Month: February 2020

Intervals

The next race I have coming down the pipeline is the Illinois Half Marathon, at the end of April. It won’t be a new state or a new race, but it’s one of my all-time favorites. It’s so well-organized, the course is flat yet interesting with the numerous changes of scenery, and the weather at that time of year is usually pretty decent. All in all, it’s a great course for PR attempts. I’ve PR’d there the last couple years, but this year, barring illness or outrageously hot weather, I’m going for a big one: I’m shooting for my first sub-2:00 half. As my friends and I joke, it’s my “breaking 2” attempt, in a nod to Kipchoge’s efforts to do the same (for twice the distance…).

For me, sub-2:00 is within the realm of possibility, but I knew from the outset it was going to take some work. To take my training to the next level, I began adding an interval day to my weekly routine about a month ago. Not going to lie, at first it sucked in every possible way. The fast stretches felt interminable, I struggled even to break 8:30 for some of the later repeats, and I ended up sounding like a wounded water buffalo by the time I “sprinted” down the final stretch.

I stuck with it, though, and lo and behold, as my more experienced runner friends have assured me, it has gotten better. I’m now up to 7×400-meter repeats, and I’m starting to hit most of them under 8:00, which is ideally where I’d like them to be. Next step: improving at holding it together on the penultimate interval, which is consistently my slowest!

Garmin app screencap showing interval times

Sunday Runday

I love long run days, which for me are almost always Sundays. The fact that it is winter in Chicago IMO makes it even more luxurious. First of all I get to wake up without an alarm, since there’s no rush to beat the nonexistent heat. Then there’s breakfast. Lately, I’m all about warming up from the inside out. I’ve gotten into plain oatmeal with peanut butter and a tiny bit of sugar, and bananas if I have them around. I can’t do coffee before running, but a large, steaming mug of green tea is perfection…just the right combination of hydration with a hit of caffeine.

Today, I followed breakfast with a quick dynamic warm-up of leg swings, squats, calf raises, side kicks, high knees, and butt kicks, then headed out for a blustery, slightly snowy seven-miler. My past few runs, I’ve consciously been trying to keep my pace in check. I am definitely guilty of not taking my easy runs and long runs as slowly as I should, so lately I’ve been making hefty use of the pace alerts on the Garmin watch my parents got me for Christmas (thanks Mom and Dad!).

I set today’s pace for 10:00-11:00. Still went out too fast on the first mile, but it was closer than some of them have been. I was also proud of myself for keeping my speed up even when I turned around and spent the second half of my run running directly into a 17-m.p.h. headwind. The most exciting part, though, was I felt good enough heading into the final mile that I decided to try and hit my projected half marathon race pace or better, just to see if I could do it. Ended up going well under pace, about 8:35, and didn’t feel totally trashed by the time I got home.

It was the first time I’d done anything like that in training, and I’m still riding the high from it. It’s like I’ve gotten a taste of what is possible, and I want to keep going just to see where my limits are. Can’t wait to get back out there this week and continue putting in the work, one step at a time.

“Relax! You Aren’t Going to Win the Race.”

I will own it: I am often a basket of neuroses before a race. Despite being late to just about everything else in my life, when it comes to race day, I want to get there AT LEAST half an hour early. That way I have plenty of time to use the bathroom (maybe even more than once!), make sure my shoes are double-knotted, fiddle with my race bib, have some water, do some dynamic warm-ups, and get lined up without feeling rushed. Though I’m not an elite runner, I have my pre-race rituals, and I feel way more relaxed and in the zone when I have enough time to do them.

Of course, as I’ve gotten older, I’ve also tried to embrace flexibility and the ability to roll with the punches a bit more. One quip I have frequently used to calm my nerves before a race is, “Relax! You aren’t going to win the race.” It might sound pessimistic, but for me, it takes the pressure off. It reminds me that running is just something fun that I do for myself, and that’s it. The worst thing that happens is *gasp* I STOP RUNNING. I’m not going to lose a sponsorship/my livelihood, no one’s life is hanging in the balance, and my worth as a person in no way depends on my race results.

The only thing is, today the mantra broke down. I cannot believe that I, once the caboose of my middle school cross-country team, am writing these words, but: this morning, I actually did win the (women’s) race for the 5K I ran in.

Was it part luck? Absolutely. It was a small community race with only 40-50 entrants, and the really fast ladies obviously had other things to do this morning.

Even so, I want to take some credit. I PR’d by over 45 seconds, and am now tantalizingly close to my long-term goal of breaking 25 minutes in the 5K. Fingers crossed that I can keep up the consistent training I’ve been doing, because I think that will get me there.

In the meantime, though, I may need to tweak my pre-race mantra a bit. I may not be a likely contender in most races that I do, but as I learned today, it’s now possible that conditions could align just right, and I might, in fact, win the race!