Diana's Running [B]log

Pine Cobble

2006-11-19T13:33:00.000-05:00

A few weeks ago when I walked into 9:00 math class, having woken up at 8:30 and barely gotten breakfast, C² informed me that she had hiked up Pine Cobble that morning. It was a beautiful sunny morning, and I thought that was a wonderful thing to have done, and wished that I, too, had done it. So this morning I ran up Pine Cobble.

"Run" is not exactly the apt word to use, because Pine Cobble is quite steep in places, so much of the time I walked, mostly on the way up but also on the way down when mounds of rocks were covered in slippery leaves and it just wasn't worth it. I encountered a few people, six or eight, on their way up or down the mountain. It was kind of cloudy, so the view wasn't great, but it sure beat no view at all.

It was a nice run. It took me about 42 minutes to go from campus to the top, and a little less than that to get down and to Greylock.

When I came out of brunch, someone had taken my reflective vest. Here is a picture of me wearing my reflective vest. If you see it -- and it's very unique, considering the three strips of duct tape holding the shoulder together -- kindly inform the wearer that they are a terrible person for stealing my vest, slap them across the face, take back the vest and give it back to me.

Thanks.

The detraining effect

2006-11-13T17:06:00.000-05:00

On Saturday I went on a run with Becca and Owen and was absolutely astounded at the amount that I was out of shape, in the sense that I was running along at a reasonable pace but it was very difficult, in the sense that my heart rate was over 180 the whole time, and then when I tried to run fast around the track, it was really hard and I could only run 200 meters. I was astonished enough that I decided to go for another run today to determine just how out of shape I am, and it turns out that it's not as bad as I thought. I did Blair (5.6) at a reasonable pace, with the last minute or so at tempo pace, and it took 48 minutes: not bad. I was really concerned about the speed part, though, so I did a lap around the track. It was 89 seconds (22, 22, 23, 22). This is not very impressive, but it is a lot better than I thought it would be. But it was sort of hard, so I did another one. That one was 84 seconds (21, 22, 20, 21). So I am not in great shape, but I am not in terrible shape, and I certainly have an acceptable base upon which to build.

43 seconds faster, but paradoxically, less proud

2006-08-20T16:35:00.001-04:00

Yesterday I did the same workout as a month ago or so, but faster. I didn't look far enough ahead in the training guide to see that there is a very careful progression of increasingly more distance at 5k pace, starting with 4-5 x 800, then 3 x 1000, then 3 x 1200, then 2-3 x mile, so I did 3 x mile after doing 5 x 800. My goal in the workout last month (July 22) was to run 100 seconds per 400, 6:40 per mile. I ran the three miles in 6:39, 6:38, and 6:32, adding on an extra 44-second 200 to make it 20:29 for 5k altogether. I was very pleased with this effort.

Last week in Williamstown I did the 3 x 1200 workout quite fast. I was aiming for one second faster per 100, 24 seconds per 100, 96 seconds per 400, 6:24 mile pace. I ended up going much faster than this, averaging around 23 seconds per 100 at the end, and I was very happy about that workout. Here it was:

(Friday, August 11)
4:45 (95, 96, 94)
4:36 (93, 95, 88)
4:34 (93, 96, 85)

So then yesterday I did 3 x mile again. I made a special effort to get to a track so that I could run an actual mile (there is no track on the island). My goal was to run the miles at the same pace that I had run the 1200s last week, 6:24 per mile, 96 seconds per 400. Here is what I ran:

(Saturday, August 19)
6:15 (93, 95, 95, 92)
6:16 (92, 95, 96, 93)
6:32 (95, 99, 100, 98) (7:15 1800)

Clearly, this is not the way that I like to run a workout. I prefer to run the first repeat at exactly goal pace, the second slightly below, and the third as fast as possible (if there are three). In this case, I ran the first two well faster than goal pace, and then the third was terrible. That was kind of sad. It makes me less proud of myself than I was for the first one in July. The problem is that the training guide sets one goal (5k date pace -- slower than 6:40, I think), and I set a goal that is faster than that (6:40 or 6:24) and then I set an actual goal to go faster than the goal that is already faster than the training guide (trying to beat 6:40 or 6:24). Then when I don't, I am sad. I suppose this is a good thing. The better thing, of course, would be to achieve the most difficult goal.

During the third mile, I felt very much like stopping after two laps, because my legs were tired and I was well off of the pace I wanted to be running, but I kept going. I kept going mostly because I had to do the workout, but also because, while I couldn't remember the pace I had run for the miles in the workout last month (because my brain gets all foggy when I am running hard) I was pretty sure that I was still faster than that time, and lastly (I actually did think these things while I was running) because the best condition to do a workout is when you're really tired and your legs are dead, because then you have to work very hard, and then you get a workout. So, I got a workout.

Altogether, this adds up to a 19:46 5k. This is a big improvement on the July workout -- 43 seconds faster for 5k, all of the miles faster except the last one exactly the same, with the last 200 one second faster. So it was really a good workout, except that it would have been nice for everything to have been under 6:24, and for my times to have been decreasing instead of increasing. Also, my legs were quite sore after the workout in July, but today they are not very sore at all, which is a good sign (except that I should have run faster!).

In high school we used to run the first half of the course, then rest, then run the second half of the course, for a workout at the beginning of the season. The idea was that whatever time we could run in two pieces -- adding the two times together -- at the beginning of the season, we could run it without stopping at the end of the season. So I hope that this time that I can run in three pieces in the summer, I can run for a race during the season.

43 seconds faster, but paradoxically, less proud

2006-08-20T16:35:00.000-04:00

5:52: My second-fastest mile ever

2006-08-01T23:08:00.000-04:00

Today was our last day of organized running class, so we had our final mile time trial of the summer. It was 100° out and very sunny, so we made the run optional. Of six students, four opted to do the run. Of four students, four ran 800 meters, two ran 1200 meters, and one ran the entire 1600 meters of the mile (the others were tired and hot and stopped before they were done). Of the two interns (including me) who ran, both finished.

I was trying to run sub-6:00, so I was pacing myself at 90 seconds per 400, which is 22.5 seconds per 100 and 45 seconds per 200. Of course I ran the first 100 too fast, in 19 seconds, but I evened it out after that and came through the 400 in 87. I ran the middle two laps perfectly, in 91 and 90 seconds, respectively, coming through the 1200 in 4:28. I ran the last 400 as fast as I could, sprinting the final straightaway, in 84 seconds, to finish in 5:52.

My best mile time is 5:45, achieved in winter track in my senior year of high school. My second-best mile time is 5:55, in outdoor track in my freshman year of high school, and I think my third-best mile time is 6:03, achieved last spring (junior year of college). I have run more 1500s, which can be converted to miles (my best 1500 is 5:17), but only in emergencies.

My point is that, given that it was 100° and that I had no competition around me, I think I am in quite good shape, especially for it still being a month before the start of the cross country season. So I am happy with the work that I have done, and I am pleased with today's effort.

My second Race for the Cure

2006-07-31T19:53:00.000-04:00

Yesterday, I ran the Race for the Cure again with Becca. It went well. This year, Becca won the race for the fourth year in a row, as opposed to last year, when she won it for the third year in a row.

We ran the first mile in 3:31, the first 1.5 miles in something like 10:45, the first two miles in 14:52 (Becca claims it was 14:53, but I don't believe her), and the whole thing in 23:08 or 23:09, in the sense that Becca ran 23:08 and I ran 23:09. I take full responsibility for the bad pacing job. I had been too sick to do anything except sleep and blow my nose and take cold showers for the previous two days, and Becca hadn't eaten anything for 48 hours except for two oreos, and best of all, Becca had The Look, and those are all of my reasons for why we won the race by two minutes and yet ran slower than last year. And by "we," I mean "Becca."

[Here are the results from the 2006, 2005, 2004, and 2003 VT/NH Races for the Cure.]

I am thoroughly proud of myself

2006-07-23T19:41:00.000-04:00

...so I'm totally going to brag about it on the Internet.

On Saturday, my prescribed workout was 3x1000 at 5k pace, when two weeks ago I did 5x800 at 10k pace, so I decided to make it 3x1600 at 5k pace, with equal time recovery. Additionally, I decided to run an extra 200 meters at the end of my last 1600, so that the total distance covered would actually be 5k, rather than a measly 4800 meters.

I ran each 100 in 25 seconds, trying to make it exactly right on, except at the end, at which time I let myself speed up (I am such a nice person). This is 6:40 mile pace, 20:00 3-mile pace, 20:50 5k pace: not exactly burning up the track, but acceptable enough. I think 24 seconds per 100 (6:24 pace) would have been too fast for me, at this point. I hope to do that workout sometime. Actually, I could probably do it now if someone was running with me and making me do it.

Without further ado:

1600: 6:39

(6:40 recovery)

1600: 6:34

(6:35 recovery)

1600: 6:32 - 1800: 7:16

That adds up to a 20:29 5k, with which I am quite pleased. That and running three consecutive relatively fast miles with limited recovery -- yes, I was very proud of myself. And today, my body hurt, my muscles ached, which is a very good sign.

Today we went to Hampton Beach, and I did my long run running up and down the beach. I ran the first 20 minutes in the dry sand, which was more difficult and involved more people staring at me, and the last 30 minutes in the wet sand at the edge of the surf, which was less difficult and involved more dodging small children. The idea was to run for 75 minutes, rather than 50, but the other interns were watching my stuff, and they wanted to leave after 50 minutes, and actually all waited for me to come back, so I stopped running and went to lunch, because it was the courteous thing to do, you know.

Some good workouts

2006-07-20T19:18:00.000-04:00

I have done some interesting workouts over the past days. Here are some of them.

6 x 400:
This was supposed to be 6 x 400 at mile pace, but I would not improve very much if I ran them at mile pace, so I ran them as fast as I could, given that I was doing six. They ended up being 84, 86, 84, 83, 80, and 82 seconds, respectively. When I finished the 86, I was disappointed in the time, because 86 is pretty slow, but it was a very difficult lap to run, and my heart rate was higher at the end of that one than at the end of any of the others, so I suppose it was just an aberration.

4 x 100 flat, 8 x 30 sec hill, 4 x 100 flat:
This was an interesting workout because I woke up feeling quite sick and dehydrated, and skipped my morning exercises. I only went through the motions of this workout, cruising on the 100s as the suggested workouts said, rather than running them as fast as possible, like the last time I ran this workout. Also, I didn't warm up or cool down or jog between pieces, except downhill, so the total amount of running was very minimal. But I drank a lot of water, and felt better.

50 at 168:
I figured if I ran for 30 minutes at 182 average heart rate, running for 50 minutes at 160 average heart rate would be a good idea. But apparently it's hard to keep my heart rate under 170 when the sun is shining on my skin (it was hard to get it over 160 in the woods) so it ended up being 168.

2 x 10 minutes tempo:
This one was interesting because when I woke up, I felt like I had a ball of air inside my chest, above my stomach, where my sternum ends, and it hurt a lot, and nothing I did made it go away. It hurt all the way through my warmup jog, too. But then when I started running hard, I no longer noticed it, and then it was gone when I stopped running. Clearly, the solution to all things is to run.

I am supposed to do 3 x 1000m at 5k pace on Saturday, but I am thinking of making it 3 x 1600 m at 5k pace, since that would be a 5k at 5k pace (equal time recovery between pieces). I feel like that would be a better workout. Also, I did 5 x 800 at 5k pace a few weeks ago with equal time recovery, and that's 4000 meters, and this is only 3000 meters, and I think I should increase the amount of time spent at 5k pace as I approach the time when I will actually be racing 5k. So I might do it. We'll see. I can always bump it down to the prescribed workout.

There are only 10 days left until our 5k race, which means that nothing I do from now until then will positively affect my performance in the race. I hope that the things that I do to prepare for later races will not negatively affect my performance too much.

182 for 30

2006-07-12T22:20:00.000-04:00

Today I did a tempo run. It was going to be a 30-minute tempo run. A minute or so into the tempo run (which followed a warm-up), I found that my heart rate was 183.

"183," I thought, "that is too high to sustain for 30 minutes."

Ha! Ha! Just kidding.

"183," I thought, "perhaps a good goal would be to keep my heart rate above 180 for 30 minutes."

So that was my goal, which I mostly achieved, except a few times when it went down into the 170s. The average was 182, which I think is quite respectable, seeing as how it wasn't even hot out. It was kind of difficult. When I finished and started jogging again, I felt like I was going to throw up, which I think is an excellent sign, because that hasn't ever happened to me from a workout before, and I didn't even eat anything before I went running. I'm so impressed with myself.

In the afternoon, it was raining hard, so we had the students do a track workout (we had previously decided that if it rained, we would have them do a track workout). It was standard -- run fast on the straight parts, and slower on the curves -- but it was nice to have them out on the track.

Then we had a lot of extra time, so we went in on the mats and did plyometrics. In particular, we had them do frog jumps and hopping with both feet, which is really hard if you do one right into the other and don't rest. Actually, frog jumps are really hard no matter what. My legs hurt now.

Eventful days of running

2006-07-08T19:19:00.000-04:00

Today:
Today I did 5x800 at 5k pace. I decided that 5k pace was going to be defined as 6:40 miles, so somewhat over a 20-minute 5k, so that each 800 would be 3:20, each lap would be 100, and each 100 would be 25 seconds, just like in the 3000 in the winter.

I ran the 800s in 3:18 (183), 3:19 (185), 3:17 (187), 3:14 (190), and 3:06 (195). I made sure that the first lap had even splits as close to 25 per 100 as possible, and then I allowed myself to go faster on the second lap. I checked my heart rate every 200 meters, and it was consistently just over 180. My heart rate at the end of the intervals are in parantheses above. I was impressed how if I went just a bit faster, 23 seconds for a 100 instead of 25, my heart rate responded accordingly.

I always enjoy breaking my old PRs for race distances, in workouts. I am pretty sure that one of my sixth-grade PRs for the 800 was 3:07, so I am happy to have beaten that at the end of my workout. Also, I ran the last 100 meters of my last 800 in 16 seconds, which is better than when I was doing just 100 meters the other day and could only get it down to 17.

Yesterday:
Yesterday was extremely eventful. I didn't actually go for a run myself, because I didn't go to bed until 9:15, so I let myself sleep in until 7:30, rather than getting up at 6:30 as usual. (That sentence is coherent if you realize that I got three hours of sleep the previous night.) Instead, since I was just supposed to do an easy run for 20 or 30 minutes, I just did it in the warm-up run in our running practice.

Running practice was having the kids do a one-mile time trial. We had each person pick a goal time, and we had practiced running this goal pace for 100, 200, and 400 meters the previous day. It worked well, except that Neal and I were incapable of calculating people's splits in our heads in the split second when they were running by. So it goes.

One girl had a goal time of 10:00 (2:30 per lap). She came by after the first lap in 1:53. As she passed, I shouted out "1:53" and she stopped. "No, keep going!" I shouted, "you have three more laps!" "Three?" she asked, as though we had not said this multiple times. So she went around again and ran the second lap in 2:00. "Two minutes," I shouted as she passed me, and again, she stopped. "No, keep running!" I shouted, "you're halfway there -- two laps to go." "Halfway?" she asked, incredulously, as though we had not been over this before. She ran the third lap in 2:29, so as she ran by, I shouted, "right on pace -- that's perfect!" Again, she stopped. "One to go," I shouted, "almost there!" "Another one?" she asked, incredulously, as though this were new information. But she started up again and started on her last lap.

Less than 100 meters after passing us, she stopped and talked to some girls who were walking across the track. "Keep running!" I shouted, "you're running a race! Come on!" She started jogging, but turned back towards the girls and kept talking. "Keep running," I shouted, "and you girls, get back to wherever you're supposed to be; she's in a race." At this point, I was quite exasperated about this whole stopping in the middle nonsense. So when she stopped and walked again 100 meters later, just 200 meters from the finish, I not only shouted for her to keep running, but ran towards her so as to accompany her for the final piece of the race.

When she saw me coming, she stopped and walked. I shouted for her to keep running, but as I ran up beside her, I realized that she was crying. "I couldn't breathe," she said. I grabbed her wrist, and saw that her heart rate was at 197. Oh. It seems we had a situation on our hands.

I'm going to skip the middle part, where she and I walk around the remainder of the track, where Neal and I apologize profusely and repeatedly for making her run when she couldn't breathe, and the part where everyone we talk to in the next few minutes, including myself and Neal, asks her if she has asthma, and she says no.

The most exasperating part of all of this was when the nurse at the health center pronounced her "perfect," nothing wrong, clean bill of health. Anyone could recognize her symptoms as those of exercised-induced asthma, and yet they did not even suggest screening for it or talking to a doctor about it. Pathetic. However, the nurse did endorse her staying in the running group and just taking it easy and not pushing it, and she thought this would be okay, which is great.

Thursday: I ran for about 30 minutes with the kids, which was about 20 minutes longer than I meant to have them run -- we took this trail in the woods that I thought would bring us right back to the main trail, but no, it didn't really at all. Then we had them do the aforementioned pacing exercise. It was brilliant, really.

This was the day when I had gotten three hours of sleep. It was a decision that adversely affected my training, but we will remember at this time that my name is not Rebecca, and so I do occasionally make decisions that adversely affect my training. Anyway, I was supposed to do 4x5:00 "crusing," and I did these on trails in the woods -- no idea where I was going, of course; just make some decision every time you get to an intersection, and you'll get to somewhere you recognize eventually; that's my philosophy on the subject -- and at the end of the third one, a muscle or something on the outside of my left calf started hurting, and at the beginning of the fourth one, it was really hurting, so I only did three. One for each hour of sleep. Let's reflect on decisions that adversely affect training, shall we? And decide that sometimes, it's worth it. Because it probably won't impede upon my ability to run a sub-21-minute 5k, or whatever it is that I will need to do.

I can't hear, either

2006-07-04T22:37:00.000-04:00

Today I went for a workout that looked short, but was actually pretty intense. It was 4x100 meters, 4 x one-minute hill, 4x100 meters. I ran the first 100s in 20, 18, 18, 17; then ran as far up this steep hill as I could get in one minute, four times (I never quite got to the top -- I'll have a goal to work towards), and then ran the last four 100s in 20, 18, 17, 17. The 20-second 100s were kind of pathetic because I should be able to run 80-second quarters, so running 1/4 the distance at the same speed should be completely easy. However, I have work to do.

I know that when I am running hard or racing, I can't see very well. I can see what my watch says if I hold it up in front of me, and I can see what the race clock says since the numbers are four inches tall, but I can't really see detail around me very well. I realized this a long time ago, and it's fine, because there's an obvious reason for it, and I don't need to see very much when I'm running, anyway.

But today, I determined that I can't really hear when I'm running, either. I had just finished my last 100 and I was walking off the track, when I heard one of my fellow interns shout something unintelligible in my direction. Usually I don't really mind if I don't hear what someone says, because it's usually just some light comment that doesn't matter. But in this case, I knew that the sentence ended with "eet," so I wasn't sure if maybe she had said something like "Germany made a goal -- it was sweet," because I was running during the (scoreless) regular playing time of the semifinal of the World Cup. So I put my hand to my ear, and she repeated it, unintelligibly, again. So I walked all the way over to her, and said, like someone who is learning a language or has a hearing aid, "I'm sorry, could you please repeat that?"

"You have wings on your feet."

Ah. I see. So it wasn't so critical after all. And I really can't hear when I'm running. Good thing I don't need to.

Our first practice

2006-07-03T20:15:00.000-04:00

This morning I ran for 29 minutes, easy. I am supposed to run 25 miles this week, which will be difficult given the workouts that I am supposed to do. I mapped out the number of miles for each day and it easily fit into 30, but then I cut it down to 26, which I suppose is close enough. Of course, that doesn't count the afternoon mileage that I'll be doing with the running class. (This week is a lower-mileage week; every third week reduces mileage so as to stave off injury.)

We had our first running class today, with nine students. We first made introductions, with names, where people were from, what kind of running they were used to doing, and what they wanted to get out of our class. Many had enjoyed running in the past but had stopped, so they were joining the group so that they could run more. We had each person show the group a stretch, and we all did the stretch, and then we went off for our run.

We ran on a gravel road in the woods, about 1/2 mile out and then straight back along the same road. This was easy for some, and a challenge for others, especially since the end of the "out" part was very much uphill. I stayed with the people at the end, and Neal was with the faster runners at the front. In the end, they ran, or jogged and walked, for about 15 minutes total, after which we had a water/bathroom break. This was a very challenging thing for some, and it was also very hot and humid out, which is why we kept the run short on the first day.

Then we played the Sock Game, except we didn't have socks, so each person found a rock, so it was really the Rock Game. They started at the starting line on the track and ran as far as they could in one minute, and dropped their rock when we shouted "Stop!" when the minute was up. They then had 3.5 minutes of rest (it was going to be two minutes, but they were very tired) and then raced from where they had dropped their rock, back to the starting line. We didn't tell them what they would do after dropping the rock and having rest, so it was a good race back to the finish line, with one of the girls "winning" the "race."

We tried to teach some active stretching and core exercises, but there was a lot of complaining about this, not because it was particularly difficult, but because we were lying on the grass, and the grass was making everyone (including Neal and me) itchy. In the future, we will bring towels so that no one has to lie directly on the grass. Yep, always thinking.

60, 85, what's the difference?

2006-07-02T12:10:00.000-04:00

Today I intended to run for 60 minutes, which would give me 35 miles for the week and would fit nicely into the characterization "45 minutes, up to 50 or 60" that Pete suggests for this week. Yesterday I did a loop that took about 45 minutes, including going too far and having to turn around and backtrack, and that loop was all lefts, so I figured that if I first went right, and then took all lefts, it would take about 60 minutes.

After running for 48 minutes, I found myself at the Gill Store, which I knew was at least a few miles from campus, because I had heard people giving directions to it yesterday. So I stopped in and asked how to get back to school. The nice lady gave me very complete directions, and the unfortunate estimate that it was only "a few miles" down the road. Off I went.

Soon after the Gill Store, the downpour began. This was a kind of rain that we do not experience very often in this part of the country, but that we experienced every afternoon in Costa Rica: A drenching, complete rainstorm, the air full of large drops, the ground splattering everywhere with drops hitting the ground. In this kind of rain, puddles form instantly, and the road is covered with half an inch of water within minutes.

As I was splashing down the road, wringing out even my thin synthetic shirt, I looked up to see a deer prancing across a field, coming to a stop beside the road ahead of me. "Hi, deer!" I shouted, and waved. The deer paused for 10 or 15 seconds, then ran across the road and into the woods.

I ended up not following the nice lady's directions entirely, because I came to a point that I recognized from yesterday, so I knew that I could go a different way and return to campus through the woods, rather than running on the roads the whole way. In the end, I was running for 85 minutes rather than 60, but there is really nothing wrong with that.

I turned on the HR monitor for 30 minutes in the middle, and averaged 155 for that time. This is good for a long run. I expect that if it had been sunny and humid, rather than cloudy and humid, my heart rate would have been considerably higher even if I had run the same speed.

198 BPM

2005-08-16T08:47:00.000-04:00

When I run an out-and-back run in Deer Isle, I always check my watch at Rt. 15 and set a goal for how fast I want to make it back home. This way, the end of my run is always super-fast, which is good training. So yesterday I ran to town and back, and then at tne end I decided to try to get there in just under 7:00 (it's only .81 miles, but there are significant hills). The end is flat, and I was sprinting as fast as I could, which was not very fast because I didn't feel so good, and at the end my heart rate was at 198. Actually it beat 33 times in 10 seconds, which is the same thing, but less accurate. So that's pretty fast. And it's probably also pretty accurate, because when I was actually wearing my heart rate monitor the other day, it hit 194 going up a hill not very fast (but it was a long and steep hill). So, the moral is: don't be so dehydrated. Because when I'm hydrated, then my heart isn't as fast, so I can make it faster without hitting a limit, so I can run faster. This is my theory.

Race for the Cure

2005-07-31T16:44:00.000-04:00

Today was the VT-NH Race for the Cure. I ran the 5k race with Becca. It was a successful day for both of us, because we both did what we set out to do: She won the survivor division for the third year in a row, and I beat her.

This is the second time that I have run with someone -- not just in the race with them as a teammate, because I've done that a lot, but actually trying to run exactly together the whole time. The first time was when I ran the Boston Marathon with Ms. Fair, and this time was different because I was trying to stay just behind her. That was kind of strange, because usually when you run with someone, you keep switching off on the lead when each one of you feels better. So I kept naturally getting a few inches ahead, and then when she got out of my peripheral vision, I remembered to go back a little bit behind her. But that was actually a lot of fun. Much more fun than running a race normally. I would do it again any day.

And I wore flats, and then I forgot to run on my toes at the end. There were only two people that I had to catch at the end -- "had to" in the sense that they were less than 100 meters in front of me with 400 meters to go in the race -- and I passed them, so that was all I really needed to do. If I had been in the sort of head-to-head competition with Becca that I had anticipated, I would have run on my toes. And I would have been fast. But I suppose that it was fast enough.

And Becca won.

Track meet

2005-07-19T21:38:00.000-04:00

Yup, it was awesome. I happened upon a few track meets this spring and I really wanted to run in them, just because I haven't run on a track in so long and it looks so great. And today, I did. It was almost exclusively young children, from age 4 to 10, but luckily there were a few cross country boys from the local high school, so I wasn't the only person over four feet tall.

I ran the 1600, the 400, and the 4x100. I even got a white ribbon, for winning third place (after two of the cross country boys) in the 1600. I had to run it against the clock, because those boys were 3/4 of a lap ahead of me by the end, and the next person behind me (another high school boy) was 3/4 of a lap behind me, so that my only close competition was trying to lap a 7-year-old boy in the final stretch (which I did). My splits were:

1:35
3:15
4:48
6:21

Which means that my laps were 95, 100, 93, 93. I was actually quite pleased with 6:21, given that it is only three seconds off of my PR from sixth grade. Ha. No really, I was hoping I would find myself capable of running at least sub-7:00, hopefully sub-6:40, and while a little closer to 6:00 would have been nice, I am quite happy with this. If there had been other people racing close to me, I could have run faster. But alas, there will be time for that in about 10 days.

After about 10 minutes of standing around after the 1600, I ran the 400. Actually I wasn't just standing around the whole time; the little kids' heats were first in the 400, and they don't really understand the whole "racing" thing, and 400 meters is quite a long way for little kids, so I ran next to a four-year-old boy and tried to keep him facing forward and running and motivated and all of that. So I was somewhat warmed up for the 400.

And I ran a 77, with splits of 37 and 40. Not bad. This means that I should run harder in my 400 workouts, because if I can run a 77 after running a hard 1600, I can run 82-84 in a regular workout on a regular day. Yes, note to self: must do that next time. Though the first week I did 4x400 I ran them in 100 seconds; the third week I ran them in 90 seconds, and so I was right on track (ha, ha) to run them in 80 seconds this week. Assuming an arithmetic sequence, of course. Assuming a geometric sequence, it would be 81. That would be okay with me.

The 100 was great, because I ran the whole thing on my toes, and I flew. I was going really fast. That was probably my fastest 100 ever. I was the anchor leg of my relay team, which was composed of three fast males and me, and luckily when I got the baton my team was 40 meters ahead, because I would not have been able to outsprint the other anchor leg, toes or no toes. I like relays. I like racing. I think I will even go to the next community track meet next Tuesday, even though my need for speedwork will have decreased then. Now I am pumped up for my next speed workout this week. Yay.

A new rhythm

2005-07-17T17:29:00.000-04:00

"Rhythm -- a difficult word to spell. What is it doing here?"

Here is my new rhythm for running workouts: Intervals, tempo, recovery; intervals, tempo, recovery; rest. So I have been doing 4x400 on Monday and 8x200 on Thursday for the speed intervals; 20 and 25 minutes of tempo last week and this week, respectively, for tempo, and 25-30 minutes on recovery days. I am doing some strides, some lifting, and some stretching, so that should help.

Last Thursday when I did 200s, I was trying to negative split, and I just couldn't do it. I'd run 39 in 18+21, and then I'd try to slow the first 100 down and end up running 41 in 20+21, or worse yet 43 in 21+22 -- that was just not working.

This past Thursday I decided to wear flats for the 200s, since I need to get my legs used to wearing them. I found that if I ran the first 100 normally just as I would with regular sneakers, and then ran on my toes for the second 100 the way that flats are designed to make you run, I could negative split. I ran a bunch of 39s in 20+19, so that was good.

Flats are nice, because they're light and make you run on your toes like spikes, but you can wear them just as you would a normal pair of sneakers. (You can't wear spikes in a race with pavement, because you'll slip.) The main advantage is psychological, in that you're wearing racing shoes, which makes it different from a normal day of practice. The only way they make you run faster is to, well, strongly suggest that you run on your toes, which really does make you faster, but of course it takes more energy as well.

Of course, they're not necessary. I got my flats in the fall of my senior year of high school, so I ran my cross country PRs in sneakers. And if flats aren't necessary, then spikes certainly aren't. But I'd like to try some on sometime. Most people have spikes, of course. But other things are much more important.

Ouch

2005-07-11T12:06:00.000-04:00

So last night I got punched in the quad. This wouldn't be a big problem except that my quad muscle is strangely sensitive about these things; if I'm sitting down normally and someone presses on it, it hurts, so you can imagine how much it hurts to get punched.

Today I was planning to do a workout, of course, but it was a speed workout and quad muscles are important to speed, so I wasn't sure whether it was a good idea or not. If it was a running injury, then I might take an easy day to recover, but, um, I have no idea what to do about non-running injuries. There isn't even a bruise on the surface; I just limp, and not even very much; it just hurts.

So I did a 20-minute warmup and stretched my quad, and although that felt good at the time, it did not lead to improvement. But like most things, I couldn't feel any pain when I was running fast doing strides before the workout, so I decided to do it. And I did. And I was faster than last week. So that's good. But now it hurts more. And that's not so good.

Yeah -- last week I did 4x400 and averaged around 100 seconds, which is absurd because I used to do 8x400 at 80 seconds. Today I averaged 90 seconds, which is a great improvement over just one week ago, but still not where it should be (82-84). Well, that's what more training is for, I guess. I did do 8x200 in 40-41 seconds last Thursday, so that probably helped. I have scrapped the Runner's World speed plan in favor of more traditional speed workouts, and things that worked for me in the past. We'll see how that goes.

Free shoes!

2005-06-30T09:29:00.000-04:00

A week or two ago, Caroline wrote to the women's xc team and said that she was working for this company that needed people to test trail shoes, and asked if any of us would like to be shoe testers. This means you get a free pair of shoes, answer some questions about them, and maybe get quoted in a magazine. Well, excellent! There is really no downside to this deal. I was just thinking that I had about 400+ miles on my shoes and my legs were starting to hurt in the way they do when I need to get new shoes, but naturally I was going to procrastinate again about buying new shoes.

So yesterday I went over to the P.O. to get my package, and there was a shoebox with brand-new shoes in it! They are Montrail Mountain Mist shoes, with -- get this -- Gore-Tex. Whoa. Which means that the next time there is a torrential downpour when I am running, at least my feet will be dry. These are the most expensive shoes I have ever worn, and I got them for free. And they're not even last season's model, which makes no difference whatsoever, but it's what I always wear anyway. Awesome.

This speed thing

2005-06-29T11:42:00.000-04:00

So, I am doing this speed thing. I think I'm probably getting faster, though I was so slow to begin with that anything probably would have made me faster. It has an awful lot of improving turnover, maybe enhancing fast-twitch muscles, things like that.

One thing it said to do was to practice running 180 paces per minute. I first learned that the ideal rate of paces was 180 a long time ago, maybe five or six years ago, so I decided to test mine to see how close they were. And they were right on, 90 paces in 30 seconds, 180 paces in a minute. So after that, I didn't worry about it too much. Now when I jog I am running too slowly to have 180 paces per minute, but when I run fast, it's just about perfect.

When running plans prescribe hill workouts, they always say the same thing: find a gradual incline 50-100 meters long (depending on which source you consult) and do 4-10 repetitions (again, it depends) running quickly but not sprinting. This is fine, but here are my questions:

1. Why a gradual incline? It takes more strength, more endurance, more mental toughness to train on a steep hill, so why not do it? A steep slope provides even more benefit than lifting, because it is entirely sport-specific.

2. Why not sprint? If your hill is several hundred meters long, then of course you can't sprint, especially if it is a steep hill, but what is the point of doing hill workouts -- "speedwork in disguise" -- if you're not running as fast as you can?

Okay, we're having a big electrical storm with a torrential downpour now, so I guess I'll stop with the computer.

Another training plan

2005-06-22T16:14:00.000-04:00

Conveniently, Runner's World has this nice list of 21 days of workouts (which include rest days) to improve speed. This is exactly what I need, so I decided to try one out. I ran for about 30 minutes, then for 20 minutes I alternated one minute fast, one minute jogging. That was fine. Then I lifted a bit.

As Anna pointed out, I got my first two blisters in the VCM. One of them actually looked like a blister, pink with liquid inside, and the other was just that the skin had lifted off of my toe and died, and it hurt. My handy blister consultant told me that I could prick the liquid blister and drain it if I wanted to, and naturally I wanted to, but then the little hole healed and within two days the blister had filled up again. And the dead blister had not really changed. So I decided that was no good.

My hypothesis was that there was no way that this skin was going to come back to life, reattach to the layers below, and become live skin again. The liquid one was going to keep filling up with liquid, and although it was very entertaining to squeeze liquid out, it was not terribly convenient to have a blister there. And I was not going to wait for the dead skin to rub itself off or something. So I did what I always do when I encounter masses of dead skin: I cut it off.

This is marvelous fun, you know. Once I made a little tear in the bottom of the toe where all the skin had died, I found that the entire surface of my toe just lifted off. That's kind of cool. And then I could carefully cut all the way to the edge where the live skin began. The same for the formerly liquid blister, except that one was more localized. Is this the recommended course of action with blisters? I have no idea.* I put Band-Aids on them, but after a few days the formerly underneath skin that was now exposed seemed resilient enough to take on the elements by itself. Now those toes definitely look weird, but so do my other toes, and I don't look at my toes very often anyway, so it's not a problem.

*The Internet, to which I did not have access at that time, appears to suggest that cutting off all of the skin on a blister is not the recommended course of action. But I highly doubt that I would have been able to resist so doing for any extended period of time.

Hills

2005-06-21T17:18:00.000-04:00

So what if my hamstrings are sore; I decided to do hills. After a nice warm-up with stretching both halfway through and at the end, I did 8 40-second hill repeats with 1:20 rest. And most of them were under 40 seconds, too. And my quads didn't bother me, but then again I didn't go over 90-95% effort, because I don't want my quads to do the same thing they did last week.

Then I went to get this suitcase out of storage. Was it my suitcase? No. Did I have to go get it? No, but out of my extreme magnanimity, I decided to do it. I had heard that it was heavy, but I had also heard that it had wheels, so how difficult could it possibly be? Pretty difficult, as it turned out. First I had to find the suitcase among all of the remaining summer storage. Then I had to drag it up a bunch of concrete stairs. Then I tried rolling it across the grass, because that was shorter, but that was slow going, so I backtracked and rolled it along the sidewalk. The wheels on this stupid thing were really small, and kind of sticky, so that rolling it along was not easy, as it is with MY suitcase, but a real challenge. And the handle is positioned so that if you try to walk while pulling the suitcase along, the suitcase hits your ankles if you try to take a step longer than about four inches. And did I mention that it was very heavy? Right. So I could only go about 20 feet before having to stop and switch hands. Oh, and I was also carrying a small suitcase in the other hand. Eventually I realized that it was easier going backwards. But then I came to the uphill.

At this point I realized that I could just push the suitcase. But it did not like going straight; it naturally turned to the right (unlike my crew, which turned to the left). So I needed to push it with both hands. But I couldn't do that, because I was carrying the small suitcase with one hand. And it did not work to balance the small suitcase on top of the rolling suitcase and holding it there with my chin -- I know; I tried it. So I finally resigned myself to pulling it up the hill the normal way, and I gave very dirty looks to all the people who drove by in the direction I was headed without stopping and offering me a ride. And then someone did! This guy from custodial services asked me how far I was going. "Oh, you know, about a mile," I said. That was not quite true. It was more like half a mile. But it was uphill. So he put the suitcase in the back for me, and drove me to where I was going.

Was it over then? No. Because I was taking it to, that's right, the fourth floor. I ran up to put the small suitcase up so that I wouldn't have to deal with it. The fourth floor is 3.5 flights of stairs up, and each half of a flight is eight stairs. I actually developed a good method for lugging it up the stairs where I went up backwards, always two steps above the suitcase, and used leverage to drag it up one step at a time. Eventually, I got there.

See? I told you it was possible. And see, Custodial Services has nice people.

Oh yeah, my point was that I did a lot of exercise this morning, even besides the run. Though that was good exercise, too.

More running

2005-06-20T08:42:00.000-04:00

You'd think that if I could run a marathon, I could run shorter distances. But no, my quads are STILL mad at me from that speed workout. It wasn't even a good speed workout; it was a rather pathetic speed workout. And now my hamstrings are getting mad at me, too. At least I am feeling a bit more comfortable running a bit faster.

I ran with Megan the other day and she suggested we go to Linear Park. I had vaguely heard of this place, but I didn't know anything about it. Well, I'm glad I do now! Linear Park consists of flat, dirt trails! Within a mile from the center of the campus! This is excellent; hence the exclamation points.

It has come to my attention that Rebecca has done no training for over a month. If things continue like this, I might be able to keep up with her in this race we're going to run.

And speaking of that, well, yes, I am running a Race for the Cure in the end of July, with Rebecca. I realize that I have never had breast cancer, and that this is a significant point against me in my quest to raise money for research. But if this fact does not dissuade you, you can support me here. Yup.

By popular demand,

2005-06-15T22:03:00.000-04:00

meaning that Rebecca is popular with me and she demanded it, I have added a photo to the VCM 2005 post. Feast thou thine eyes. I will also note that she was the one to illegally download this picture. That's right, it wasn't me this time! Go figure.

Speed

2005-06-15T17:04:00.000-04:00

I decided I need to get some speed back. Honing my slow-twitch muscles for the past six months has made me... slow. So my quest is to get back my speed -- or as much of it as I possibly can -- before I run this 5k at the end of July. Fair enough.

So yesterday morning, I went running with one of the girls in my math group. I knew she was fast, because she runs by time and assumes 8-minute pace, whereas I run by time (as opposed to by distance) and assume 9-minute pace. And it was really difficult for me to keep up with 8-minute pace. Granted, it was early morning, and really hot and humid, but she was running fine, wasn't she? I decided that the 3.5 miles I ran with her could be considered my tempo run for the week.

Today I decided to do speedwork on the track, because that's the best way to get fast. My goal was to run 4x400 at around 80 seconds. This should not be too hard; in high school I ran anywhere from 8-12 x 400 in between 78 and 80 seconds, something like that. The challenge was always to not run the first one too fast, because you're all fresh and excited and it's easy to run too fast and spoil the rest of the repeats.

So I went out nice and easy, and passed 100m at 25 seconds. Oops. On the positive side, this is exactly the pace I was aiming for when I did track workouts before the marathon, so at least I learned that pace. But hello, that will not help me here.

I finished that repeat, slowly. In something like 98 seconds. It was absurdly bad. On the next two I ran 300 meters in 60 seconds (the correct pace) and then rested for a bit before doing the last 100. That makes no sense whatsoever. I decided to replace the last 400 with 2x200, which I did in 41 and 42, respectively. But this is just absurd. I want my legs back, please.

And now I think I know why I had such a problem -- SUCH a problem -- because now my quads are shot and I feel like I ran a marathon two days ago. So maybe it was too early after the marathon to do speedwork again. I'd think 2.5 weeks would be enough, though, wouldn't you? I expected to be slow today, which is why I was only going to do four repeats instead of eight or 10. Bah. Maybe next week.

There is a critical mass of xc girls on campus this summer, so we can run together in the mornings. That sounds like fun. The idea is to always run with people who are faster than me -- which means basically anyone -- so that I am constantly forced to run at a level that challenges me. This is what I did all through high school, especially in track season; it seemed to work then. It also works in academics: You learn the most if you are in classes where your fellow students are just a tad bit smarter than you. So, that's the plan. And I'll think I'll lay off the speedwork for another week or so.

VCM 2005

2005-06-15T14:46:00.000-04:00

Yes, I ran it again this year, as I suppose everyone reading this knows. Did I run it fast? No, no I didn't. Did I run the whole way? No, no I didn't do that either. Why, you may ask, did I not run fast after six months of training with 17-mile runs beginning in February? That was the question of the day as I slogged through my many miles.

One thing is the timing of this marathon, a week after finals. First, I didn't run for the third and second week before the marathon because I was taking 24-hour final exams. Second, when I finished my finals, it was this huge relief, because it was all done, and then -- oh. Now I have to run 26 miles. I guess I'm not off the hook after all.

My primary goal in the marathon, of course, was to run fast. I did not run particularly fast; I ran just under 4:10, which is about 31 minutes off of my PR. My secondary goal was to run the whole thing and not walk. As discussed above, I walked parts of it. My tertiary goal was to push myself so hard that I could barely walk the next day. Thankfully, I accomplished that.

It was pretty clear after about six miles that I was not going to run the way I had wanted to run. But I didn't know what my revised goal should be, because I don't know how fast my long runs were -- I have never had the opportunity to measure the distances of the loops I run, so all I have is my watch and effort as a guide. I passed the halfway point at 1:58:09, but I ran the first few miles at under 9-minute pace, so I knew that continuing at my current pace would not result in a sub-4:00 marathon. I figured that if I just kept running, that would be good enough. Around 18 miles I suddenly felt great -- possibly because of the PowerGel I had eaten somewhat earlier -- and took off. That lasted about two miles, and then I felt tired again.

I was supposed to meet Becca between mile 20 and 21 and run with her for her relay leg, but when I passed, Anna informed me that Becca was seven minutes ahead. So much for that. She (and thus the Rehab Gym Team, which was its official name) finished 16 minutes ahead of me, so she gained 9 minutes in the last 5.5 miles. This is not surprising. Maybe next year...

At that point (my slow points) I was running just about exactly 10-minute miles, but at least I was running them. At 22 miles, I was at about 3:30, so I decided to shoot for under 4:10. This wouldn't really seem like much of a goal, but there is that extra 0.2 that I had to worry about. I ran in a pretty focused way from four miles to the end, because I had a goal. I still walked every so often, but between walking, I was passing a lot of people. One mile from the end, I didn't walk anymore; I didn't even stop for the water stop. I don't know how fast I was running, but it was certainly faster than 10-minute miles, maybe 9 minutes, something like that.

Near the end, there are a lot of people, and you can hear the announcer, and lots of people are holding out their hands to slap, and all of that. (There are also a significant number of annoying people with medals around their necks walking in the opposite direction, but never mind.) At some point, the course goes onto the boardwalk, and you can see the finish line. Thus, I sprinted. ("Sprinted.") I passed a lot of people, because I was going pretty fast. I don't think anyone passed me. But then the course and the boardwalk headed AWAY from the finish line. Oh no, it's Manchester all over again, all that curvy stuff before you actually have to cross the line. THEN, I saw the 26 miles sign, which would be great except that it meant I had 0.2 miles left to go. There was no time to check my watch and see if I would make it under 4:10; I just had to go as fast as I could for as long as it took. At some point on the boardwalk I slowed down a bit and one person passed me (but he was probably on a relay anyway). In any case, as I sprinted through the finish, I saw that the clock said something like 4:10:15, which meant that, with my 40-second lag time between when the gun went off and when I crossed the starting line, I knew that I had made it.

And when I finished, I couldn't stand up, which made me very happy. This nice lady with a marathon staff shirt held me up so that they could take off my ChampionChip. I forced myself to walk around for about an hour after the race so that I would recover better; without that, my legs might have felt even worse the next few days, which would have made me even happier.

In the end, here are the statistics:

1132 out of 2503 total finishers
360th out of 1071 total females
54th out of 146 "24 and under" females

And over 10 minutes faster than last year.

Exams

2005-05-19T20:00:00.000-04:00

As usual during exams, I haven't been running. This comes after a week of being sick and not running. Excellent planning, Mr. Immune System. So either I'm ruining six months of training by not running at the end, or my six months of training will carry me through despite not training at the end. Here's hoping it's the latter.

Little run

2005-05-07T19:34:00.000-04:00

I went on a little run today to see how it would feel to run while sick, and to see if I will be able to do my prescribed long run of 17 miles tomorrow. It would be a little odd to not do any running between long runs, but if that is what my stupid immune system requires, so be it. I had to run anyway, because I have to hand in my graded problem sets by noon on Saturday by bringing them to Professor Morgan's house, which is about a six-minute run from my doorstep. So I did this short run, to his house and back. It did not feel so good. But fortunately, the biggest problem was that I was extremely dehydrated, which is easy to fix by drinking water. So I'm doing that now.

We shall see what happens with the long run. I think I will do at least some running tomorrow, because a week is about the maximum you can go without running without losing fitness, and it would be a shame to lose fitness after all this work. I realized that I have been training for this one race since December. All those 13-mile runs in January were building towards this one race. This is unlike cross country and many other sports, in which training builds towards a season full of races. Of course, my training plan has called for three 10k races on alternating Saturdays over the past month or so, which of course I have not been doing. I did simulate a race one of those times, though, by running fast for five miles. That was a good idea. Not all five miles were fast, but the last two were pretty fast.

When I got really sick over winter vacation, the doctor gave me this thing to test something about my lung capacity, which is measured in Liters/min. It's this plastic tube with graduated markings up the side, and you breathe out into it as hard and as fast as you can. Then it registers a number. When I was sick, my number was something like 350. I think the doctor gave me this thing because he didn't believe I was sick. So naturally he didn't believe that 350 was as hard as I could blow. He made me do it again and it was something like 300. He looked up my height on a chart and I was supposed to be at something like 425. Apparently the fact that I was having a lot of trouble breathing and I had passed out because of this and that I had in fact bothered to drive all the way to the hospital was not enough to convince him that I was actually ill, but the number registering on the device was. Well, almost was.

I guess this thing is kind of single-use, because he let me take it home ("a $30 gift from your health insurance company") and he told me that if you test yourself often, you will be able to tell when you are getting sick, because your lung capacity starts decreasing before you ever feel symptoms. Well, neat. I test myself with this thing when I come back from a long run, and it's usually around 400-450. Right now, it's around 430. So I think I'm getting better. You'd think I'd come to this conclusion based on how I feel, but no, I need external technology to tell me instead.

Sick means no running

2005-05-05T22:26:00.000-04:00

Apparently, living around people who are sick and then kicking your immune system with a 21-mile run is not the best thing for staying healthy. So I am now sick. I knew I was sick on Monday, so I was glad that it was my prescribed day off. On Tuesday I got up to do my speed workout, but I decided that instead of doing 10 miles with 5x600 at 5k pace in the middle, I'd just go to the track, do the 5x600, and run back, for a total of 3-4 miles. I did the first repeat at exactly the right pace, waited exactly two minutes, and did the next one, but I decided to stop at 400 meters. I could have done it, but given the state of sniffly nose and tired body -- I thought I was going to throw up or pass out all through my morning classes on Monday -- I decided not to risk it. The benefit of a speed workout, especially the less hard of the speed workouts I'm doing, is not as great as the potential harm of making myself sicker. So I didn't do my 8-mile run yesterday, and I'm basically not running until I can breathe properly. I am pretty sure it won't be the end of the world.

Peak distance

2005-05-02T14:21:00.000-04:00

So yesterday I ran 21 miles. Afterwards, my muscles didn't hurt. Today, my muscles don't hurt. It's very strange. So I am starting to believe in the power of drinking Powerade and sucking down PowerGel during a run. It seems to work. The only time my legs hurt during the run was when I stopped to partake in the aforementioned ingestion of sustanance and my legs accumulated lactic acid, or something.

So I was standing on Spring Street about to start another piece of my run, when I heard something familiar. I turned to find the women's distance track team coming up the road in a big bunch. So naturally I fled, but not before noting to myself with the utmost pride that I had run 12 miles before they ever started running. Ha.

So yes, I am starting another paragraph with "so," and I went on a run really early yesterday. The VCM people recommend that you do one long run (at least) at 8:00 in the morning to prepare yourself. Well, although my alarm went off at 7:30, I could not wrench myself out of bed quite so early, so I finally got up at 8:15 and started running at 8:25. I think that's fine. If I do most of my other runs at 8:00, it should be fine. (Note: Yes, 8:00 is not terribly early. Yes, I am very tired.)

It does bother me when people pass me when I'm on a long run. Two women passed me as I was at about the 7-mile mark yesterday, and I wanted to ask them, "how many hours are you running for, huh?" because I'm sure they felt so terribly superior because they could pass me. But I am pretty sure that they were just doing one 5.5-mile loop, while I did that loop twice plus about 10 miles more. The joke is on you.

Yesterday afternoon I decided to check out the USDA's new MyPyramid food pyramid site. They have this thing where you can put in the various activities you did and how many minutes you did them for, and it will calculate how many calories you burn. So far as I can tell, it doesn't give you any credit for (a) sleeping, (b) low-energy activities like reading, or (c) basal metabolic rate. So I put in my daily activity, and it informed me that I had burned 3617 calories through exercise. There was this little chart at the bottom that said things like if you burned 0-149, you should do more exercise; if you burned 150-299, maybe a little more would be good, and for 300-499, you're about right, and for 500+ good for you but be careful because you might lose weight. I wonder where 3617 falls in there, eh?

(Of course, I don't run that far every day, but Paula Radcliffe does. And the only times I have ever lost weight in my life were (a) when I started going to Exeter in the fall of 9th and 10th grades and all those stairs and no time for eating burned off 10% of my body weight, and (b) the time I went to Italy for 10 days when I was 15 walked around the city so much and playing cards instead of eating so that even though I ate Gelato like three times a day, I still lost weight. Yeah. Running doesn't really do that for me. Funny. Not really that funny.)

Okay. That's all. Now I'm ferociously dehydrated because I drank 18 oz of Powerade over the course of a 21-mile run, and I drank maybe 20 oz of liquid for the entire rest of the day. It seems that is not enough. And I should sleep more. Yeah.

Shoe success

2005-04-30T21:24:00.000-04:00

So far, my attempts to improve my experience of my shoes have been paying off. My Achilles tendons were really hurting for the first five miles or so of my runs, especially when I went uphill, or if I went uphill in the first five miles of my run. So I have done a few things that I think have helped:

1. Wear running shoes around all day to do the breaking-in that I didn't do before
2. Make sure that the first part of my run is flat
3. Walk up hills

When I started this initiative about a week ago, I really did walk up the hills. I decided that it would be better to be bad at hill-running than to have my Achilles tendons out of commission. Now I run up about half of the hill and then walk to the top. I only do this because it still hurts. I am hoping that these things will keep helping and I can run all the way up hills eventually. I think that not running uphill in the beginning of my run is a fine thing to do because the first 15 miles or so of the VCM are flat, except for one hill in the first three miles, if I recall correctly. So that's the new plan.

I'm doing my longest run tomorrow morning: 21 miles. I hope it goes well. I will be drinking Powerade and sucking down PowerGel along the way, just like I did on my last 20+ long run about a month ago. I didn't run today because I was in a math conference all day and I am really tired and I'd rather rest and run well tomorrow than do my 5-mile recovery today and be even more tired tomorrow. I haven't been getting enough sleep. And I haven't even had a good reason for it, either. Darn. Must fix that.

Race preparation

2005-04-26T00:19:00.000-04:00

Here I am in my last mesocycle before "taper and race." I find myself distinctly tired, slow, and dehydrated, but what more could I ask from marathon training? But seriously, as it gets warmer, I am trying harder to force myself to bring water and Powerade out on runs with me. It's very annoying, but I suppose it's important.

So last Tuesday I was supposed to do this 11-mile run. Fine. I decided that I'd do a 5.5-mile loop twice, so I left a water bottle at the beginning of the loop, and carried a bottle of Powerade along with me. Now, I started this run at 11:00 when I got out of class, and intended to be back by 1:00 to go to lunch, which is perfectly reasonable given that I was only going 11 miles. I seriously dislike carrying bottles, but let me tell you, the sun was high in the sky and it was hot, and I'd rather be annoyed than fried. Well, the beginning of this run is basically straight up a super-steep hill ("Blair backwards") and going uphill bothers my Achilles tendons and ankles, especially at the beginning of a run. So I stretched them a couple of times, and made it up the hill.

At the top of the hill, I was dismayed to discover that the dirt portion of the road was seriously messed up, and there was a piece of heavy equipment on it. (I would call it by name, but I don't know what it was, because it seemed to be going kind of sideways, or to have a sideways part. It was weird.) The road was very compacted and kind of shiny on both sides, with a triangular mound of dirt about a foot high and two feet wide down the entire length of the road. Well, fine. So every time a car came, I simply jumped over the pile of dirt to the other side. Fair enough.

As I neared the top of the next hill, it became clear that not only was it hot, sunny, with construction, and me carrying a water bottle -- no, there was more. At the top of this hill, there is a beautiful view over a big field down to the valley and the College. Ordinarily, this is wonderful, except in the winter when icy cold wind whips across there. Today, they were spraying liquid manure on the field. I am acquainted with liquid manure because when we went to Howard Hatch's dairy farm when I was at TMS, he had a whole lake full of liquid manure. Basically they pull this big tank behind the tractor, and on the back of the tank is this sprayer that sprays liquid manure in a circle behind the tractor. The whole back of the tank is covered in poop. Fine. What was not fine was that the wind was blowing towards me. So I was getting sprayed with invisible, but very smellable, particles of manure. It was disgusting. I breathed through my shirt. On the other side of the top of the hill, it was clear that the manure tractor had driven there because there were little bits of manure splattered on the road. Blech. Luckily, I was running, so I ran away.

But it was still hot, and very hot, and sunny. I decided it would be better to do my run on the track, because it would be a soft surface without hills (my ankles and Achilles tendons still hurt) and I would be able to drink water more easily if I could just leave it beside the track. (I had been drinking Powerade pretty often on my first 5.5 miles.) So I ran to where I had stashed the water, and brought it to the track. The track was no better. If it was possible, I was even less motivated on the track than I was on the road. But that's not quite true, because there were other runners there, which means that I make little games trying to keep up with them and beat them and such things. The upside of being on the track was that I knew how fast I was going. I was going at about 9:20 pace. It was torturous. I stopped to drink water every mile to end the monotony. I finally stopped after about 10 miles. I figured that under the circumstances, an extra mile was not going to give me very many more benefits.

I really hope my marathon isn't hot. On the positive side, at least the first 10 miles or so are pancake-flat, through the city and on the highway. Not that that's really positive, but at least it will give my ankles and tendons some much-needed warm-up time.

New shoes

2005-04-07T19:40:00.000-04:00

I finally got new shoes last week. I have known for months that I needed to get new shoes, but I just never did. I am sure that there were well over 1000 miles on my shoes. The old shoes were so bad that the guy in the shoe store was incredulous that the shoes I was wearing were the ones that I was running 50 miles per week in. When I had decided on what shoes to buy, I was about to put the new shoes back in the box so that I could buy them, and he said I had better wear them out of the store, because I would hurt myself to keep wearing the old ones.

I was looking for shoes with support, cushioning, and stability. I decided to get trail shoes, because they are just about the most supportive, cushioning, and stable shoes in existence. They have super treads, too, so that if I do loops, I can tell my footprints from whoever came before. I thought that trail shoes would be heavier, since they have all that extra stuff in them, but they're not appreciably different from my old shoes in weight. A comparison:

The new shoes came with "oval" laces, and I go by Mr. Parris's creed of always using flat shoelaces, so I figured that as long as I was buying new ones, they might as well be purple. So I will be running in snazzy black and silver trail shoes with purple laces and a neon pink swoosh.

Every time I get new shoes, it takes my Achilles tendons a while to adjust to the new heel height. This always reminds me of (the late) Susie Shin, who was, it was rumored, something like 4'8", but you'd never know because she always wore 4" heels, to the extent that, or so was the popular belief, her Achilles tendons had shrunk. I don't know if this is true, but I do know that my calves have been hurting a lot over the past week (though not much during my 20-mile run). Yesterday was my first run in the heat, and I was tired and sore and hot so I abandoned the 11-mile run at around 5.5 miles. Oh well. That's better than plodding through a suffering 5.5 more, I think.

Three hours

2005-04-04T15:19:00.001-04:00

Yesterday I did another three-hour run. This one felt great, much better than the last. I don't know if that was because I took two easy weeks before this past week, or because I've been well rested, or because of the fueling I did during the run. That's right -- I actually bothered to provide myself with fuel, for the first time since, let's see, last year's marathon race day. I left a bottle of Powerade in front of the CDE, and did a loop of Blair-Gale, which took about 55 minutes per lap. So each time I came back to the CDE, at the 1 and 2 hour marks, I drank 6 oz. of Powerade. I also carried a chocolate caffeinated PowerGel in my shorts, which I consumed at the .5, 1.5, 2, 2.25, 2.5, and 2.75 hour marks (yes, I was getting tired, and needed an excuse to stop...). The last hour was a stretch -- I had to add on the riverpath since my three 55-minute loops left me shy of the requisite three hours -- but the first two hours felt great. Unfortunately, it was sprinkling on and off, more on than off near the end, so that the skin on my forearms actually got ice cold without my noticing. So one of my PowerGel stops involved my holding my arms against each other in a most odd fashion. Of course, it was at this moment that Megan came by in her massive vehicle, and saw me not only not running during my run, but also holding my arms together in a most odd fashion. As I said.

Last week's long run was also spectacular. I was in Madbury, so I started out running to Durham on normal familiar roads, intending to do an out-and-back run on roads I knew. But then I remembered this road called Beech Hill Road that we had run on in middle school, so I decided to check it out. This road turned into dirt, and then into two ruts in snow, and then into just snow, and then it was just one big open snowy field. It was almost hard enough to run on, but not quite, so I trespassed across to a house I saw and ran down their driveway. I found myself on the Lee side of Moharimet school, so I ran to the playground of the school, and then continued down Town Hall Road, figuring if I just kept taking rights, I'd end up somewhere near home. Well, an hour (and an Elizabeth Jackson sighting) later, I was less certain of that, so I stopped at a gas station, where they told me that the intersection with 108 was just down the road. I turned out about one intersection away from where I had thought I'd end up! So I went past the Dover High school, and actually had enough time left in my 16 miles to check out this new development that they plopped down in the woods near Hoyt Pond where Emily and I used to walk when we were little. Pity.

21 miles

2005-03-13T15:07:00.000-05:00

I read somewhere that there are two things that are really hard on your body: Running over 100 miles in a week, and running over three hours at once. I won't be doing the former anytime soon, but I did the latter this morning, and indeed, well, I'm tired now.

I have a lot of work to do so I was not so happy about having to run for three hours. But then I realized that doing a long run takes about as much of my Sunday as going to church used to take, and this is a much better use of time. My "mentor" when I was getting confirmed said that she liked church because she could just think about things and she didn't have to do anything. I don't like church, but I definitely just think about whatever I want when I run, which is much better than thinking about whatever I want when I'm supposed to be trying to look like I'm paying attention to the sermon. But I learned a lot of useful skills in church, such as the ability to sing hymns without reading the words while thinking about other things.

Unfortunately I miscalculated the distance of a piece of my run, so it ended up being 3:11 instead of 3:00 as I planned. So I was late for brunch and the dining hall had stopped reading cards. But that was okay, because they let me in and I ate tremendous amounts of melon and pineapple and grapefruit and cereal and Powerade, and then I didn't feel quite so depleted.

New photo

2005-03-10T23:50:00.000-05:00

As you can see, I have added a picture of myself in my odd getup to the sidebar. Soon I hope to get someone to take a picture of me running in the snow far far away that I can use as a horizontal short image at the top of the page, but for now, at least you know what I look like, or at least what I looked like on Tuesday.

11 miles, 6 tempo

2005-03-09T18:02:00.000-05:00

Today I decided to do my workout on the indoor track as (a) I am more inspired to run fast on a measured distance, and (b) the weather is not conducive to quality workouts. Indeed, as I ran to the track, I had to run with my head turned to the right as far as it went just to be able to breathe, as the wind was blowing so hard into my face. Add that to the 15° and the snow blowing in the wind, and it was a good idea to run indoors.

2 miles jog-running
6 miles at 8-minute pace (with a water break at 3 miles)
3 miles jog-running

It was very convenient to be running 8-minute pace on a track that has eight laps to the mile, because then each lap was exactly a minute. I was very good at ticking off exactly 60-second laps, to the extent that if I did a 59-second lap, I would adjust my pace just enough to bring it back up to 60 seconds. 8-minute miles may not seem terribly impressive, but I was very consistent, and I did them for six miles, and I felt very impressive indeed. I did the last four laps in 59, 58, 57, 54 seconds. This is the kind of workout I like: Difficult, but doable.

Just a note, after I ran the six miles at 8-minute pace, I stepped outside briefly. I thought that Miss Becca would appreciate a picture of that: Me in semi-transparent running shorts and a synthetic T-shirt, yet fully sweaty in 8 inches of snow with the temperature at 15°. Also, I took a picture of my colorful getup yesterday, but I don't have my camera cord back yet, so as soon as I get that, I'll upload the picture and put it up. That and WSO getting an uploading method up. Yeah, then I'll do it.

Long run: 17.5 miles

2005-03-07T14:12:00.000-05:00

I went to google maps before running and found an innovative course: up Bee Hill to Oblong, out and back on Oblong, to Scott hill, to Blair, out and back on Blair until I had gone the requisite time, then back. On Blair I met four separate groups of trackies out on their long run.

Weekly mileage: 49.5
YTD mileage: 347.5

Note: For the first two months of 2005, I ran 300 miles, despite the fact that I did not run at all in the first week of the year since I was sick. Whoa.

A new mesocycle

2005-03-03T17:40:00.000-05:00

Sometimes I feel really cool about running 12 miles before class, and then calling it a "medium-long run." But sometimes I just feel tired. Today I haven't hit the extreme fatigue yet, so I'm doing all right.

Tuesday was awesome because I am in a new mesocycle, so I don't have to do 10-milers both Tuesday and Thursday before class! On Tuesday I only had to run six. I was planning to do a loop, but it turned out to be a wonderful snowstorm, so I decided to stay off the highway and turn it into an out-and-back on the safer half of the run. This cut off one hill, but I'd rather miss out on a hill than get hit by a car.

Sometimes when I am running, I say hi to someone, and they don't say hi back, but I know they see me because they are staring at me as we pass each other going opposite directions. This is because they are staring at my attire too much to notice that I have made a gesture of greeting. I suppose that it is rare to see someone running by in broad daylight with spandex and a bright orange mesh vest with reflective yellow stripes. But I would rather look like a dork than a pancake.

As I said, I am now in a new mesocycle. I did 12 weeks of the "endurance mesocycle," and now I have moved up to the "speed and endurance mesocycle." I had my first speed workout yesterday. It did not go so well. I was supposed to do 6x800 at 5k pace, and while I am more than happy to do intervals on the road and do them by time and effort, I figured I'd see what the status of the track was on my warm-up just in case it was runnable.

Dude, they plowed the track. Dude. Who plows tracks? They hadn't plowed it all the way to the bottom, of course, so there was still about an inch of snow, which makes running difficult. But running in the treads left by the snowplow (tank?) made for improved traction. So on my warm-up I timed myself on an up-tempo lap around: 2:00. I did not mention that the wind was blowing about 20 mph most of the time, did I? So that when I got back to the part of the track where I started, my footprints had half blown away just in that short time. But I decided it was runnable, so I finished my warmup elsewhere and embarked upon my workout.

The idea was to run at 7-minute pace, since that is a respectable pace for a 5k, and one that I have unfortunately been slipping closer and closer to of late. That means 3:30 per 800, 1:45 per lap, 52 seconds per 200. Sounds very doable, right? No.

First, when they plowed, they did not plow right along the rail, so even if I ran on the very inside of the plowed swath, it would be more than 400 meters. Second, if I ran on the very inside of the plowed swath, I would have no traction, because the wind had blown the snow from the infield onto the very inside part and there was no tread to run on. So I ran about a meter outside of the edge of the plowed part, on the tread. Third, the wind was blowing really hard, perpendicular to the straightaways so that there was really no time when I was running with the wind. Fourth, it was really cold, because it was already about 15° out, and then there was this strong wind, and the wind was blowing really cold snow particles at me.

Needless to say, I did not run 6x400 at 3:30.

I just told myself that if I could complete this workout under these conditions, I would be ahead of a lot of other people. So I revised my goal to 4:00 per two laps, which I decided was reasonable since (a) I was running longer than 400 meters, (b) running without traction is harder than flying on a dry track, and (c) that was about as fast as I could reasonably go. I ended up doing five of them.

Also, speed is really hard for me since I haven't done it for months. I tell myself that distance was hard at the beginning of the endurance mesocycle -- I had to walk parts of long runs, and up hills -- but now I can run 12 miles without trouble. So after a few weeks, I will be much better at speed, I trust.

Arm muscles

2005-03-01T10:12:00.000-05:00

Arm muscles are necessary for fast running. See here:

The world's best female marathoner, Paula Radcliffe.

Or here:

My former track coach and a Barcelona 10K Olympian, Gwyn Coogan.

Runners don't need huge muscles, but it would be good to have more than I have at present.

Lifting

2005-02-28T20:01:00.000-05:00

I have been going to the gym on the days when I don't run. I am concentrating on arms and abs.

The first thing I do is something I picked up from Emma and Kalina: You take a small weight in each hand and hold your arms by your sides. Then swing your arms up to make a T with your arms straight out from your sides. Then bring your arms together at the front, still parallel to the floor. Then bring them up so they are straight above your head. Then down the sides so your arms are in a T again, then forward together, then back down to the sides. I use 5-lb weights and do this 10 times. Then after a rest (i.e. a different lift) I do it the other way, down the sides > together in front > T shape > above head > together in front > T > down. You had better to have been visualizing that, or else it was all useless.

I also do the bench-press, with 10 lbs on each side of the bar. I think that the bar is 45 lbs, unless someone evilly put the 35 there. I should ask sometime. I am getting relatively proficient at 10 repetitions of that. The problem is that I don't have a spotter, so I can't do so many repetitions that I would need help getting it back on the rack; I can only go until my arms are wobbly but I can still lift it all the way up. So I won't improve as fast, I guess. Maybe I should use a machine. But machines are so less hard core, honestly.

And I do arm curls, and lots of situps. I hope it helps.

Long run: 16 miles

2005-02-27T21:04:00.000-05:00

It was supposed to be 17 miles, but when I got back I decided it was more like 16. It was uphill/flat all the way out and downhill/flat all the way back, which is why when I turned around at half of my expected time, it was not as far as it was supposed to be since I had been going uphill and thus slower than average.

But I felt excellent, and I didn't stop except to tighten my shoes once. I realized about 90 minutes into the run that it's pretty neat -- I actually make this realization relatively often during long runs -- to be able to run a long distance and not feel particularly fatigued. My legs are getting really rugged. Sometimes I feel like if I run a 17-miler and two 10-milers every week, I deserve to have skinnier legs, but the legs I've got sure do the job. I am quite certain that if I do a 17+ -mile run every week for three months up until the marathon, I will be quite ready to at least cover the distance of 26 miles.

When I come back from running when my grandma is visiting, she always asks how far I ran, and when I tell her -- whether it is three, seven, or 13 miles -- she always asks, "aren't you tired?" When I come back from a run, I am usually very energized. Today after I came back, I energetically changed clothes and ran to the dining hall for brunch, called my parents... and then I fell asleep. For two hours. So yes, I was tired. After all, I ran for two hours and 26 minutes (on seven hours' sleep, I might add). So I deserved a rest.

Short run

2005-02-26T13:25:00.000-05:00

Saturday again, so another delivering-problem-sets run. I like these runs because I explore the residential section of Williamstown. I tried to find the field again, but I couldn't, so I went to the river path instead. My legs are tired from Thursday, but I have faith that all this will make me better at running hills. At least, that is my most sincere hope.

Medium-long run

2005-02-24T13:42:00.000-05:00

Nothing like running 11 miles before class, especially on a beautiful morning! I felt great, and had enough lively thoughts about Latin squares when I was running up hills to not feel them much, and it was really excellent. Now my legs hurt, but whatever -- I was virtuous. And finally these twice-a-week longish runs actually have the phrase "long run" in their title, rather than "general aerobic," but it sounds cool to say "oh, I just did a little general aerobic run, nothing much, only nine or ten miles," doesn't it?

Rest week

2005-02-21T15:04:00.000-05:00

So last week I took a rest week. It was scheduled in my training table, but it was the kind of "recovery week" that includes two 8-mile runs and a 13-mile run. I decided that I needed a rest, and that I would not get much of a rest with what was planned out for me, so I took my own rest week. I went for little runs, and when I went for them, my legs were shouting, "please! I want to run more than just this little bit!" but I decided that such a feeling is "money in the bank" and I will save it for the next four 50-mile weeks. I had been feeling rather burned out during my previous few weeks, and I was really looking forward to the recovery week, which I took as a sign that I should definitely take one. I didn't even do the long run, but that was more because I had lots of math to do, which was mostly because of bad planning. I mean really, when you have a three-day weekend, you should not be so overwhelmed with work on Sunday that you can't run, right? But that was me. So, that was how it went. And now it's Monday, which is a rest day! Ha. Maybe I'll go swimming tonight. That sounds like fun. Or maybe I'll just do math! That also sounds like fun. I think I ran fewer than 20 miles last week, most of them in the 8-mile run I did on Tuesday, which included a photo shoot in the middle, what what. Update on that later.

A running partner!

2005-02-14T11:05:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, for the first time in months, I ran with someone! I had been running for about an hour and had just turned on to Oblong when I saw that Professor Clarke was just getting out of her car to go run! She told me I was too fast so she wouldn't run with me, but after about 400 meters of checking behind me and seeing that the gap was neither increasing nor decreasing, I decided we were running the same pace. (After all, I was in the middle of a 16-18-mile run.) So we ran together for about three miles. That was most excellent. And it was a beautiful day.

Sunday: 139 minutes, probably 15 miles.

Saturday: 46 minutes around residential roads of Williamstown. I found a rather nice loop through a field, and generally learned about all the developments in the area.

Thursday: A very uninspired 8 miles before class. But on the way I used wet leaves to guide the flow of rain water more efficiently into a storm drain, which made me feel quite excellent, as though I were back on the playground in elementary school.

What was long, is long no longer.

2005-02-09T16:29:00.000-05:00

I remember the days when a five-mile run was long. I don't remember when a four-mile run was long, though I do remember when running at all was horribly difficult. I remember one summer when I did my three-mile run twice, and was astounded -- I had run SIX MILES! I was so impressed with myself. In track in high school we did "marathon Mondays," which were longish runs. They were usually 45-50 minutes, or 5-7 miles.

Today, I did Blair, 5.6 miles by most accounts. It's just too short to do anything of interest. A real run is like 10 miles or so. A long run of 13 miles is not such a long run anymore. On Sunday when I ran 18 miles, it was physically difficult by the end, but I have overcome the mental barrier, and it's just a run now. That's awesome.

I do need to get hydrated, though. Then runs will be even more awesome. And stretch. And get new running shoes. Hmmm, so much to do, plus applications! Someday.

General aerobic & tempo

2005-02-08T18:47:00.000-05:00

Today, I ran before class. Did I want to get up at 8:30? No. Did I strictly need to get up at 8:30? No, not with class at 11:20 and only 10 miles to run. So did I get up at 8:30? No. Luckily, I left in time to get back in time to get to the Eco-Cafe two minutes before it closed, and then I got to class on time. So that was a success.

Now my working assumption is that I run 9:00 miles in general, 8:00 when I am working hard, and 7:00 when I am going really fast. So today I ran normally for 22:30, ran tempo pace (up three big hills out and two big hills back, I might add) for 40:00, turning around at 42:30, and ran 22:30 back. This is my highly scientific method for running five miles at 15k race pace in the middle of a 10-mile run. Yup.

Distance: 10 mi
Time: 82 minutes
Course: Gale > Blair out and back > Water St. back to campus

It's kinda cool to run 10 miles before class even starts.

Long run: 18 miles

2005-02-06T13:52:00.000-05:00

Today I cashed in on my endurance capital.

In previous weeks, when I have gotten to the end of my long runs, my legs have become so used to the running motion after 14 or 15 miles of it that I felt like I could just keep running a few more. Well, today I ran about 25 minutes, and about 3 miles, longer than my previous longest run. And when I got to the end of this run, my legs were very glad to be done. There was no "I think I'll run a few more." But now that I have done this, perhaps next week I will feel just dandy after this distance, instead of after a measly 14 or 15 miles.

Time: 2:39 = 159 minutes
Distance: 18 miles
Course: Water Street > Scott Hill > Oblong until 1:22:30 and then back the same course

General Aerobic - 10 miles

2005-02-03T23:45:00.000-05:00

Today, I had a most wonderful realization after 90 minutes of running: I had been running for 90 minutes, and it was no big deal. It was normal. Running 10 miles was not pushing myself. Whoa. That's awesome. I used to get bored, and more recently I used to get tired and start walking almost without thinking about it, because running long distances made my legs tired. But no longer: I now have endurance. That's awesome. I will need 26 miles of endurance for a marathon, but being able to run 10 miles no sweat is a pretty good step along the way.

Today: Out and back on Blair until the highway, plus a bit on the adjoining roads, and back on the river path and up Cole Field, followed by a little dog running ridiculously fast for its eight-inch legs.
Time: 94 minutes. I'm calling that 10.5 miles.

Yesterday: The Gale > Ide lollipop run. Not quite 5 miles, but it's just a recovery run. 35 minutes or so, ending at the Dean's Office, which makes it a productive run.

Aerobic + Speed

2005-02-01T23:41:00.000-05:00

Today I forgot to look at my prescribed workout for today before going to the track. I knew it was either nine miles with 8 x 100 interspersed like the past three weeks, or nine miles with a four-mile tempo piece in the middle. I also knew that if it was the four-mile tempo piece, I am not ready to do such a workout, so I decided to create my own workout to prepare myself:

9 miles:
miles 1, 3, 5, 7, 9: long-run pace
miles 2, 4, 6, 8: tempo pace

If Sam is correct, and it really is 8 laps to the mile if you run on the outside lane, then I ran those tempo laps pretty fast: 7:45, 7:30, 7:25, 7:05. Whew! I didn't think I was capable of running close to a 7-minute mile at this point. That sounds sad, considering that my best mile time at the age of 11 was 6:38, but it's true: I can run for miles and miles, but speed is not usually my forte. Also, I ran the 7:05 after running seven miles, three of which were fast. That's cool. I bet I could find, oh, a couple hundred people in a one-mile radius who can't do that. Yup. I like doing hard workouts. I rock.

Research is your friend

2005-01-30T15:20:00.000-05:00

Medium-Long run: 134 minutes
Course: Evans Rd > Mill Rd > Packers Falls Rd > 108 towards Durham

When I was training for my first marathon, my longest run was a 22-mile out-and-back from my house, through Durham, out to the Newmarket Public Works building, and back. Once when we were driving home from Exeter, we had to take a detour, and it went past the Newmarket Public Works building. So I took a mental note of the roads we had taken. This was two years ago. Today, I decided to run in the same direction I had when I did my 22-mile run, and then when I got to the Newmarket Public Works building (NPWB), I would just keep going, loop around, and go home. The idea was that I would intersect Rt. 108 about a mile past the NPWB, then take it towards Durham, and get home about three or four miles later, for a total of about 16 miles.

Indeed, I came upon Rt. 108 less than a mile past the NPWB. But I found myself on the main street of Newmarket! This was very strange: I had anticipated coming out on a nice tree-lined country highway road, and instead I found myself smack in the middle of a city street five miles from where I thought I was.

Main Street in Newmarket is about nine miles from my house. So at mile 12, I found myself with nine additional miles to run. Hmmmm.

I stopped at a gas station and asked if I could make a local call, then revised my query and asked if 749 was local. "We're 603," said the woman. Er... "Right, is 603-749 local?" She didn't know, but she dialed the number for me and I told my dad I'd be a little later than I had planned. (Running three extra miles on top of a 2:15 run will do that for you.) He offered to pick me up so that I wouldn't have to run the whole extra distance, so I had him pick me up half an hour later, only 10 minutes longer than my previous longest run two weeks ago. So it all worked out, in the end.

PSJ (Pitifully Slow Jog)

2005-01-20T22:30:00.000-05:00

Yesterday: 4.5 miles at a slow shuffle pace because my knee was being really annoying again. I keep thinking about what the trainer said: "It's a soft tissue injury." As though that makes it perfectly all right. Unless you crack something, basically every running injury is a soft tissue injury. I felt my left knee to find out how this tendon/ligament is supposed to go, and I tried to put the one on the right back into place. I am not sure how this worked out, but it felt better.

Today: I ran home from school. Actually I started out in the opposite direction, and ran on a dirt, thus not so much plowed, road for about three miles. I saw exactly one car on that entire stretch, and it was a Humvee. I ran back on Rt. 7, which is not my idea of a picnic -- it is really busy with traffic at that time of day, since that's when everyone is getting out of work (I don't think I am quite justified in calling it "rush hour," this being Williamstown) and there is no soft shoulder, so I had to run about 6 miles on the pavement... ouch. "My knee hurts, and it's hurt for about a week, so I think I'll run six miles on the roads." Smart.

It was probably more like 8.5 miles altogether, because I was going really slowly, and it took 78 minutes. So I shirked 0.5 miles both yesterday and today, for a total of 1 shirked mile! After weeks of 0, 23, and 50.5 miles respectively, somehow I think that might be a good thing.

I am feeling lots of new muscles in my calves from running barefoot. Especially the muscles on the outsides of my legs. I also got my orthodics in the mail yesterday, so I wore them to run this afternoon, but unfortunately they don't seem to make my feet hurt less. This is a major letdown because I was hoping that the reason my feet hurt was because I did not have orthodics. Then again, maybe my feet will take a few days to adjust to their presence and re-align the bones so that they don't hurt.

Barefoot Running

2005-01-18T21:42:00.000-05:00

Yup. I ran barefoot today. And it was barely above 0°F!

Actually I went outside intending to do my 9 miles on the roads. I left my dorm, then looped around and came back to put on more clothes. At that point, I decided that it was just too cold to run. Although it was still light enough to see, the sun had set (I got back from school late today) so it would only get colder and darker.

So I ran on the track in Laselle. Barefoot!

For people familiar with Laselle, this is quite impressive. The track goes around the basketball court, one floor up, so it is very small. It is green. It is hard. It has banked edges. It takes about 30 seconds to go around it once. I was there for 70 minutes. (This was after doing 10 minutes outside and deciding my life was worth more than that.) And the first 30 minutes were barefoot!

My thinking the past few days has gone like this:

Saturday: My knee hurts. I guess I'll walk the three miles instead of running them.
Sunday: I can't take another day off. This is my long run! My knee hurts, but I guess I'll just run 15 miles on the road anyway.
Monday: My knee still hurts. I'm going sledding instead of running.
Tuesday: My knee still hurts. I guess I'll find the hardest surface I can and run on it without shoes, to maximize the amount of shock my legs have to absorb.

In my defense, I went to the trainer yesterday, and he said it was a "soft tissue injury" and I could keep running. He told me to ice at least 3-4 times a day. Ha! "Sorry, I can't help you with your math problem; I have to stand here with a bag of ice on my knee right now."

So I did 80 minutes total. After 20 minutes, I did a 30-second sprint on the 2 and the 5, a total of 10 times. This really breaks up a long workout, to do a pickup (which for me was at top speed; I actually lapped people in this 30-second piece) every five minutes, because then there is always something to think about since you're always either recovering from or preparing for something interesting.

Back to the barefoot part. I ran 30 minutes barefoot. I was intending to do the whole thing barefoot, but my feet were really starting to hurt, as was my knee (duh), and especially my big toe. After I got home, I looked at my big toe, and it got the skin scraped off of it in a really odd way, only in one direction, and it turned it gray. And it hurts. But now I sound like a dork: "my big toe hurts because I ran barefoot in Laselle for half an hour."

This summer I counted my paces for a minute, and I was at about 170. Today when I was barefoot there was no cushioning, so I could hear every footfall very clearly, and I noticed that my stride rate was fast and very consistent, so I counted again. EXACTLY 180. Perfect! Wow. There is something to the idea of going back to nature.

If you ever want to feel really fast, run barefoot for a while and then put on your shoes. When I put on my shoes, I honestly felt like my feet were encased in big fluffy pillows. I fairly glided over the next few laps. I easily passed the people I had been running about the same speed as when I was barefoot. It was awesome.

Distance: ~9 (I don't know how far a lap is, and I certainly didn't count.)
Time: 80 minutes

Weekly mileage

2005-01-17T21:58:00.000-05:00

Miles: 50.5 (!)
Time: 451 minutes

(Cumulative average pace for week: 8:56)

YTD: 73.5

The YTD is slightly skewed because I was sick for the first week of the year, and could not really breathe, and thus did not run.

Medium-long run: 15 miles

2005-01-16T13:26:00.000-05:00

Time: 124 minutes
Distance: hopefully close to 15 miles
HR: 155

This morning, I woke up 2 hours and 15 minutes before brunch closed. Usually, this is not a problem -- after all, the dining hall is approximately a 30-second walk from my room. However, this morning I had to run 15 miles before brunch. This means that if I had started running precisely when I woke up, I would have to run no slower than nine-minute miles to make it in time for brunch. And I also had to get up, get dressed, and decide exactly where these 15 miles were going to be.

My life is not usually dictated by meals, but after running 15 miles, I think it's good to eat something, and it's best if that something is not Top Ramen, which is what it would have to be if I missed the dining hall. (Either that or I'd have to spend money going to a restaurant, but I'd probably eat Top Ramen before doing that.)

As it turned out, I basically strung together all but one of the runs I know, and ran them continuously, one into the other. I ended up even having to tack on another short run at the end. But I didn't stop! I walked a couple of paces when I (a) found myself in an unintentional game of chicken with a vehicle, or (b) encountered sheer ice and decided it was better to walk a few paces than to fall on my bum and have to stop for 20 seconds to get up and start running again. I also stopped for 10 seconds to check my heart rate about 15 minutes before the end of my run, and was happy to find it in a very normal range. Eventually, I will have to run faster than this, and for 26 miles, with a heart rate not much higher than that.

And I made it to the dining hall two minutes before they closed, even before they took all of the food away! Success. And even more successfully, I felt at the end as though I could have kept running. Once I have been running for two hours, my legs have got the running thing down pat, and could just keep going, if I let them. And eventually, I will. But when I do 20-milers, I will definitely follow Jono's suggestion and run to Pownal and back -- this patchwork run thing is definitely too complicated for a simple sport like distance running.

Shout-out to Meghan E Prin, who recently completed the Walt Disney Marathon with her mother, surviving the ridiculously high temperatures and the ridiculousness of Disney characters on the sidelines to cheer on the runners. My bet is that next time she runs a marathon, she'll cut her time almost, if not quite, in half. After all, this is the person who borrowed a bike and joined the cycling team for the first time, and then proceeded to win New Englands. At least, that's how I remember it...

Blend, pop, and comment

2005-01-15T16:51:00.000-05:00

It turns out that somehow I got a day behind in my running plan, so if I wanted to keep my long run on Sunday (which I do), today had to double as both Friday (rest) or Saturday (4 miles recovery). Here, there are two schools of thought in my head: (a) do the run, because it's lazy to not run and I didn't run much at all last week, or (b) take the rest day, because I ran very little over vacation, especially when I got sick, so I don't want to go from 0 to 20 to 40 miles a week just like that.

So I decided to take a happy medium by blending them into an easy 3-mile run. But my knee hurt. I don't like it when parts of my body start hurting, because it doesn't happen very often. And the offending tendon popped when I tried to rub it to make it go away, which is never a good sign. Body parts are not supposed to pop, except possibly in the case of the pop-like action in the "bend and snap"* popularized in Legally Blonde, which was a really bad idea anyway. So in the end, nature decided for me, and I walked most of the three miles. (I take no chances with potential injuries when I am going from 0 to 20 to 40 miles a week.) Except on the highway, because I have a policy of always running when cars go by, and cars basically go by constantly on the highway.

How silly of me to demand comments as homage when I had the wrong comment setting! Now anyone can comment, not just... me. It was set such that the only person that could comment was me ("all authors of this blog"), which is kind of dumb. Too bad I had never noticed that. Thanks to Meghan for pointing this out.

*Someone from Williams left a comment correcting this, so I have changed it accordingly. You don't have to comment anonymously, you know...

General Aerobic

2005-01-14T17:20:00.000-05:00

Course: Rt. 43 > Blair > Longview > up Mt. Greylock until my stopwatch hit 50:00 > down Luce > back on Rt. 2.
Time: 82:30
Distance: I don't know. It was supposed to be nine miles, and I'm sure it was at least that. I should get one of those handy GPS jobbers. But I won't. Ever.

Today's goal was to not stop. That sounds like kind of a dumb goal, since it's supposed to be the assumption: If you're going running, you should be running. But of late I have succumbed to various things that hurt, not to mention treacherous roads covered in slush, ice, and water. Today, I was successful! I ran 82:30 continuously, despite climbing multiple large hills (three on Blair, then Mt. Greylock, and of course the "approaches to the Odd Quad").

This blog has a ridiculously low readership, but I am ridiculously fond of it, not least because of the elegance of the background image (currently obscured by the comic) and the exquisitely designed sidebar. I think it is really wonderfully executed. If you think so too, you can pay homage by leaving a comment.

If anyone who reads it is not yet aware, I have a lovely page of running calculators where you can calculate your pace, mileage, calories (now fixed) and projected marathon times. It is really excellent, if I do say so myself (but not nearly as excellent as this page). That's what I used yesterday to calculate my pace. After dividing by 60, adding to the minutes, dividing by the miles, subtracting the whole number, and multiplying the remainder by 60 many times in ninth grade, I finally wrote a (85-character) function to calculate it on my calculator, which I later translated into (a 1000-odd-character) Java format for a Web page. So there it is, for everyone to use. I am not aware of any equally user-friendly pace calculator or projected marathon calculator in existence on the Internet.

Please leave a comment. Believe me, you're cool enough to leave a comment. I believe in you. You can find something clever or snarky enough to warrant saying.

Comic

2005-01-14T15:43:00.000-05:00

My mom sent me a comic that is now on my door:

This image is copyright 9 January 2005 by Boondocks

Yup. Those of us that run in the snow are overwhelmingly white, and overwhelmingly crazy.

Yay for being fast

2005-01-13T16:58:00.000-05:00

Course: Gale > Hopkins Forest
Time: 46:17
Distance: 5.6
Pace: 8:16

When I put on my spandex today, the bottoms of the legs were rather crusty. This is because yesterday they got entirely saturated with slush, which is about 50% salt, and thus when the slush dried, my spandex were still encrusted with salt. Blah. At least there isn't quite so much slush on the roads today, so when cars go by, I don't get covered in muck.

Today, I felt great! Who knew this was possible, to feel better the day after running nine miles than you feel while running them? Especially when I ran them slow... today I started running and just felt like running tempo pace, so apparently I moved yesterday's tempo piece to today's run. Whatever works, I guess.

I got a package slip yesterday and I was so excited, because I thought that my orthodics had arrived! But it was just a package of socks. Honestly. Apparently my mother bought multiple packs of socks for me for Christmas, and only managed to find one of them when it came time for wrapping. But I was really looking forward to those orthodics, so socks were definitely a letdown. On the bright side, the package did contain a block of two-tone fudge...

In ninth grade, we had to make a clay model of some body part, and I chose to make my foot. This foot now lives on our fireplace, and is a good source of amusement for many guests, especially Eva Glasrud in the fall of 2001. Eva was quite fond of the foot, and thus inspected it quite closely. "Why is there this bump in the middle of it?" she asked. "Does everyone have a bump in their foot like that?" In fact, I had modeled my clay foot after my real foot, and my real foot has a bump on it that no one else seems to have. Later, I was at the podiatrist's office for another reason, and he noticed that there was something wrong with my feet.

As it turns out, two of my foot bones rub against each other in a very bad way, which is creating an early form of arthritis. (Arthritis is when a joint has rubbed away all of its cartilage, so when the bones rub against each other, there is no lubricant, so the ends of the bones scrape against each other and it is very painful.) When I am running, I usually ignore things that hurt, because they tend to go away shortly enough. When that joint hurts, though, I pay attention to that. I stop running and walk until it goes away, which makes me feel like a lazy bum, but I'd much rather do that than grind off all of my cartilage and have to stop running 10 years from now, or have excruciating foot pain every time I take a step.

Nine miles of slushy wintry mix

2005-01-12T18:09:00.000-05:00

Continuing my plan to get back on track with this Advanced Marathoning business, I decided to follow today's scheduled run: a nine-mile run with a four-mile piece in the middle at tempo pace (actually 15K - half-marathon race pace, but who knows what that is?) As I stepped out of my dorm, I nearly stepped back in. Luckily when you step out of dorms here there is a six-foot overhang to protect you from the elements, so I could easily survey my surroundings. Slush was falling from the sky. Ugh. Nobody was out. Every visible surface was covered in slippery wintry mix. Did I exclaim, "oh, what an excellent day to run nine miles on the edge of the highway!"? No, no I did not.

It all went swimmingly... it had something to do with being in the pool.

2005-01-11T21:24:00.000-05:00

Today when I got back from the middle school, I was a shmoo. I played on the Internet (which means reading articles and doing e-mail, not actually "playing" in the traditional sense) until after it was dark. So I had to go swimming instead of running, even though my legs were crying out "run! I want to run! Please, let me run!" Amazingly enough, my legs actually do this. They cry out to run. It's awesome. My arms often cry out to do pushups, too, though this usually happens in a situation in which it is inappropriate to drop down and do pushups (because really, in what situation would it be appropriate, except when I am alone?) so my poor little body doesn't always get what it wants.

So I went and pool-ran. Usually 30 minutes in the pool seems like it takes forever, unless I have something to think about. At the end of the year last year I actually managed to pool run for an entire hour, because I was trying to figure out the mechanics of the model crew boat that I was planning to make -- specifically, how to wire the rowers together so that when you moved one, they would all move the same. When my brain is occupied, I can pool-run without much trouble. Tonight I had something to ponder, so I did 30 minutes of pool-running, and then I did 10 minutes with the kickboard. This is surprisingly good exercise for the quad muscles, and I go surprisingly fast, so long as I remember to kick on, rather than below, the surface.

I lost my wristband.

2005-01-10T21:17:00.000-05:00

I am trying to get back on the training schedule in my "Advanced Marathoning" book, but it's kind of hard to figure out where to fit back in when it says to do 42-mile weeks and I've been doing, oh, 25-mile or 0-mile weeks recently.

So for Monday, it says "rest or x-train." I figured since I didn't run almost at all last week, I should run today, so I did a nice little 27-minute run of Gale. When I got to the gym, however, I noticed that I had lost my Livestrong Wear Yellow wristband, which I just got on Friday! I knew I had had it 9 minutes before getting to the gym, so I ran back to where I knew I had had it, carefully scanning the ground the entire way. When I got there, I even combed the snow with my fingers... but to no avail! The problem was that my wristband was about twice as big as my wrist, so it had a tendency to fall off. Hmmm. Next time, I shall get a child size, though honestly I cannot figure out how I lost it in that small region and could not find it again.

I did a bit of lifting -- 3 x 8 reps of the bar + 15, which I think is 60 total. Not that impressive, but I can't do much heavier since I cannot risk putting on too much weight when I am not spotted. I also did 20 pushups. It consistently amazes me, how I can do pushups without practicing. In ninth grade I spent the entire fall semester trying to be able to do 10 pushups in a row, and after a lot of effort, I made it. Then Gloria told me that Abe Carr could do 22 "nose pushups" (pushups where you go all the way down, such that your nose touches the floor) so I made that my new goal. For months, I did 22 nose pushups every day. Eventually I got to be able to do 30 nose pushups. My maximum at one point, I do believe, was 38, but I only did that once. Now I can do 20, probably more if I were really motivated. When we had the pushup test for crew, I did something like 36 in 60 seconds, but that was because we only had to do wimpy pushups where you go down to three inches of the floor. I can also do two pullups (which I did yesterday), down from a high of 10 pullups (full, from straight arms) when I weighed 100 pounds. Yes, those were the days -- 38 nose pushups and 10 pullups. Those were the days.

Deeper snow

2005-01-09T19:53:00.000-05:00

Today I ran Hopkins Forest. It turns out that we got about 6" of snow yesterday, so it was pretty deep in the forest. I ran in footprints and on ski tracks where possible, but it was still pretty tough going. I think that it is harder to run in snow than in sand, because both are like hill workouts, but in snow your feet sink deeper than in sand.

When I went outside it was so beautiful with the bright sun and the snow on the trees that I decided to take my camera along on the run. I usually don't do this, especially on an eight-mile run that would be challenging enough with the snow even without carrying something extra. I got to take a picture of my favorite part of the Hopkins Forest trail, where some little evergreens are growing together with the trail running through them, and it feels like Narnia.

It took me almost two hours to do the trail -- when I ran it with Kaitlin this fall, it took 64 minutes, and with Sam in the slightly-more-packed snow last year it took 80, but I just kept stopping to look around at the beautiful trees. Not the best strategy for distance training, I know, but a good thing to do in life.

Running in the Snow

2005-01-08T12:39:00.000-05:00

Today when I left my nice warm dorm to go running, I was pleasantly surprised to find that it was snowing beautifully! I ran Blair backwards until I got to Rt. 7, and then turned around and ran back the way I came. I saw very few cars once I got off of Rt. 2, so it was just me and the gradually accumulating snow. It was really beautiful.

And despite the cold and the wet, I felt great, no feeling that I was coming off of a respiratory illness whatsoever. I didn't quite negative split (which is always my goal), running just over 36 minutes out and 72:30 for the round trip -- even splits, which is perfectly good for me. The last time I ran this far was about three weeks ago, so it's nice to know that I can take a few weeks off from distance running and come back not much the worse for wear. I think I really am built for the long haul.

When I got back, I found that I had big chunks of snow on my head! No wonder Lisa knew I had already been running... That and my reflective vest made it worthy of a picture!

Dodgy

2005-01-07T21:22:00.000-05:00

I figured I'd run indoors again today, since I don't want to shock my poor little body after nearly two weeks of being only indoors, and at this point running around the track sounds so much more inviting than running in the slushy dusk. I hate to say that as a loyal New Englander, but then again, tomorrow and evermore I shall be outside!

Once I got to the track, though, it was not as inviting as I had hoped. I basically dodged trackies the entire time. In my defense, I gave them exceedingly adequate right of way at all times, but I admit that track practice was maybe not the best time to go to the track. When you work all day, though, what are you supposed to do? So I did a nice little 40-minute run with a few up-tempo laps, and then a little bit of lifting.

Today, I ran.

2005-01-06T16:12:00.000-05:00

I had not run in ten days, since the freezing run that was possibly the culprit for my later very-ill-ness, so I did a short and indoor run. I was already planning for it to be indoors, but as I walked to the indoor track, I found that this was excellent planning: the wind and sleet were so bad that I had to walk backwards. So I had a nice little 20-minute run. At the beginning, my body felt really heavy (which is odd since I was eating very little for about a week) and running was quite unnatural, but by the end I was running faster and felt just fine, albeit a bit slow.

20 minutes, ~2 miles

No running :(

2005-01-04T10:43:00.000-05:00

I haven't run in over a week. I have been quite sick. It may have started because I went running in the cold without enough clothing on last Sunday, but in any case, I figure if I can't breathe very well, I shouldn't be running. Once I can walk around without feeling lightheaded, and once I can eat normally, I will start running again.

General Aerobic

2004-12-16T17:22:00.000-05:00

Today I ran Hopkins Forest, just the lower loop. It sure is nice to have hunting season over. And in the woods, there is still snow, which is nice. My goal was to do the whole thing without stopping to walk, because I have picked up a bad habit of walking when the hills get steep or long, as they do on the road to the forest and on the first hill. I didn't succeed in that, because I stopped in the middle of the big hill to stretch out my Achilles tendon because it was very tight. But otherwise, I ran the whole thing with the utmost exuberance because I AM DONE WITH ART HISTORY!!!

4.5 mi
39 min

No run and all study...

2004-12-13T14:20:00.000-05:00

...hopefully makes Diana do well on finals. This is the plan for the week. I assume that if I actually did run, my body would be happy enough about it that it would convince my brain to be brilliant on my exams, but I'm not going to risk it.

"Long" run

2004-12-12T14:27:00.000-05:00

Hopkins forest.
Finally out of hunting season!
A short "long run" today because it's exam period.

7 miles, 60 minutes.

General Aerobic

2004-12-11T14:26:00.000-05:00

Cemetary > Gale.
4 mi, 36 min.

Pool

2004-12-10T19:24:00.000-05:00

30 minutes of pool-running and kickboarding.
Yay, kickboarding.

General Aerobic

2004-12-09T21:17:00.000-05:00

Goodrich > down Water Street > Five Corners > past Mt. Greylock > Schow.

I am not sure how long this run is. I have heard it is five miles to Five Corners, but this may be 5 +/- 1; I am not sure. I have assumed that it is 9 miles, but quite possibly it is a bit more than that.

9 miles
83 minutes