Fall Speedfest, Week 3 of 18: Crazy Race Anxiety Dreams!

Oops, running a bit behind with this week's training journal. It was a race week so pretty low mileage.

But before we get to that, gather round, for it is time for Angela's Anxiety Dream Story Hour. Friday night was just two days before Race to the End of Summer, and what better time for a crazy anxiety race dream.

Apparently, I had realized that through some kind of calendar magic, I somehow had a BQ that made me eligible to run in the 2019 race (I don't), and though I had kind of sworn off marathons for a while, I thought, "Well, you never know what could happen, I might never qualify again, I should take advantage of it! And maybe it won't be an arctic flood of Biblical proportions this time!"

In my dream this all happened like two weeks before the race, so I just kind of showed up, with no particular marathon training under my belt, figuring I can probably always *finish* a marathon, even if it's not particularly fast. Then as I was heading to the Athlete's Village, it occurred to me that sure, I could probably *finish*, but I'd probably fuck up my skin and toenails again and be in serious pain for a week, and then Don would be mad at me because I didn't tell him ("You said you were going to stop breaking yourself!"), and for a moment I considered whether this was really the best choice. But hey, I figured, why have ONE Boston Marathon medal when you can have TWO Boston Marathon medals.

Race Report: Race to the End of Summer 10K 2018

And #fallspeedfest2018 is off and running!

Race to the End of Summer was my first race since Big Sur Marathon over 4 months ago and it felt good to pin on a bib. I'd run this race twice before, in both 2016 and 2017; it's a solid local event, small and low-key but well organized, so it had been on my calendar since last year. I ran it in 2016 as my first tune up for CIM & shocked myself by running just 17 seconds off my PR & snagging 2nd overall & 1st in my age group (it's a small race) after just a few weeks of training (mostly lots of easy jogging) & only three speed workouts. Then last year (during the Bay Area's record-setting heatwave, after two days of moving & a night of basically no sleep) I completely fell apart & ran by far the worst 10K of my life. Clearly I had unfinished business with this race!

This year, as in 2016, I was only a few weeks back into running, almost all slow easy miles, & just three workouts (& oh yeah those eight weeks I took completely off from running after Boston 2 Big Sur). In a way, this took some of the pressure off--this was just my first race of an 18 week #fallspeedfest season, so all I really wanted to do was go in as fresh as possible, run hard, and not wimp out in order to get a baseline for the rest of the fall.

Fall Speedfest, Week 2 of 18: trendy strava ennui + workouts are hard

Happy Monday!

This week was my highest mileage week since Boston training at 48.5 miles. I did ramp things up fairly gradually but still definitely felt the increase towards the end of Sunday's long run--no pain or injuries or anything like that, but definitely some general fatigue in the legs in those last few miles. Which, hey, is the whole point, so.

Happily, this week tapers off a bit for Race to the End of Summer. I know I won't be able to taper for everything I run this fall, but I want to try to use RTTEOS as a kind of fitness gauge, so I'm trying to get there as fresh as possible.

Now. Let's talk about Strava for a moment.

You know how it's kind of trendy to every few months write a paragraph-long post about how Facebook is making you unhappy and ruining the world and you are officially taking a Hiatus "for the foreseeable future" and your "real friends" will know how to contact you?

It seems like recently something similar has begun to happen with Strava (or maybe it isn't new at all & I've just begun to notice it). People will post things about how they've gotten "disillusioned" with it or "just [aren't] motivated" by segment PRs or KOHs or whatever anymore & are just gonna "disconnect" for a while by unlinking their Strava account/running without GPS/running without any watch at all.

Which, hey! You do you. But honestly, how "illusioned" were you with Strava to begin with, and why? Like, what did you expect it to do for your life besides announce your every workout to the world? Creating profound and lasting satisfaction/deep and meaningful inner happiness out of your hobby is a lot to ask of an internet app, guys.

Old Shoes, Young Love

Back in 2014 I was having a bit of a footwear crisis. In 2012 I had downgraded from the super built-up stability-oriented Brooks GTS to the lighter, svelter-but-still-fairly-traditional (though neutral) Brooks Launch, which I happily ran in for a couple of years (and still do, sometimes). In fall 2012 an emergency shoe purchase turned me on to the Saucony Kinvara (like the Launch, but moreso). I was pretty happy with this shoe but still felt like I wanted something just a *bit* lighter, more flexible, & with a little more ground feel and roomier toebox. Thus began a tireless search for the perfect "performance trainer."

In late 2013/early 2014 people were raving about the Pure Drift 2. I had tried the original Pure Connect and absolutely hated it, but when I saw a pair of PD2's on clearance for like $40, I thought I'd give it a shot.

The Great Shoe Reckoning of 2018

It's been kind of a normal-ish few weeks around here - not much travel, not too many crazy social obligations or weekend plans, which has meant plenty of time to 1) get the miles in & 2) make some progress on settling into the house.

Don was traveling for work this week, so while he was gone I took all the junk off our new built-ins & tried to make them reasonably attractive:

Fall Speedfest, Week 1 of 18: Let the Fall Season Commence!

Well, I went back to the track for the first time in four months this evening, so I suppose that means my fall season is underway!

Three Days in the Life

So some people are super into these types of posts & I've never done one, so I thought I'd give it a shot? I don't really have typical days, though, so I picked a three-day stretch with a bit of variety in it.

Wednesday, July 25

• 5:30am - Alarm goes off, I get up, get dressed, grab my stuff & drive to the gym near my office. This time of morning the commute only takes about 35 minutes or so, as opposed to the hour-plus it can be during rush hour. During the drive I listen to Let Your Mind Run by Deena Kastor, which (spoilers) is AMAZING and definitely worth the read/listen.
• 6:25am - Throw my crap in a locker, get after the strength work (still listening to Deena). Today I do deadlifts (2 x 15, 2 x 12 w/ 95#, don't laugh), 8 supersets of 10 wide-grip lat pulls and 10 weighted (15#) static lunges with rear foot elevated, 8 sets of 10 weighted (24#) reverse lunges off a block, and a smattering of core exercises (clamshells, supermans, one-leg marches in a bridge position, crossover crunches, transverse abs reverse crunches).
• 7:20am - Shower & get dressed