The day before

We arose Friday morning in Burlington, the day already sunny and warm. I didn't go out for a short, easy run. The day grew warmer and warmer, and by noon was already in the 80s. The forecast for Sunday morning has not looked good all week, and the expected temperature has crept up and up each day. It was in the upper 80s on Friday; fully hot when we stopped at the race expo to pick up my packet and t-shirt and other goods. The volunteer who handed me my bib explained to me that it would be extra-critical this year to fill out the emergency information on the back. Discouraging to think about it, but let's face it -- I don't want it to be necessary and not have the info there.

While at the expo, a man got in line behind (or, to be more precise, next to) me, and asked me if I was running the race. I hope my face did not say what my brain thought: why would I be in line here, if not? (Maybe he thought I was with the guy in front of me; if so, that's irritating.) I told him yes, and he said "Great!" Then it was my turn to be helped, and I left him there after I got my packet. He turned up again a little bit later, after I had confirmed that the chip on the bib was functioning correctly and was buying a handful of gels that I will use in the race. Right at my shoulder, he said, "Do those work?" I told him that they do work, or maybe it's all in my head, but either way I seem to have a less awful time getting through the final 6-10 miles if I use them. He said that if I endorse them, then he might just try them -- what was the best flavor? What did I have? Salted caramel? He would try those.

Yikes, dude! I tried to tell him that I wouldn't recommend using them for the first time on race day! Some people's systems do not respond favorably to these and I tested them out over several long and/or tough workouts to see how my insides would deal with them. I am not sure he quite heard me, and I decided to just get out of there. I don't want him to really remember what I look like so that he can blame me if he tries them for the first time tomorrow and has to drop out because he gets an upset stomach.

This morning, I got up around 7 and went out for the short, easy run that I did not do yesterday. I jogged along the path by the lakefront that will be the site of the final miles of the race. A great deal of activity going on down there -- tents being set up, a train of trucks bringing porta-potties, getting ready for some sort of kid's fun run, etc. It was kind of exciting, coming back after going out for 15 minutes, to pass by the grassy space which is where the finish line will be -- I'll be there a little more than 24 hours from now, I hope. The half hour confirmed that my legs do, in fact, still know how to run, they are still fine, there are no heretofore-undiscovered injuries that decided to make themselves known today. I also confirmed that it is, in fact, quite warm, and that there is no getting around it, it's going to be absolutely unpleasant tomorrow. Given the forecast is not likely to dramatically change for the better in the next 24 hours, I think the best that I can hope for is that it will be cloudy. I won't waste time hoping it will be cooler. There is a long out-and-back portion in the first half of the race that will be completely exposed to the sky, and if the sun can just stay covered up at least for that part, it will go a long way. My recollection of the course is that most of the rest of the run will have some degree of cover, and the race has announced they will have extra water, ice, sprinklers, etc. in the later parts to help alleviate the heat-related misery. So, sun -- while I generally love you very much -- please stay tucked away behind clouds tomorrow, at least until noon? Thanks!

The high is predicted to be 85F, with a low of 66F, and a race-start temperature of 72F. That is way outside the range of good, and I have pretty much no experience this spring running in anything that hot. But I have no control over it, obviously, and I am (I hope) smarter than I was in Boston in 2012 when I foolishly shrugged off the warning about the heat. I have time goals for tomorrow, but I'm going to try to be sensible about trying to reach them.

There are a couple "tries" in that statement because there have been times when no matter how hard I work to stay controlled, I have let myself get swept up in things. I can only promise that I will TRY not to. 2012 wasn't so long ago that I have completely forgotten what it was like to be so stupid, and I hope the memory of that will be strong enough to hold me back if I need to.

So, today: lots of water drinking, carb it up for lunch and dinner, lots more water-drinking, and get to the starting line fresh and ready to run in the heat. I just can't worry about it. I hate the phrase "It is what it is" because it's used too much to excuse things that shouldn't be excused, but in this case it really is what it is, and I will run how I can without destroying myself the way I did in 2012. If I start feeling like I did that time, I will drop out.

One last glass-half-empty moment: I really wish I had been able to get at least one 22-er in this training cycle. It didn't work out for different reasons and even though a 22-er isn't necessary, it's just beneficial for the mental battle to know I've gone over that 20-mile hill. But I just can't worry about that, either. That cannot be changed and there is nothing that can be done about it now. I did a number of solid and tough 19-20s, so I can focus on that. And now that that last little negativity is done, let's be as positive as I can be, facing a broiler: the marathon is unpredictable, even on days when the weather is ideal. You can have some idea of how it should play out, but sometimes things go wildly differently -- in both directions. If I run smart, I can still finish well.

Week #21 -- starting to wind down

Summary for week ending Sunday, May 22, 2016:

Number of workouts: 6
Total miles run: 38.87
Average miles per run: 6.48

Miles in May: 137.25
Miles in 2016: 940.13

During taper weeks, I always start to feel anxious -- like I'm not running enough and I'm undoing all the work I have done to date. It feels odd to be done after less than an hour of running, or not have to go back out after work for a double, and I have to remind myself that it's what my schedule says to do, it is what I'm supposed to be doing, and to just relax and enjoy not having to do 10-12 miles a day.

I did most of my running in the morning, doing a few laps around the reservoir each time. I discovered that my Garmin measures differently depending on which direction I run around: if I go clockwise for three laps, my total distance is 5.45 miles. If I go counter-clockwise for three laps, my total distance is 5.38 miles. I wonder what accounts for the nearly tenth of a mile difference?

More life getting in the way this week, so I moved around the week's T workout to Sunday rather than Wednesday or Thursday. It worked out fine. 2 mi E + 2(10 min T) + 30-45 min. The T intervals were OK, not as fluid as I'd have liked but still manageable at 7:10 pace.

With a week to race day, the hay is pretty much in the barn. Just need to spend the next week taking it easy and going out for shortish, easy runs to keep the legs in motion. As anxious as I feel that I'm not doing enough, I'm just going to have to cool it and remember that my legs don't need a lot of work this week.

More birds

I was doing laps at Paper Mill Park during a tempo run, and there are probably a bazillion geese there at any given time. Mostly they ignore the people around, barely even stirring when they are standing in the path and people walk or run by. I still give them as much space as I can without going way out of my way to avoid them, though. I don't like to antagonize them if they appear to be anxious about me. This time, there was a group of three families, with around 15-20 goslings between them, hanging out in one of the soccer fields. Two parents were keeping guard near the path, and as I approached, they hissed at me. I found myself saying "I know! I'm sorry!" as I passed.

Did I just apologize to geese?

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Another weekend bird encounter: nature is amazing and unpleasant all at the same time.

1) As I ran on a bridge across the White Clay Creek, I saw a blue heron standing in the water, a large, gasping fish hanging out of either side of its long beak. It hopped up a few stones to stand at the top of a short waterfall. I stopped to watch it for a minute or two until I realized that what I was doing was watching the fish dying; I didn't need to see that. I ran off, leaving the heron to its lunch.

2) The grass all around the reservoir was freshly mowed, which smelled wonderful in the sun; but I'm guessing that some small things did not survive the event, based on the presence of three gigantic turkey vultures that were stalking around in the shorn field. As beautiful as the blue heron was, the vultures ... not so much. But it's not their fault they have to have bald, ugly heads. If I had to spend my life plunging my head into gross roadkill too, it would be easier to not have to worry about it being stuck in my hair all the time.

Week #20 -- life gets in the way again

Summary for week ending Sunday, May 15, 2016:

Number of workouts: 5
Total miles run: 40.91
Average miles per run: 8.18

Miles in May: 98.38
Miles in 2016: 901.26


Tapering unofficially began last week, I suppose, if you look at it from a mileage standpoint, and continued this week, as I was traveling again -- this time in Montreal, QC for a workshop at McGill University. I had never been to Montreal before and while my hotel was seemingly ideally located to a very large park with trails, I did not have time to do any exploring (and, let's be honest, I'm not all that brave about running on trails in a strange city all by myself). I arrived late Wednesday afternoon and took the time to walk around a little but not up to the park. Thursday was a lovely and warm day, but I did not want to go exploring park trails in the morning when I had a firm morning scheduling commitment -- even just going out and back cannot be assumed to go without hitch. Thursday evening I was late getting back to the hotel -- 7 p.m. -- far too late to try to explore the park, so I did a few miles on the treadmill in the hotel.

I had not considered that I was in Canada and that in Canada, things are not really done in miles. I started the belt with numbers that made sense for my treadmill at home and wondered "Why is this so slow??" Fortunately I quickly put two and two together (I am a scientist, after all) and got it going, but then had to do math the whole time to try to tick off the mile splits on my Garmin at the right times. Who wants to have to do math during a run?! It was a decent run, if a bit zzz because I didn't take any music in with me and there was nothing worth looking at on the TV that was right in my face on the console; and nothing of interest out the window, which faced a small parking lot and a Subway across the street.

I had hoped to have time to go up and for a run in the park at the close of the workshop Friday afternoon, but the weather was no longer pleasant -- it had begun raining and was gloomy, and with rain threatening I passed on the park exploration again. And then, being actually quite exhausted from having to be thinking scientifically and being social all day, passed on running on the treadmill again too. Instead, I got up early Saturday to do another ~5 miles (~8K) on the treadmill. There was an older gentleman walking on the machine next to me, but he kept to himself and I kept to myself and had another pretty zzz run that did its job. It's been a while since I did any mileage on the treadmill.

So I did not run as much during the week (for the second week in a row) that I had hoped to/thought I might. Legs were feeling pretty fresh for the last long and tough workout on Sunday, which was 2 mi E + 15 mi M + 2 mi E. The day was decent enough -- cool-ish and though it had rained a lot overnight, it held off during the day. I thought I would do the M miles at around 7:40-7:45 and my legs felt good enough that they kept turning them out at more like 7:35, even when I tried to back off a little bit to be more 7:40-ish. So I just let them do it.

I had kind of thought that, if my legs were feeling it, I would run a little more than 2 mi E at the end and maybe try to get to 22 as I did not get over 20 this training cycle and that had/has me a little worried. But after 15 miles of ~7:35-7:40, anything more than the 2 E I did was going to be junk. So I did the 2 easy and called it a successful workout.

7:35-7:40 might be a little rich for another 11 miles, so unless my legs are totally feeling it, I'm going to really force them to go 7:40-7:45 (if they feel good enough for that, even).

This week the official taper begins, but that will only be formality after the last couple lower-volume weeks.

Race! Half-marathon at the Delaware Marathon Running Festival

All I really wanted from this race was to not feel like crud and to do better than I had done at the Caesar Rodney a month earlier. With legs that had not really trained through, and good weather, I got what I wanted.

It was in the 50s at race start, which was just about right. It was a 7:00 a.m. gun though, which I did not particularly like -- you know that getting out of bed in the morning at the crack of dawn is not my favorite thing. Portapotty lines were long, so I took a chance on the next-door Amtrak station and discovered that the indoor facilities (particularly the upstairs option) had not been widely discovered. Yay! Even so, I did not get to the starting area until about 5 minutes to the gun, and it was tightly packed so that I could not make my way very far up and was stuck toward the back with people who were definitely not going to be running under 1:40. Well, there wasn't any risk of actually winning this race so it would have to do. The throng around me ensured I didn't take off like a shot, which was a benefit of being crammed so far back -- I did mile #1 in 7:28. I settled in.

There was no wind to speak of, and the temperature was comfortable. I was comfortable. I aimed to keep my miles at least 7:20, as long as it didn't start to feel like a stretch, and it did not. I let my legs do what they wanted as long as they did not push to a point where it felt like I was reaching. Even on the uphill mile (~7), I felt pretty strong. In fact, up until around mile 8 or 9, I was feeling better and better as I went on. After 9 or so, my legs started to feel kind of robotic/wooden, but they still responded to my pace orders -- it was a race, I told them, so race. Miles 10, 11, 12, and 13 were all 7:10 or better, with mile 13 being the best: 6:56. In those last three, I made use of that long downhill and then the downhill in the last half mile or so, and told myself again that this is a race; if your legs can do it, make them do it. And so they did.

I kept an eye on who was ahead of me, and if I saw a woman wearing a "HALF" tag on her back (to distinguish us from the 26.2 runners, they made us wear bibs on our backs), I made a point of reeling her in. There was a woman in the last mile that I wasn't sure I was going to get, but going up the hill on King Street on the way toward the finish, I caught her after all, which was satisfying. I aimed at the next woman ahead of me, but I ran out of real estate before I could get her.¹ I glanced up at the race clock over the finish line as I crossed -- it was 1:36:XX.

I thought, "Well, good enough" though a teeeny bit disappointed it wasn't a liiiiittle bit faster -- and then, after stopping, I stopped my Garmin and looked down at it.

It said 1:35:05. What? OH RIGHT -- being so far back at the start, I hit the start mat a minute after the gun. So, OK, I was a liiiittle bit faster. I was pretty excited about that, even exulting "YES!" out loud.

My official time for the race is 1:35:04. It is about 30 seconds slower than my PR. It was good for 4th in my age group; I was 12th female; and 45th out of 891 half-marathon finishers. Frankly, after that 10-miler in Lewes, I needed this shot of confidence.

The only disappointing thing about the day was the fat-free chocolate milk they had at the post-race tent. Come on! Who wants that after finishing a race?! Give me at least 1%!!!



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¹After looking at the results, it seems not to matter: she does not seem to appear in the half-marathon results, as the person that is right before me (4 seconds faster) is a 42 year old man and his race photos indicate that he is not the person who I saw just ahead of me! The next faster woman than me had a gun time almost a whole minute faster than mine, so that wasn't her either. I don't recall now that she had a HALF tag on her back -- maybe she was a full marathoner who bailed, but I thought the website said if that happened they'd just convert the result. So I don't know what's up with whoever she was.

The early birds

Morning is the red-winged blackbird's time, its multi-tone call evoking the Iowa countryside ripening green and gold in sultry summer months. Two Canada geese stand ankle-deep in marshy water, keeping dutiful eye on five fluffy, camouflaged goslings learning how to live geese lives. Ducks, mallards and one all dark, a stranger, float on the glassy reservoir, sometimes rocking forward tail over beak to snap up tasty underwater morsels. Mourning doves whuff disconsolately away as I approach, and commoners - robins and swallows mostly - take flight to avoid me as well. As I round a bend in the path, my eye is suddenly caught by the jewel of the morning run, standing at the rim of the small lake: a blue heron, tall and haughty, unconcerned as I slow to stare at its unexpected, regal presence.

Morning runs used to be a chore, uncomfortable and dragging, but in recent weeks they have been among some of the most satisfying and engaging miles I've done - cool temperatures, good legs, and seldom do I share the reservoir path with anything but the (literal) early birds.

Week # 19 -- life gets in the way

Summary for week ending Sunday, May 8, 2016:

Number of workouts: 4
Total miles run: 38.40
Average miles per run: 9.60

Miles in May: 57.47
Miles in 2016: 860.35

After a day of resting on Monday, Tuesday's run felt much better, and not just because the weather was outstanding. Legs recovered, abdomen not an issue. Did almost 10 miles, with the miles seeming to fly right on by because it wasn't same-old, same-old, but on familiar and beloved hometown sidewalks and a little bit through Hickory Hill Park.

Wednesday, I hoped to do the 22-miler. However, I was back to feeling like total crud and it did not happen. I only got halfway (11.21 mi), and I think I was lucky to even get that far. Just shy of mile 10, I was at the corner of Scott and First, and about to head down Scott which would have committed me to at least 4 more miles. Sometimes, I do the thing where I go past a point of no return to make myself do what I have to do, but I got only a few meters past the intersection when my legs just stopped. My brain said "Do not do it. You will regret it. You will end up walking a long way." For once, I heeded the warning -- it was not just laziness. I turned around and went home, struggling a bit even to do that last mile-ish. I was disgusted with how bad I felt, and anxious about how I was not going to get a 22-er in unless I did an extra 9 after the race on Sunday.

I did happen to run into an old friend from high school while heading through Hickory Hill Park around mile 8. She was out doing some hiking and hunting for mushrooms with her youngest son. This was after I had stopped at home to get water and a gel and had considered bailing then, but knew I had to try to get a little more in. I was feeling wretched, and seeing my friend was the only good thing about that whole morning.

I had intended to run some distance on Thursday, but this is where life intruded; other situations came up involving my family, so I did not get out, instead spending it in doctor's offices and the U of I hospital. Too bad on a number of levels: the weather was the perfect spring weather we've largely missed out on this year. (And back in Delaware, it was raining all week.)

Friday I flew back east, and because of the rain, PHL was all messed up and my afternoon flight from ATL was very delayed and I didn't get home until quite late. No running.

I got a few easy miles in on Saturday, and while I did not run nearly as much as I had hoped to while in Iowa, I could at least say that my legs ought to be pretty nicely rested for the half-marathon. The half went quite well -- better than I'd anticipated -- and I will summarize that in the next post.

Week #18 -- finishing up out of town

Summary for week ending Sunday, May 1, 2016:

Number of workouts: 5
Total miles run: 46.15
Average miles per run: 9.23

Miles in April: 208.46
Miles in May: 19.07
Miles in 2016: 821.95

Arriving in the Midwest on the last day of May, the weather was vile, pouring rain pretty much non-stop from time of arrival until early evening. I was not going to run in that, as I was too tired from rising at 3 a.m. for a very early flight to even guilt myself into toughing it out. By the time it had eased up, I was full of Chicago-style deep dish from Wig and Pen, so ....

The weather was marginally better Sunday -- I got my workout done in between rainy moments. I did a tough tempo workout on Sunday. Typically my first days of running in Iowa don't feel that good -- not sure why, perhaps mostly a combo of poor eating and poor sleeping over the last couple days. No exception this day, and I made myself run hard even when it wasn't feeling good. 2 mi E + 4(5 min T) + 10 mi E + scheduled 4(5 min T) + 2 mi E. I did the first part OK, though legs were not very responsive -- tempo intervals on the track at my high school and 10 easy miles on the well-known roads of the east side. Very slow and not because I was forcing myself to do 9:00/per, it's just what my legs did. Was feeling the muscles in my lower abdomen start to act up a bit, and when I went back to the track for the 4(5 min T), I got started on the first interval and it was too painful. It didn't ease up and I couldn't make myself run through it, so I bailed on the T and started to jog home. As I jogged, the discomfort cooled it enough for me to keep out for a few more slow miles, and I finished up with 19 on the day. Not especially happy about the abdomen muscle situation, not too happy that I didn't get those last T sessions in, but it was solid mileage and as good as it was going to get, so I will have to be satisfied with that.

The weather is meant to improve over the rest of the week, so at least that part should be easier. Going to have to take a day to let these lower abdomen muscles cool it. Because I have a half-marathon next Sunday, I'm going to switch Q workouts for the week -- do the longy-long on Wednesday I think, and then use the race as the long T workout.