Half Marathon, Check!

A few weeks ago, I finished a 13 mile training run in 4 hours and felt pretty good. Yesterday I finished a half marathon in 3:16 and feel mentally awesome and muscularly shot. My goal for the day was to finish around 3:30 with a pace of 16 min/mile, so feeling good going 15 min/mile for the first part was an unexpected benefit.

I ran the first few miles with some teammates who were dressed up for the event, and when one of them decided to de-boa, I happily took it, wearing it like a pagent sash for a few miles, and then as a belt for the rest. Running with a green boa belt made the day even better. I hope the photos turn out :)

At the end I saw a training partner and pushed it to try to catch up, which was sort of a dumb idea, but since I didn't actually faint or throw up after the finish line I think it was worth it to finish with him.

Here's the data from the Garmin:
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/27689636
I thought it was going to do auto laps every mile, but forgot to check that before starting. Oh well. At least it picked up heart rate reliably and helped me not go too fast in the beginning when I was so excited.

600 Z4, check!

I had a great swim last night. We had a test set where we were supposed to go 600 yds Z4, ie. a longish way at a hard effort, and then 600 yds Z2, ie same distance easy pace.  I seeded myself a little poorly in the lane and was right on the person in front of me's heels for the Z4, but finished it in about 9:40, for a pace around 1:37/hundred.  I wasn't actually as tired as you should be at the end of a long hard set, so I'm pretty sure I could've gone faster, at least a little.  The Z2 set was slow enough to be comical. I can't remember how long it took, maybe around a 1:50/hundred pace.

The point of the set was supposed to be that, in a race, the extra exertion of swimming hard is not worth it because you only gain a bit of time.  I sort of hope we do this set again sometime though because I feel like I have a faster Z4/Z2 set in me.

Later in the practice was 5 100's working on something or other. I decided to work on the something while going fast for the 100 where I led the lane, and tapped the wall around 1:30 for the hundred.

I can't remember exactly how fast I was supposed to be going while being one of the worst swimmer on the college team, but I feel like doing 100's on a 1:30 interval would've been less embarrassing than what I was achieving. Certainly in grad school masters swimming, I would've felt pretty good about that pace.  The point of this paragraph is "Go me! I'm getting better at swimming again!!"

Also, the snowpocalypse has started here in DC. NOAA says 20-28 inches expected this weekend.

PS. Seriously, snowpocalypse! Here's an exceprt from the newest NOAA Winter Storm Watch thingy:

* ACCUMULATIONS...WIDESPREAD STORM TOTAL ACCUMULATIONS OF 20 TO 30
  INCHES...WITH SOME LOCATIONS IN EXCESS OF 30 INCHES.

* VISIBILITIES...WIDESPREAD VISIBILITIES AROUND ONE-QUARTER MILE
  ARE EXPECTED TONIGHT IN HEAVY SNOW. STRONG WINDS WILL COMBINE
  WITH THE SNOW ALONG THE MARYLAND CHESAPEAKE BAY AND TIDAL
  POTOMAC RIVER TO REDUCE VISIBILITIES TO WELL BELOW ONE-QUARTER
  MILE...PRODUCING NEAR-BLIZZARD CONDITIONS TONIGHT THROUGH
  SATURDAY MORNING.

THIS EXTREMELY DANGEROUS STORM IS EXPECTED TO PRODUCE RECORD
SNOWFALL FOR THE BALTIMORE AND WASHINGTON DC METROPOLITAN AREAS.
TRAVEL CONDITIONS TONIGHT ACROSS THE REGION WILL BE EXTREMELY
HAZARDOUS AND LIFE-THREATENING. HELP YOUR LOCAL AND STATE
GOVERNMENT FIRST RESPONDERS AND TRANSPORTATION AGENCIES BY STAYING
OFF THE ROADS.

More snow, more running

There's a chance that one of these days I'll get around to something other than amazed, narcissistic thinking about how unbelievably exercisey my life is compared to what it used to be.

Until then...

I've been training for a half-marathon that is coming up towards the end of March.  The weekend runs have been getting longer and I've mostly been getting more and more excited as I complete new longest-ever runs. Until two Saturdays ago. I packed my stuff to go run, carrying my keys in my hat, though "oh, a notebook!" and picked that up, headed downstairs and realized, as I shut myself outdoors, that my hat, and keys were still in my condo. GAH!

Thankfully, I recently met some teammates/neighbors, and stood outside their building and used their computer and phone to call a locksmith. Very expensive.

I couldn't bring myself to run after all that and instead played computer games and ate pizza.

Sunday, when I got up to go run, I really wasn't feeling like it. I made myself leave the house (with keys, but without snacks) and then headed out further than usual before turning around because I thought I would quit if I went back past the house. Well, I sort of did quit, even though I wasn't near the house. After 7 miles, about 1 mile from my car with snacks and stuff, I just couldn't run anymore. People talk of "bonking" and I think that's what it was. I ended up walking the rest of the way to the car, walking and drinking and eating snacks, but never did get any umph back, so just kept walking to finish the 10.

It felt good to finish 10 miles, but it wasn't a good 10 miles.

The next weekend was scheduled for 11, and as the week went on, I got more scared and nervous.

Of course, the fact that it was supposed to be stupid cold and start snowing didn't help the nerves.

I showed up, paired up with a teammate and we headed out with a plan of 2 4-mile loops together plus some more for me on my own.

It was awesome.

• The snow did come, and it came early and there was more than predicted, but it was mostly gentle.
• Both our watches were recording km instead of miles, so we had no idea how we were getting such freakishly fast splits, but it was super exciting.
• I'd made hot gatorade for my refuel snack and it was wonderful.
• After the two loops, thinking we'd done 12.8 freak-miles (knowing it wasn't right, but if the GPS gods were giving out free distance, we were going to take it), we stopped and talked with other crazy teammates out running in the snow.  I figured out the km vs miles thing and was so excited, I bounced off to do 2 more miles.
• Running down the road in a few inches of snow was exciting. The sound of it squeaking under my sneakers is something I never would've imagined I would've experienced. It was fun to try to find my footprints coming back and match my stride length. The snow was deep enough that I wasn't kicking through to the pavement, which was also new.

So I ended up doing 10, and it was a happy 10. I'm excited again instead of scared, and am (almost) looking forward to a new longest of 12 miles on Feb 13.

Here's some pictures from teammates that I've completely stolen without asking:

Zozo in the snowsnow, plus 5K PR

Here's a picture from the big snow back in December. Zozo, at this point of the walk, is really really mad at me.

 

The 5k last weekend was a resounding success. The night before the race, I was setting up my watch to tell me when to walk and to make the intervals and stuff, but decided to change my plan to be a little less conservative. The original plan was to run 1000m and walk a bit, because those are the intervals we've been doing on the track. While programming the watch, I decided that I could do with only 3 walk breaks so made it run 1250m before walking a bit. That worked ok, but was challenging, and at the half way point, I realized that if I walked a tiny bit longer, a teammate could catch up with me.

This is a nice way to have done a race, because 1. I was able to meet my goal to improve, 2. I know there is more improvement available, and 3. Gasping conversation is better than no conversation.

I don't know the official time yet, but it's probably less than the time I recorded on my watch because I forgot to press the stop button right away. My watch says it was 36:15, which is a 11:37 pace, which is totally awesome for me. The best 5K result I could find for me was from the 2008 GW Parkway 5K, which was 36:41, and I remember feeling truly awful coming down the home stretch for that one. On Saturday, I was breathing hard, but still had "go" left in my legs.

I got to enjoy the rest of the day as well, with an adventure to an Asian superstore and a visit to the natural history museum. They've put in some sort of ocean exhibit and have an aquarium. I could've watched those fish all day, but it was also fun to look at the prehistoric coral reef and try to find different things.

Sunday was drizzly. I had grand plans to knit and watch Lost, but ended up playing Civilization almost all day. This knitting project is never going to get done if I don't work on it.

Today I woke up stupid early to go to morning bootcamp (part of the annual goals). It was pretty awesome, and I ended up sitting down at work before 8am, which is crazy! I think I'll be able to avoid the excessive muscle soreness some other people said usually happens because I really just don't want to try that hard. It seems like I should be able to get stronger by just trying harder than I would be if I were still in bed (which is where I would usually be from 6-7am on Monday mornings)

Tonight is hashing, which is a fun addition to the workout schedule. At least it's usually fun. If the lunges from this morning come back to haunt me this afternoon, it will be less fun.


*** Update, official time 35:30, 5K PR

Fast-forward to 2010

Since last writing, I successfully got quotes for refinancing, decided it would be dumb to do right now, and bought a car.

I've also kept up with the triathlon-ing, and since getting the car, have been going to the occasional swim practice in addition to running and biking.

Winter has set in hard here, with almost 20 inches of snow on Dec 19th and occasional refresher snows since. There's a chance that it will be in the 40s during the day later this week, which will help some of the piles of snow melt away, but will also probably mean icy roads at night and in the morning. Good thing I still remember how to get to work without driving :)

The packing for the Luray triathlon weekend in August was successful, and I managed to do the Sprint and Oly distance in the same weekend. I had some significant blisters, but otherwise felt ok. I certainly wasn't "racing" them. I think that this year, I don't need to prove that I can do two days of endurance events, but I think I'll go back to Luray, since that was where I did my first race in 2008.

The running continues to get better. My speed for long runs hasn't improved so much, but I'm certainly capable of jogging for much longer distances than ever before. Right now, I'm getting ready for a half-marathon at the end of March and did a 9 mile run yesterday. I can clearly remember thinking that my friends who were training for a marathon and said "it's not so bad, you just keep doing longer runs" were crazy, as I struggled to jog for a whole 2.5 miles on the treadmill.

Thankfully this week is a recovery week, but supposedly by the end of January, I will have run 10 and 11 miles. eep!

I'm also doing a 5K this weekend and I know from track workouts that I can run 1000m hard-ish, and repeatedly, so I plan to go for 1K then walk a bit, 5 times and may get a new best 5K time. Maybe.

I have lots of goals for the year, including distances for running, biking, swimming, and limits on the number of times I'll go to my local pizza place. There may be a bar chart in the future.

Packing list passes test

I tried out my packing list last weekend and successfully exhausted myself with a night of camping and two days of exercise. The only thing I forgot was shampoo, but the lake wasn't full of stringy green stuff so rinsing off felt clean enough.

I have absolutely no idea how I fit enough stuff into the backpack to travel around Europe for 4 weeks even if I did wear the same clothes about every other day.

Extreeeem packing

The triathloning is going well, barring my slight inclination to skip long bike rides by sleeping in.

This weekend is a training weekend, including camping, and next weekend is my crazy back-to-back race days, also including camping. I'm sort of happy to be camping this weekend because it will help me gauge the impact of sleeping on rocks in extreme humidity on my performance.

It's sort of terrifying however to look at the stuff I have to pack.

Race/workout clothes:
swimsuit
tri-shorts
2x exercise shirts (Sat/Sun)
2x socks (Sat/Sun)
bike shoes
running shoes

Race/workout accessories:
swim cap
goggles
sun glasses
2x water bottles
helmet
garmin+HRM
cell phone
sunscreen

Postrace/workout clothes:
2x shirt
2x shorts
2x underwear
sandals

Camping:
tent
sleeping bag
pillow (unless the backpack gets too full)
bike light/flashlight

Other:
towel
shampoo
deodorant
toothbrush/toothpaste
sunscreen (on list twice for a reason)


Can you see anything obvious I'm forgetting? There's almost no way I won't end these two weekends a little burnt and very dirty (mmm sweating for hours after swimming in a lake!), but hopefully it will be fun as well.