Red Nose Run #1 2015

Jen posted a race report for the Red Nose Run last weekend, since it is a competition of sorts. Thanks for the good idea Jen :)

I had my peak weekend for the DC Rock'N'Roll Marathon last weekend, and had 20 miles to run. Thankfully Team Z makes the big runs a special event, complete with a contest, so there's some excitement added to the dread. For the Red Nose Run event, you predict how long it will take you to run your distance, and then go running without a watch, or in my data-seeky case, without a watch displaying pace or time.

I set up Garmin to show me only heart rate, which helps me not go out to hard, and told the timer that I'd be doing 20 miles in 3:30. That was a stupid math error. I'd calculated the time I wanted the day before:
11 min/mile * 20 miles = 220 minutes = 3:40
but then forgot and just pulled a number out of space.
I actually wanted to run around a 10:30 pace, which would have been a 3:30 finish, but I knew I'd be refilling bottles after each loop and wanted to have that time as a buffer. Oh well.

The route was hilly, and looked like an elephant, and was strangely confusing. Like, I ran the same loop 4 times and still needed the cue sheet for the 4th loop.

Also, by the fourth loop, there was noteworthy snow buildup, which doesn't help much when it comes to pacing.

I finished in an overall time of 3:40:49 -- too bad I gave the wrong estimate, which is an amazing pace for such a hilly route, with stops to refuel and with such snow.

The hills had a couple of unexpected side effects:

1. They gave me confidence for my marathon pace goals. If I can run that quickly with hills, then I should be able to run just a little faster without so many hills
2. They helped me practice engaging my glutes, so I don't have a terribly sore hip like I did after the 16 and 18 miler. This is awesome because it makes it more likely that the hip pain is a technique issue and less likely that it's an "-itis" of some kind.

Great day, and I am so ready for taper!

Snowy run commute

I've lived here for a number of years, but driving in snow is not something I'm eager to get the hang of. So last night, when I realized I had plenty of workout gear at work and in my car, I chose to leave my car in the work garage and get home by other means. At first, I was going to ride the bus, but then decided it was too cold to wait and started running with a side goal to beat the bus

The bus didn't catch me until I was carefully walking over the bridge, about 20 minutes in, so that's pretty close.

A good run overall, with only one "boom" coming downhill close to home.

Way better than 20-40' on the treadmill, for sure!

Broken 1650's and swim test sets

I love, love, love data, and love my Garmin 910 that helps me gather swimming data, but unfortunately, it's hard to remember/dig up/decode results of some past swim sets, even with all that data.

In the last few weeks at swimming we've done three different test sets
1. 1650 for time, straight
2. Broken 1650 with structured rest, subtract 2:30 to find swimming time
3. 16 x 100 on an interval with a 50 sprint at the end.

Sharing a lane is lovely because of all the drafting, but it can also be tough to get a "good" test in. For instance in the first test, I was with some people who were too much faster than I am, so I was lapped enough to only get 1500 done before it was time to move on to the next part of the workout. It was a good 1500, but it's certainly a caveat-ed result.

The second test was awesome, and if my results are slower than some other time I've done it, it's just because I swam slower.

Today was the third of the tests and it was awesome. I was drafting, but strong, and hit the 1:50 intervals, which I've never done before (that I can remember)
Anyways, so at the risk of being even more of a "training log", I'd like to archive some results so I can come back to them more easily.

Date	Test	Result	Pace	Notes
1/27/15	1	24:30	1:47/100m, 1:38/100y	1500 yds
2/3/15	2	29:28	1:47/100m, 1:38/100y	Time after subtracting, 25m pool
2/12/15	3	1:50 interval		Made all send-offs, 1-10 sec rest, 25m pool

First Marathon - prep and plans

I'm a little less than 6 weeks from running my first marathon and the training has gone really well.

I finished the triathlon season with a great race at Waterman's in October last year, running a half marathon PR over the course of the day, and then hit a bit of a lull with running.

The marathon build started pretty soon after that, and the running was going well, but I wasn't seeing the dramatic drops in pace that I did last year -- which makes sense, since last year, I was losing 1-2 pounds a week (on purpose) over the winter and my muscles were super pumped to make my much lighter self essentially fly.

I was feeling sort of bleh about my paces and goals, until I looked back over a few months and realized that while the drops weren't dramatic, they are still happening. I've had a great new running buddy who has kept me accountable and joined me for 8-10 miles of most of my long runs, which definitely helps break up the hours.

We met up to run in CA over winter vacation and ran comfortably in the 11's and then two weeks ago, for my 16 miler, we held a pace that was in the 10's. How could I have not seen that progress happening? It's huge!

With this reassurance, I'm pretty confident in my goal to break 5 hours for the marathon (11:20-ish pace) and would like to actually achieve a sub-11 pace (4 hrs 45 minutes).

If some race day magic happens and I run 10:30's (4 hrs 35 minutes), I'll take it.

Before that though, I have to run my 18 and 20 milers and stay on top of my foam rolling.

A review of goals

I've been triathlon-ing for a few years now and getting progressively more serious about it. It's neat to read these old blog posts and see how new I was. It's also interesting to look back at goals from previous years and see how my ambitions have (or haven't!) changed

2010 Goals:
Run - 750 mi
Bike - 1000 mi
Bike on trainer - 24 hr
Swim - 200K yds
Morning bootcamp - 12 times
Evening bootcamp - 24 times

2011 Goals:
Run - 750 mi
Bike - 1000 mi
Bike on trainer - 24 hr
Swim - 200K yds
Morning bootcamp or yoga - 36 times
Evening bootcamp - 24 times

2012 Goals (remarkably similar/identical to 2011):
Run - 750 mi
Bike - 1000 mi
Bike on trainer - 24 hr
Swim - 200K yds
Morning bootcamp or yoga - 36 times
Evening bootcamp - 24 times

2013 Goals:
Run - 750 mi
Bike - 1500 mi
Swim - 150 times
Yoga - 36 times
Bootcamp - 36 times

2014 Goals:
Run - 750 mi
Bike - 2000 mi
Swim - 300K yds
Yoga/Foam Roll - 30 times
Bootcamp - 36 times

Watermans Half - Race and life report

It was a great race, but while I was out taking a sizable chunk of time off of my half-ironman, my kitty Zozo spent the weekend at home getting much sicker with acute kidney failure.

Unfortunately, I didn't realize how serious it was when I went away, and I had to put him to sleep after 24 hours of kitty-ICU.

RIP, Zozo my dodo

I'm so proud of these results, and so sad about this weekend. It's really hard to reconcile.

	2014 WBurg Result	2014 Watermans Result
Swim	0:38:27 1:59/100m	0:34:45 1:48/100m
T1	0:04:51	0:03:06
Bike	3:24:33 16.4 mph	3:33:02 15.8 mph
T2	0:01:10	0:01:38
Run	2:42:56 12:27 min/mi	2:17:12 10:28 min/mi
Total	6:51:58	6:29:42

IM Choo

I thought it was mandatory for all Debbies to sign up for IM Chattanooga

So I did!