Tempo run distance PR?

So Friday's tempo run (for very loose definitions of 'tempo,' can we all just roll with it) was 2.5 warm up, 6 x 2K @ half marathon pace / 1:15 jog, 2.5 cool down. My watch can auto lap 1.25 miles a lot easier than 1.24, so I just rounded up to that.

This was another workout I've been sort of intimidated by all week because my legs are tired and half marathon pace is even faster than marathon pace, but it turns out that after 61 miles in 7 days, if you think "10K pace!," you can just manage to eek out HM pace.

I am nothing if not consistent.

I was still a good quarter mile from home after the prescribed 2.5 cool down, so I kept running & made it a nice round 13.5 for the day.

Also, I think this might be the longest tempo/threshold/whatever workout (including the warm/up cool down) that I've ever done in my life.

This Sunday is also my first 20 miler of the cycle (with fast finish), including Healdsburg Half Marathon with these ladies:

Healdsburg 2012. Memories! Look how young & fresh-faced we were!

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have go put myself to bed before I pass out on the couch.

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GOOD LUCK, ALL YOU AWESOME PEOPLE RUNNING CHICAGO & TWIN CITIES & KONA & LOUISEVILLE & ALL THE OTHER THINGS THIS WEEKEND!!!! SHINE WITH THE WHITE-HOT LIGHT OF TEN THOUSAND BEYONCÉS!!!

Anticipation Fatigue: It's A Thing.

This Tuesday's track session was a not-insignificant 2 mile warm-up + drills/dynamic stretches, 10 x 1K / 200m jog, 2 mile cool down. The target for the 1K's was pace was 4:34 (7:21 pace), just a bit slower than I ran my 10K in a few weeks back.

This is what Kezar Stadium looks like at 4pm. By 6pm there are approximately 700 people on it.

Something I've noticed in both long, hard workouts as well as races is this phenomenon I've started calling "anticipation fatigue." With anticipation fatigue, you are preparing to do something sort of frighteningly hard like run a scary pace for longer than you feel confident about, or do a freaking shit-tonne of hard intervals, or something of that nature. And regardless of how easy or hard this feat *actually* is, the thought of it kind of terrifies you, and for some nonzero portion of it, you are absolutely 100% sure it's going to end up being a PW or otherwise completely awful.

Interestingly, I don't think I would have ever noticed this phenomenon except that I've written so, so many race reports that start with me thinking, "This is impossible, I feel so awful, what if I can't even finish," and then by halfway or two thirds through, thinking, "THIS IS AWESOME AND I AM AWESOME AND PHBBBBTTT THIS ISN'T EVEN HARD." And the only conclusion I can arrive at is that a not-insigifnicant part of the perceived effort involved with distance running is mental, and when our confidence is not in the stratosphere, it is possible to mistake mental exertion (race tactics, managing pace, balancing how you feel now with how you think you might feel x miles from now) for physical exertion.

(I remember experiencing a version of this at Race to the End of Summer, my first all-out race in quite some time. In mile 2-3ish, I found myself thinking, "Man, this is hard." But when I really pushed myself to think about it--"But is it actually, physically that bad now?"--I realized that "Actually...no." It was just the mental work of maintaining the pace and managing scary thoughts about how many minutes were left. To be honest, the actual physical discomfort & pain didn't kick in until the last mile or so.)

Looking at Tuesday's track workout on paper beforehand, my reaction was pretty much, "Well this is going to be balls," because 1) in the past when I've done "K" track workouts I've made the mistake of thinking a kilometer is super short (probably because 5Ks are "short" and 1K is only 20% of that) and then partway through realizing that oops, no, a K is actually pretty significant in terms of speed work, and 2) I ran 4 x 1600m on the treadmill at the same pace a week ago, which was also balls, and while 1000m is significantly shorter than 1600m, 10 is MORE THAN DOUBLE 4. #mathmajor.

Add to this the fact that I was still not sure how my battered knee would respond to speed work on the track, and yeah, I was more than a little nervous about this 11.5 mile workout. Like nausea-and-cold-sweat nervous.

SCARED WHO'S SCARED

The first intervals did not feel good. My legs felt tired and just generally non-responsive. There was a lot of cold sweat and I feel like my heart rate was probably a lot higher than necessary, which of course made everything feel harder than it should have. Two intervals in and "EIGHT MORE OF THESE ARE YOU SERIOUS????"

Generally at the track I run by feel and easily beat the targets without working too hard but this time I was 100% going out of my way to run exactly the pace prescribed and no faster. Mentally I kept trying to tell myself, "7:21 isn't even fast. 7:21 isn't even fast. 7:21 isn't even fast," but my legs didn't care. It wasn't that I felt I was working that hard; it was just my legs being like "Yeah; don't wanna. #sorrynotsorry."

And then, as I found I actually was able to run K after K between 4:31 and 4:34 with no problem and no pain from my knee, something in my mind or body or both kind of flipped, and they really did start to feel not that fast and also not that hard. Like, I actually found myself zoning out & sometimes losing track of which interval I was even on. "Oh, this interval is over? I almost forgot we were running one!"

I finished all 11.5 miles feeling hungry and kind of low blood sugar but otherwise fine. Knee pain was maybe .6 out of 10 -- I could feel that it wasn't 100% normal, but it was more just weird pressure from time to time, not really pain.

(And, definitely worse running in the "correct" counter-clockwise direction. Kezar is generally too busy for fast intervals in lane 1 in the "wrong" direction to feel safe, but I did my warm-up & cool down in the clockwise direction, which was definitely a little easier on the knee.)

Am I crazy? Does anyone else get "anticipation fatigue" early in a race or hard workout and then end up crushing it? please say yes

CIM WEEK 9 of 18: Improvement on the knee front!

I know, sorry....I had no good pictures this week
because I spent it mostly hoping my leg wouldn't fall off.

Not an amazing week, but honestly, considering the shape my knee was in last week, it was better than I'd hoped for. This was a scheduled off-week from lifting, but I still did at least a little body weight strength work & stretching for glutes, hamstrings, and hips every most days.

CIM WEEK 8 of 18: Knee Troubles :(

I am always superstitious about filling out my weekly logs before the runs are actually done, like it's somehow going to jinx me & cause me to get sick or hurt or some kind of emergency to come up. But this week I had some extra time early in the week & just thought, "Eh, that's stupid, let me just get this stuff typed up now while I have time." Three days later, I kid you not, I could barely walk.

Here's how the week went down:

Monday 9/19: a.m. strength work / p.m. karate.

This was the day after my 19.5 miles in Half Moon Bay, and I felt totally fine. No knee pain. Now, I was quite tired so pushed strength work to Tuesday, but throughout karate I was completely fine--no hint whatsoever that anything was wrong.

Tuesday 9/20: a.m. strength work / p.m. 2 warm-up, 6 x 200m / 200m jog, 4 miles marathon pace, 6 x 200m / 200m jog, 2 cool down = 11 total

Good solid track workout; again, not a twinge anywhere. I finished it thinking how weird it felt to have these double-digit track workouts starting to feel normal.

Wednesday 9/21: Rest

I had planned a short, easy run as long as I felt good, but in the grand tradition of WTF Wednesdays, I felt awful and exhausted and spent most of the evening sleeping, rising only to devour Shalane's recovery salad & a slice of marathon lasagna.

Book Review: "Run Fast Eat Slow"

Like many other runners I know (particularly those who are obsessed with food), I recently caved & purchased Shalane Flanagan's new cookbook, Run Fast Eat Slow, co-authored with her former cross-country teammate & now professional chef, Elyse Kopecky.

I have a whole other post sitting in the drafts about how my eating/cooking habits have changed in the last three months, but long story short I've gone from eating out/getting takeout 5-7 nights a week & almost never cooking to cooking (or eating leftovers) most nights, eating out maybe once a week, & getting takeout only when the cooking is truly unfeasible.

Things I have cooked in my actual kitchen this summer:

Homemade chili verde pork with heirloom tomatoes, red cabbage, avocado, & cilantro

Grilled tuna with piperinata & tapenade

Chicken & sausage jambalaya

Grilled salmon with a soy-ginger glaze

I've really enjoyed going back to regular cooking from scratch and it's made a huge difference in my quality of life lately. There are a lot of days in the week, though, so now I'm always on the lookout for tasty, healthy recipes to try. Run Fast Eat Slow, then, was kind of a no-brainer.

It isn't really fair to call this post a book review since I've only skimmed most of it, selecting a few of the recipes to read word-for-word and only actually made maybe 3-4 so far. However, the ones I have tried have been fantastic, so I felt inspired to put a little plug out there.

First, I am obsessed with this kale & quinoa recovery salad. We try to have a salad with dinner every night as much as possible, but a lot of times that means I end up making the same old basic thing over and over again & I was interested to try something new.

And OMG, I was not disappointed. Seriously, I think I could eat this salad every night of my life. Basically it's kale, quinoa, red bells, red onion, jalapeno, black beans, cilantro, green olives, feta (or cotija) cheese, avocado, EVOO, & lime juice. It's practically a meal all on its own! Now, it is not a quick salad as there is quite a lot of chopping involved, but the first time I made it I did all the chopping on the weekend & then quickly assembled it the next night.

Pre-chopped veggies

Bad light in our kitchen...Sorry. :(

We did not love the prescribed quinoa-to-veggies ratio & probably only included about half the quinoa, but the nice thing is that you can adjust that to taste. Also if I'm having it as a side with something else that's already got plenty of carbs, I just skip the quinoa altogether & it's still absolutely delicious.

Literally eating this as I type.

Our other favorite is the "Marathon Lasagna," which is like most other lasagna recipes except it swaps the usual ground beef or sausage for ground turkey and adds in egg, sweet potatoes, and spinach. So good! A lot of times I don't love ground turkey because it comes across as sweet to me, but the seasoning you do with it beforehand makes a big difference. Don was also a big fan & encouraged me to make it more often.

Baking the sweet potatoes

Egg-ricotta slurry

Seasoning the turkey

Final assemblage

ENTIRE BAG OF SPINACH YAAAASSSS

Final product (in bad light, sorry)

Again, this is not a *quick* recipe (I think it took about 3 hours start to finish, though some of it you could prep in advance), but it makes a giant pan-full that you can go back to for a week or more. (I imagine it would also freeze just fine as well.) The story is that this is what Shalane traditionally eats the night before the Boston Marathon, though I think it's probably too rich & acidic & dairy-filled for me to try that. (You could probably easily make it vegetarian by just leaving out the meat or replacing with your vegetable protein of choice.)

My favorite thing about this book is how the focus is on nutrition, not on weight loss or calorie-counting. In fact, there is no calorie information included at all, but the dish descriptions do go into the various nutrients in the ingredients and why they're beneficial for athletes. (Which....is why about a third of the recipes involve beets. I'll be skipping those.) There are no calls for low-fat/non-fat cheese or artificial sweeteners; in fact, there is a decided emphasis on eating plenty of healthy fats (including full-fat dairy). Basically the central message of the book is to try to cook with a variety of fresh, whole, nutrient-rich foods as much as possible and avoid processed things whenever you can. (Shalane credits this approach with finally stabilizing her weight & allowing her to stop counting calories and end a 15-year battle with amenorrhea.)

(Seriously, the lasagna is NOT diet foot. But it's packed with nutrients and sooooo tasty! It's been great for post-speed or tempo run with a big salad.)

Looking forward to trying more recipes in the future!

'Race' Report: Half Moon Bay International Marathon (Half)

Back in June my friend L signed up for the HMBIM Half, which would be her first half marathon. Thus far she had not been able to pressgang anyone else into running it with her, & since I knew I had to run a gajillion miles that day anyway & am always looking for excuses to run them on a different loop, I signed up as well. (I've been curious about this race for a while now so I also figured it was a good opportunity to scout the course & see if it was maybe worth for-real racing sometime in the future.)

Half Moon Bay is a kind of surfer's paradise on the ocean side of the SF peninsula, right off of Highway 1. If you've heard of the Mavericks surfing competition, it's where that happens. (In fact, the staging area for this race was the actual harbor where it happens.) It is utterly gorgeous and I was really looking forward to a nice, easy jog along the seaside without any pressure to hit a certain pace or pick off the runners in front of me.

Complicating all this was the fact that the day before we had a football game at 5pm. This meant we didn't get home until around 10 & it was nearly 11 by the time I got around to throwing race things in a bag & then finally got in bed--not great considering my alarm was set for 4:30am. (Have I mentioned in the past that I am not a morning runner? I am NOT a morning runner.) It turns out that in mid-September you can get up at 4:30am, get yourself ready to go, drive for forty minutes, park, futz around with your gear, finally start running and STILL not see the sun.

CIM WEEK 7 of 18: Big week & feelin' fine!

This week I started my weekend off with 13 miles on Friday afternoon: 2 warm up, 70:00 @ marathon pace, 2.25 cool down. #gobig

Much like Tuesday's track workout, this one had been out there looming in my mind, definitely the longest race pace training run (short of racing a half, which I don't really count) I've ever done during a marathon cycle. 70:00 worked out to ~8.75 miles, & I think in the past I've usually capped those race pace runs at around 6 miles, or sometimes two-mile chunks on and off during a long run. I also can't even remember the last time I did a training run this far that was not a long run. Maybe never. So, you can maybe see why, after Tuesday's shin-buster and two days of exhausting travel, I was shall we say curious to see how it would go.