny bit of discomfort after but was totally pain-free the next morning (Saturday 1/15) so I went for 5 miles. And, success!

Life Lately + The New Agreement

So, fleshing out a bit more of something I mentioned in my recent race report.

First is just the simple fact that work (and work travel) has been taking over my life lately. A couple of my work projects are legitimately high stakes right now (like, people's jobs on the line if I can't make some things work out) so I've been under a lot of pressure. Those things really do have to be my A-#1 priority right now. Unfortunately, the rest of my work hasn't conveniently shrunk to allow me to spend a greater portion of my day on the high stakes stuff, so I've had a lot of very long days. Working a 6-8 hour day in the office and then coming home to work *another* 4-6 hour day in the late afternoon/evening has, sadly, become a thing, as has working on the weekend (sometimes in airports and on planes).

I suspect it's probably not unrelated, but I've also started to feel really burnt out on running. No one is super excited about every run and workout all the time (I don't think??), but usually my bad days are limited to feeling super tired and unmotivated when I get home, forcing myself to put on my shoes and get out the door, and almost always feeling better. Lately it's been so much worse--lots of days when I'll think about the fact that I have a run on my schedule and want to burst into tears. Or I feel tired and sour about going on a run and then it never gets any better. Sometimes getting ready for a track workout and feeling like I'm about to have a panic attack, except it doesn't go away once I've gotten started.

Tell Me It's Just Stress

This week wasn't perfect, but, hey! It makes one more where I've had the time & bandwidth to at least ATTEMPT every run on the schedule, and it also included two double-digit workouts. Honestly I'm kind of amazed at how beat up my legs feel after this 33+ mile week (they feel like it was at least 50), but I think that's at least partly still working back up to higher mileage & longer/harder workouts after a bit of a holiday break.

(I've also had a lot of work stress recently, and I think we all know that mental/emotional stress slows healing/recovery, so that could also be part of it.)

~*~*~ STOW LAKE STAMPEDE: Week 6 of 14 ~*~*~

Grand Total: 33.15 miles

* 7.5 easy
* 6.65 speed
* 6 threshold
* 13 long

Stow Lake Stampede: A Bumpy Start...

Sooo a few weeks back I was emailing with the erstwhile Faster Bunny about 5K training plans and how most of the ones on the internet are of the Couch-to-5K or otherwise rank beginner variety, for good reason; when most people are just getting started with running or coming back after a break, 5K is the logical place to start and a kind and gentle plan is called for. Hence lots of nice, mellow 5K plans that are light on workouts and low on mileage.

But, sometimes, people with lots of experience and a reasonable amount of fitness and tolerance for discomfort also want to run a 5K, not just to finish but to utterly destroy it, and those folks also need a solid training plan that meets their particular needs and goals. That's part of what I've really liked about RunCoach--you tell the system what and when your goal race is and how you want to organize your week, and it takes into account your entire history (particularly training volume and performance) and uses the algorithm to generate a plan that in my experience has been pretty darn solid. (I give RunCoach a lot of the credit for going from a 3:47 marathon to a 3:36 and then 3:31.)

Before these last couple of 5K-focused cycles, I had personally never seen a 5K training program aimed at a more experienced, competitive-but-still-recreational runner vs. a more beginner plan. (I'd seen excerpts from a few pro 5K runners' training logs but those were hardly relevant to me either.) It's been cool to see 10-12 mile speed-focused workouts on the plan regularly, though, as I told Faster Bunny, it also kind of scares the shit out of me a bit.

Though, if we're honest, I have yet to follow it consistently in 2019. Which I guess makes it both less and more scary.

Which is all a roundabout way of saying I've been meaning to train my butt off for a wicked fast 5K in April, but the universe and my body have just not been very cooperative over the last couple of months, which is frustrating when you're PAYING for that sweet-but-utterly-terriying training plan. There's not really been enough to make it worth (in my opinion) writing entire weekly logs, but here's a quick overview:

"Race" Report: Kaiser Permanente 10K 2019

So, first, a little background. I ran this half marathon in 2010 and the 5K in 2011, and registered for the half on two other occasions where I was unable to run because of an injury. Last year while training for Boston I signed up for the half *again*, super excited to run it when I felt like I was in pretty good shape, but alas a couple of weeks beforehand I did something terrible to my hip and couldn't run for a week. It was on the upswing so I decided I'd go ahead and start but fully expected it would still hurt too much to run 13 miles when I'd only gotten back to running 2-3 easy miles at a stretch, and sure enough, I had to drop out at mile 4. Feeling like I had unfinished business, I immediately took advantage of the cheap "re-run" registration.

Then Boston happened, and Big Sur, and a two-month break from running, and deciding to target Wharf-to-Wharf six-miler in summer 2019 as my next big A race. So when Kaiser announced that they would now be adding a 10K distance, I jumped at the chance to practice running sixish miles in my backyard.

Imagine my confusion when I got TWO different-colored bibs in the mail! I completely forgot that I'd registered for the half already when I registered for the 10K, kind of a bummer since I probably could have just dropped down in distance for free. Ah well!

Oops

Fall Speedfest, Weeks 8 & 9 of 18: Hot Mess Edition

As in, I am one. Seriously; in the last two and a half weeks I have just about completely and totally fallen apart.

You might have already read about my 'meh' race in San Jose. (tl;dr - My heart was never really in it, I woke up not really wanting to run, & managed to hold a decent half marathon pace for the first few miles before it became obvious that whether for lack of fitness, heat, or just plain lack of enthusiasm, that was all I had. I jogged the rest at an easy pace for a 1:51:30 finish.)

The worse part, though, was the aftermath on the left side of my body. I've had chronic plantar fasciitis in my left foot for years; it comes and goes in terms of the severity but for whatever reason a few hours after the race I could barely walk on it. I'd like to tell you the week got better, but...well...

Fall Speedfest, Week 7 of 18: Let Us Make Some Capital-C Commitments.

I've been failing at blog photography lately, so please enjoy this fall-inspired shot from my living room.

This was a taper week but it ended up being shall we say a bit more taper-ey than I'd exactly planned. Not catastrophically so, but. Well. Work and travel and other obligations and some weeks you just don't get all the way there.

I also ditched a race I was planning to run, thanks to a combination of not feeling great and being really busy on Saturday and having not signed up ahead of time. As I said on the facebooks, this fall was supposed to be #fallspeedfest but instead it's kind of turned into #falllazyfest as I have bailed on the last two races I kinda-sorta said I would run because I didn't bother signing up ahead of time so if you're already not feeling so great, it's an easier call to wuss out.

So, on Sunday night I got off my ass and actually registered for the three remaining 5Ks I have on my race calendar--OktobeRun (Redwood City 10/28), Oakland Turkey Trot (Oakland 11/22), and Silicon Valley Santa Run (San Jose 12/16 - a rare afternoon race!). I am definitely much more likely to actually woman up and go run if the money is already spent.

Speaking of money already spent, this coming week is RNR San Jose Race Week! I would say I've had decent but not phenomenal training and would just be pleased to come within spitting distance of my 2017 time of 1:41:07. I didn't think my training was particularly good last year but I ran a heck of a race considering I had an asthma attack in the middle of it. So perhaps there's hope for running another heck of a race and also not having an asthma attack?!?!?

We shall see...

Race Report: THE BOSTON FRICKIN' MARATHON

See also:

What It Was Like to Run the Boston Marathon in a Freezing Deluge (NY Times)

Harsh weather turns Boston Marathon into a punishing slog (Boston Globe)

Is today the worst weather in Boston Marathon history? (Boston.com)

In any case it's been *quite* the experience and I certainly have plenty to say about it! In fact, I have so much to say about different aspects of this race and the entire trip that it makes the most sense to break it up into a few different posts. Otherwise, I'm going to end up with a 40-page treatise that no one's ever going to read.

First things first, though: Race Report! I'll do logistics, etc. later; this one is going to be mostly just about my actual race experience & how it went, other than the lead-up you need to set the stage.

By the time you read this.......

By the time you read this, I'll most likely have made my way from Hopkinton to Copley Square, God willing & the crick don't rise. And honestly, crick-rising is a legitimate concern at this point, since we're supposed to get hit with a big, wet, windy storm sometime in the next few hours. Did I mention the wind is projected to be within 10 degrees of a direct headwind for 73% of the course? ~12mph or so at the start, and a healthy 28mph by the finish? GOOD TIMES!! :D

Is it disappointing to have such shitty weather? Sure. It's not like I was planning on a PR race, but I was hoping the trip would be at least mildly pleasant. But honestly, I don't feel as disappointed as it seems like I should. No one is ever entitled to perfect--or even not-awful--race day weather; you hope for the best, but you show up and run whatever kind of race day Mother Nature has seen fit to provide. I still feel super privileged to be here and am very cognizant of the fact that it very well could be my one and only shot. Everyone says Boston is magic regardless of the weather, that the camaraderie & adrenaline carries you through unlike in any other marathon, so that's the attitude I'm going into it with.

I also keep thinking back to CIM 2012, that god-awful, god-forsaken train wreck of a race year when everything was headwinds and sideways rain and timing mats shorting out under water & police rerouting the course around downed power lines. How at the time I swore that was the hardest run of my life, how I fought and fought and fought for the finish and felt like I'd been robbed of a PR by the weather. In retrospect, I'm kind of grateful for that race; all around me here in Boston and online people are freaking out about the weather and endlessly debating what to wear, and I'm feeling oddly calm about it. Like. How bad can it be? Worse than CIM 2012? Worse than Oakland three weeks ago when mile 8 felt like mile 20? I doubt it.

And, hey, if it is, I'll have a new war story. I'll run into other people who also ran Boston 2018, and we'll shake our heads and share war stories like it was so awful but inside feel sort of proud that we were there & made it through.

I'll write a more detailed post sometime soon, but in the mean time, please enjoy some shots of our first two days in Boston.

Catch you on the flip side of this beezie. Wish me luck and warm fingers!!

Boston Marathon Week 13 of 18: Some running was involved.

Man, you guys, I couldn't even call week 13 a mixed bag. It started out with a glimmer of hope but went downhill very very quickly for all kinds of reasons both physical and general life-related until on Sunday night I lay in a hotel bed in Texas, fuming over what a waste most of the week and weekend had been and over the fact that I could barely walk comfortably and also had to get on a plane back to SF in like five hours.

Boston Marathon Week 9 of 18: Grumpy Hip is Grumpy

So, I have fallen way behind in these weekly updates, which has partly to do with screwing up my hip and, y'know, not having much to update about. It also has to do with having just been legitimately busy in the past couple of weeks. When I'm super busy but there's cool stuff to blog about, I seem to somehow carve out the time, but busy-ness + injury depression/lack of much to talk about tends to equal blogging fail.

Thankfully, things seem to be coming back together now (FINGERS CROSSED), so what the heck, have a little update!

In my KP Half race report (such as it was), I mentioned that I've been having this hip issue lately. For context, here's the timeline:

• Tuesday 1/9: Track workout; I'd had a very very minor ache in my hip, but somewhere around the middle of this workout there was a sudden, sharp WHOAH WTF WAS THAT kind of pain. It went away, but my hip still hurt after. (This was the day of my car accident, but I really do not see how that could be related.)

• Wednesday 1/10: Threw my back out & couldn't really walk comfortably for the next two days. (This very well could have been related to the accident.)

• Friday 1/12: Everything feeling fine, 10 mile tempo run w/ no problem.

• Saturday 1/13: Hip super sore with moderate+ pain if I tried to run. Skipped running.

• Sunday 1/14: 16 miles with no pain

• Monday 1/15: Super sore hip, but it was a rest day so ok.

• Tuesday 1/16-Sunday 1/21: Normal 50 mile week, completely fine with no pain.

• Tuesday 1/23: The hip thing came roaring back with a vengeance during a hotel treadmill speed workout.

• Wednesday 1/24-Saturday 1/27: Have the flu/feel awful/don't run

• Sunday 1/28: 6 easy miles, can feel the hip but not awful

• Monday 1/29: Minor soreness, not that bad

• Tuesday 1/30: Quit track workout 2 miles in with another sharp, sudden WTF pain

• Wednesday 1/31-Saturday 2/3: Don't run, hope for miracle

Pretty much as soon as the hip started feeling funny, I was back in the Church of Strength Work desperately trying to invoke the runner's version of absolution for cross training laziness (squats, lunges, clam shells, etc.). When my hip did not magically heal itself in time for KP Half in spite of five days of zero running, I decided to haul out the big guns & make a PT appointment.

The good news: My insurance doesn't require getting a dr. referral in order to see a PT. Woohoo!

The bad news: Only some places are in network (read: covered by insurance) and the ones that are have openings in mid-March at the earliest. (One place: "We could schedule you on May 16, how does that work for you?")

So. I sucked it up & went to the cheapest of the places that could see me right away & just paid the out-of-pocket rate. Good thing this is the Year of No Shopping so I've got all that extra phat cash lying around!!

(Lololol *cry*. Tell me more about how running is the cheapest exercise there is and all I need is a pair of shoes.)

I saw a new-to-me PT in San Francisco this past Monday who I like so far, and his assessment was pretty much that I'd minorly strained a hip flexor/adductor somehow & not really noticed, then made it a lot worse with the repeated motion of running until I finally started to feel it. He thought the original minor strain was probably a result of the muscle being super tight and, yes, my getting lazy about strength work through the holidays (knowing that at certain points in the past hip muscles have been my kryptonite). He spent the next hour and a half grinding the ever loving shizzle out of it with an elbow and some Graston tools, then stuck me on an e-stim machine with ice for 10 minutes.

Post-Graston. From my PT with love.

I know what you're thinking; super hot, right?

He gave me some supplementary exercises to strengthen the hip muscle and suggested I come back in as often as my wallet will allow I can to get it Graston'ed a bunch more and in the mean time continue to roll the ever loving shizzle out of it with a lacrosse ball.

There is more good news, though. I've been able to do several short-to-medium distance runs this past week (up to 8 miles) with no pain, and the PT said that as long as I continued to have no pain, I could keep running and very conservatively bump up the distance and speed. I happen to have a pretty short, easy speed workout (6 x 300m's) on the calendar yesterday so went ahead and tried it, thinking there is nowhere easier than the track to tap out of an interval should things start to feel off, but I finished the whole thing with no pain whatsoever (and bonus, no trouble hitting the paces) so we'll call that a win for now.

On Thursday we're off to Utah to ski for a week, where I may or may not be doing much skiing, and expect the footing may be a bit too treacherous for anything more than easy miles. I also obviously expect to be the envy of everyone in the apres-ski hot tub (see above). For now it just feels bruised and tender (wonder why), and hopefully it will continue to heal pain-free as I (very gradually) ramp up the mileage.

Will report back soon................

~*~*~ Boston Marathon: Week 9 of 18 ~*~*~
Grand Total: 17 miles, all easy

Monday 2/5: Rest

Tuesday 2/6: 1 hour strength work

8 sets seated row @ 55 lb. alternated w/ 8 sets push-ups (2 x 15, 2 x 12, 2 x 10, 2 x 8 for both), 8 sets weighted step-ups w/ two 15 lb dumbbells alternated w/ 8 sets prone jack knifes on the physio ball (same as above), clam shell series both legs (4 x 12 each side), + 20:00 elliptical because a girl's got to do something resembling cardio. SEE ME BEING GOOD AND DOING MY STRENGTH WORK??????

Wednesday 2/7: 1.5 hours karate

Thursday 2/8: 6 easy. No pain??????

Friday 2/9: 40:00 strength work + 3 easy to the gym & back

3 x 15 deadlifts @ 85 lb, 10 x pike reverse leg lifts w/ straight legs (btw: even just 10 of these are enough to reduce my transverse abs to jello right now), clam shell series both legs (4 x 12 each side), 4 x 15 dumbbell thrusters w/ two 15 lb dumbbells, 4 x 15 weighted static lunges w/ two 15 lb dumbbells.

Saturday 2/10: 8 easy, beautiful miles through Golden Gate Park in gorgeous weather (see: the photo at the top of this post). Also no pain!!!! Though, hoo boy, did my legs feel like jello halfway through.

Sunday 2/11: Rest

Next week: Pray I don't have any ill-fated encounters with ice. D:

====

Boston Marathon Week 1 of 18: On your mark, Get set...

Boston Marathon Week 2 of 18: speed, snow, & vertical

Boston Marathon Week 3 of 18: Foiled By Weather & Travel

Boston Marathon Week 4 of 18: There's "hills" and then there's HILLLZZ

Boston Marathon Week 5 of 18: Not the greatest of weeks...

Boston Marathon Week 6 of 18: Winter Running: Take 2

Race Report: Race to the End of Summer 10K

Every now and then, you have a race that leaves you staring breathlessly at your watch going, "Holy f***ing shit!! How the hell did THAT happen?"

Well, I had one of those races on Sunday. Except not in the way that you generally hope for.

I ran this race last year as an early tune-up for CIM. It was cheap and reasonably close to home and looked fairly flat and fast, except for maybe the fact that it's in San Jose during the summer and thus likely to be hot. Let me also say that I didn't have the highest of expectations last year because after running possibly my slowest marathon ever (or pretty close, anyway) at the end of April, I took May more or less off, spent most of June consuming LOTS of dairy, whisky, & other not-particularly-healthy things & getting basically zero physical activity, and returned at the end of the month pretty darn out of shape and unable to fit comfortably into most of my clothes.

Knowing I had just two months to prep for a 10K and five for CIM, I got straight to work running 40+ easy miles a week & lifting three times a week. I didn't have much hope that I'd get very far in eight weeks (including only three not-that-intense speed workouts), so I was utterly stunned to run 44:38, just 17 seconds off my PR, and come in 1st in my age group and 2nd overall. I think I spent a solid five minutes staring at the official results going "HOW?????" But hey, I'll take it! And when the race organizers sent out a $25 re-run offer for next year, I figured, why not?

So, here we are, next year. I'm certainly no longer in the shape I was in for CIM, but for the last few months my mileage has been in the 40+ range and pretty darn consistent, including reasonably intense speed and tempo/threshold workouts twice weekly. I haven't been in the gym three days a week without fail, but I've been making it twice a week pretty regularly (and I can squat and deadlift a LOT more than I could last summer, which should at least theoretically translate into power). So part of me felt like, "Surely I should be in the same ballpark as last year, and maybe even faster."

On the other hand, I've mentioned many times lately just how exhausted these 40+ weeks have left me, which seems silly. I can't ever remember feeling so worn out, even running 50+ miles a week. My speed workouts have been fine but my last two threshold workouts were the worst I can ever remember in terms of just plain not being able to run the target paces, by more than a little. So another part of me has not felt that confident about this 10K at all.

Race Report: Tamalpa Runners Track Meet 5K

BACKGROUND:

To summarize some semi-relevant stuff I've posted in the past, I've only really ever run one 5K in my adult life where I was healthy and in good shape & training kinda-sorta heavily (to the extent that I ever train "heavily"), which is where I set my current PR (20:44/6:40 pace) in May 2012. It was so much faster than nearly every other 5K I've ever run that after a while it didn't really feel real, like "WHO ME RUN MULTIPLE 6:40 MILES IN A ROW? Phhhbbbt, that's not a thing that actually happened." Well, after massively PRing the marathon in December, I figured, what the hey? Let's take a crack at thing and see just how sturdy that dusty old PR is.

So, I registered for PrideMeet on June 17. (ProTip: If you want to run a fast, accurate 5K, do it on the track. Just don't weave too much.) I was in 60/40 not bad shape going into it in early May, then spent about 6-7 weeks adding some serious speed workouts. The workouts were tough but made a nice change from marathon training, and other than a sketch right calf muscle, I felt good going into the meet.

One sentence race recap: I ran a 6:52 mile which felt weirdly easy, then a 6:41 mile and still felt good, then proceeded to pull my calf so badly I couldn't put weight on it for several days. {Shakes fist at sky} Sure, I was bummed and frustrated, but another part of me could not believe I had run those splits and felt so good doing it. Sure, the plan had been to run this one 5K and then get serious about San Jose half training (10/8), but somehow I just could not let it go. What if I let the calf heal and run another?? Could that seemingly-untouchable PR seriously be about to fall??

And you know where this leads.

Tuesday, July 18 was soon circled on my calendar.

SJRNRHM Week 3 of 14: If life could stop kicking the crap out of me, plzthnx....

Ugh. I can't say I'm not beating myself up a little over this past week's mileage and other various running failures. I've been super swamped with work stuff, which actually should not affect running that much time-wise (I mean, weekdays I'm generally running *maybe* 2 hours tops?), but it's been sapping all my energy and motivation.

On top of that, there have been a lot of social things going on. And don't get me wrong, I have wonderful friends and I love the social things! They are good for me in lots of ways, and when I'm feeling rested and motivated it's not usually a problem to plan ahead and get done what needs to get done. But this week I completely failed at that, and it feels pretty terrible. There is definitely a part of me that is looking back at those posts about big-hairy-audacious goals and trying to peak at 75 miles a week and run a 1:35ish half in October and then looking at myself in the mirror with a raised eyebrow like, "Are you sure you really want that? Because right now you kinda seem like maybe you don't really want it all that much."

It's not that I'm unmotivated; in some ways, I'm extremely motivated, which is why it feels so bad. Instead it feels more like mileage and workouts were something I used to fight for, desperately (because that's the only way it ever happens), and lately I don't seem to have much fight.

But, what happened happened (or didn't), and all I can really do is look forward to the 11 weeks I have left and try to do better.

Anyway.

* * * Rock 'N Roll San Jose Half: Week 3 of 14 * * *

Race Report: SF Track & Field Club Pride Meet

Photo credit: SF Track & Field Club

TL;DR - I was having a GREAT race until pretty much right at mile 2 when something in my calf felt like it just popped and I nearly fell over due to the ice pick-like stab of pain that went screaming through my gastrocnemius. It was an instant race ender, which is super disappointing, but there's also some pretty amazing silver lining.

THE LONGER VERSION:

I'd been excited about this race for a couple of months now. I've wanted to dip my toe back into the world of track racing for a while now, but the timing has never worked out -- I've either always been injured, recovering, traveling, or aiming for some other big race that conflicted with the Bay Area track meets I knew about. This was finally the year!

Update: Threshold intervals STILL suck.

I don't know why but a small part of me somehow half-expected that doing the same threshold interval workout as last Friday (2 warm up, 3 x 2 miles @ HM pace / 2:00 jog, 2 cool down) would be a little easier, since I'm now on my *third* post-base training workout and have done a little strength training. Ha ha ha, WRONG! Nope, this workout still sucked, and if anything, it sucked even harder than last Friday.

I guess technically my average pace on the intervals was about one second per mile faster, but that's hardly anything to brag about. Turns out that it takes more than a week for your anaerobic fitness to improve!

From experience, I know that this is *always* how it is when I first go back to doing faster workouts, but getting halfway through even one mile at this pace and feeling like I want to die does sometimes make a person wonder how on earth they ever managed to run FASTER than that pace for 13 miles in a row. And shooting for 15 seconds per mile faster than THAT just a few months from now?

Threshold intervals are hard + not hip enough "for the Insta"

Let the actual training commence!!

Friends, I love running fast. Over the last couple of years I've also learned to love leisurely long runs and chunks of slow, easy base training, but letting loose for some heart-pounding intervals on the track or a comfortably-hard-but-not-TOO-hard tempo run is still my favorite part of training for a goal race. In fact, this is how I knew I needed a break back in February/March--when I'd see those workouts on my plan and feel dread, and wiping the training schedule clean felt like such a relief. And that's how I've known I'm ready to get back to work--starting to feel a bit bored with slow, easy jogging, and excited about scary-sounding paces.

Don't get me wrong, though; those first few post-base training workouts are never easy, and this week was no exception.

It was a short one since we didn't get back from Hawai'i until early Wednesday morning. Like most runners, at this point I know what all my funny little biomechanical things are, all the places that are injury prone if I don't tend to them with stretching and rolling and strength work (and let's be honest, I really have not been as of late). For some reason I still have this idea in my head that if I take a few days off or take a break from running due to vacation or recovery from a big race or whatever, all those things will heal up and I'll feel fresh and healthy and ready to run when I go back to it.

Except it's completely not true. Almost without exception, my cranky feet and gimpy right hip and curmudgeonly SI joints ALWAYS feel worse after a vacation or a week of post-race rest. It's actually getting back into running (and weirdly, running longer or faster or both) that settles them down (as long as I'm doing the work to take care of them).