Half the Distance, Twice the Fun

It is no secret that I've struggled with my motivation, sanity, and burn out for 26.2 the last few months.  Somewhere along the way I became the queen bee bipolar runner--10 days of glorious unicorns and glitter running, followed by 5-7 days of not wanting to run. Ever. Again.

I tried every trick in the book.  Giving myself some time off.  Focusing on how great the weather was.  Taking pride in breaking highest mileage weeks.  Emailing my favorite running gals for motivation and mutual bragging.

Last Saturday after some St. Patrick's Day celebrating, I decided:  I don't want to run a marathon this spring.  At all.

I have a list of reasons about 6 blog posts long, but I won't bore you with those.  I know it's the right decision.  I've been training for a marathon almost non-stop for the last 2+ years, if that's not a recipe for burn out, I'm not sure what is.

Last Sunday morning I woke up and still wanted to bag it, so I emailed the race director and the switcheroo was made!  When I got my confirmation email back from him, I felt a huge wave of relief.  Ok then, I guess that was the right call.

I spent a good chunk of Saturday night scouring the web for some tough half training programs, and I think I came up with something challenging but not too ZOMG scary, with enough flexibility to fit the rest of my crazy school schedule this semester.  AND since I won't be crippled for 4-6 weeks post-marathon per usual, I can actually race before it gets a trillion degrees out.  Oh how I've missed that!

So marathon #5:  TBD.  Half marathon #14:  Brookings here I come!

Data Freak + Brookings Marathon

I am 100% a data freak.  I love to analyze and compare my running data.  Over the winter break from school, I found myself with ZOMG so much time!  And one of my projects was to go through my running log to notate my highest to lowest mileage months since I started running somewhat seriously 3 years ago.  As I was starting to creep up on my highest weekly mileage ever last week (HEYO!), I decided I wanted to look at all my highest weekly mileages, so I ranked the top 10-15 of those as well.  I also had to break down which race I was training for, because what good is data if you could seek out corresponding relationships in the data and your race performance?!?!?!  So fun.  And I'm being so serious here.

Another fun feature that my running log awards me is graphs.

Marshall, you're doing charts and graphs at work!?!?

(a pie chart of his favorite bars, which followed a bar chart of his favorite pies, natch.)

After reviewing the mileage for last spring, and last fall, aka Fargo Marathon training and Philadelphia Marathon training, I noticed that my 3 highest mileage weeks for training so far are already above my three peak weeks for the last two rounds of training.  I'm not surprised that I've beat out Philly's training, because that was... very last minute, but I honestly thought I'd trained like an all star last spring.  Maybe I didn't.  Hmm...  Anyway, this comparison left me with a huge sense of accomplishment and helped to motivate me to keep it up.

Speaking of keeping it up.  I realized that I hadn't registered for the marathon yet.  I think a little piece in my brain wanted me to be 100% sure I wasn't going to have another marathon meltdown.  And while it's not completely out of the question, I'm really loving training.  Which is the whole point of running these dang races, right?

(Imagine a sweet, congrats on your registration for the marathon screen shot here. Sadly I didn't get a cool one after I registered.  booo!)

So I'm signed up.  In blood. I'll be there.

Let the marathon nightmares continue.  :)

February In Review + Marathon Nightmares

February in Review

Total Miles:  141.9 up from 121.9 last month (82.5 in Febrary 2011.)  Highest February mileage ever.  The weather doesn't hurt.  Two hundred mile months down, 10 to go!

Total Time: 22:16:15 up from 19:34:50. Thank God we got that extra day, because I spent it running!

Total Runs: 20

Highest weekly mileage:

2/27-3/4 51.2 miles 8:20:03  Not sure how a half Feb/half Mar works for a February recap, but this was my highest weekly mileage EVER. So brag alert, there you have it.  If that doesn't suffice, then

2/20-2-26 47.1 miles 7:29:39.

Favorite run: I had a lot of fun running my 16 mile long run with 10 miles at MP.  It was a cruddy day out, so I spent it on the treadmill.  And learned that I can still manage to dominate Jeopardy even while knocking out marathon pace miles.  That's a win in my book.

Most hardcore run: All of my tempo runs. seriously.  Uff da.  The last one I did was painful, but I had the biggest runner's high when I was done.  10 miles w 5 at pace.  

8:26, 8:19, 8:14, 8:05, 7:58

Favorite race:  zero.  I've yet to run a race as a 28 year old.  Sad.

Bike Miles: 0

Favorite Jams: I'm loving Katy Perry's new song Part of Me and Kelly Clarkson's What Doesn't Kill You makes you Stronger. I could see that being a theme song on some of my LRs or tempo runs. ;)

_______________

Well I'm approximately 9 1/2 weeks out from the Brookings Marathon, and it's started already.  The marathon nightmares.  I woke up last night in a panic; I was so freaked out.  It was so vivid and ridiculous.  And totally on par with EVERY race nightmare I've ever had.

And here it is:

I arrive at the race start and it's SURPRISE today.  Nothing like a surprise, your race has been moved up 9 1/2 weeks, right?  Fun!  I get up to the start line and the announcer is lining us up by submitted race times, a la high school track when your coaches would send in your race times to get you in the faster heats/best track lanes (I <3 lane 4, FYI.  Sprinting still has my heart, FYI.)  There were 10 people there for the race, and shockingly I was dead last.  Fine, NBD!  I'm already setting myself up to think that I may be all by myself for a good chunk of the race, that's just bound to happen with a really small race.  But bonus!  I'll get to see my family a TON, so it'll be like a long run with spectators.  Huzzah.

Anyway, just as the gun is about to go off, I realize my shoes aren't tied.  No biggie, it's chip timed, not like I'm going to be running with these speedies anyway, right?  And then I realize I'm only wearing one shoe.  Where is shoe #2, you ask?  5 feet across the start line, of course.  SOB!  So I cross, start my garmin, and by the time I've tied my shoes my garmin reads 5:50.  IS THIS YOUR FIRST TIME TYING YOUR SHOE?!? HOW IN THE WORLD DID IT TAKE YOU THIS LONG??!?!?

I get going out of the gym, because most of my race dreams start in gyms and include many many obstacles (yayzies, as if running 26.2 miles isn't hard enough!) and I have no idea where the race course is.  And since I'm a slow poke, and now 6 minutes behind the group, I'm stuck.  I shout to someone who appears to be a volunteer and they point me in the right direction.  Naturally, I'm running through 12-15" inches of snow.  The type of snow that's big and fluffy, but then has a nice layer of freeze on the top of it.  It's just stable enough that someone of my size can precariously walk across without it collapsing underneath you.  However, the force of running causes me to break.through.every.time.  I briefly think about DNF'ing and carting my booty up to Fargo for the marathon next weekend (I mean, come on... dream Jeri is kind of a genius here!  except she keeps going, because she's not a quitter.  oh sweet jesus Jerbear, just be a quitter!)

I run for a little bit and then it's on to obstacles!  Slides!  There are three slide options covered in ice.  But which do you choose?  I choose one and it's a dead end and I'm forced to climb back up the slide to get to where I was.  I finally make it through the right slide and end up in another gym.  And of course no one is around to direct me where to go.  I can't even find my way out of the school.  Finally I get outside and a kid tells me to just "look for Otterbox street."  I knew I should've memorized the course map.  Out of no where a classmate of mine shows up on a bike and says, "I made the trip down from Canada to keep you company on your race!"  I hand off my water bottle and continue on my way.  I end up down by a river and see the bike trails, and vaguely remember that the last half of the race is on the bike trails.  However, I don't know which way to take them.  The super not helpful volunteers tell me I can take either one, they're free for the public to use.  I'M TRYING TO RACE HERE PEOPLE!!  

Luckily I wake up shortly here after, and don't have to go through that torture anymore.  I made it not quite 5 miles in my dream.  Longest 5 miles EVER.  

The good news is that marathon pace was easy peasy.  

So there's that I guess.

Brookings Marathon Training

According to Einstein, the definition of insanity is performing the same act and expecting different results.

FYI:  I had this poster on my wall through high school and most of college.  I kind of love it.

In regards to the marathon, I have now completed 4 marathons with roughly the same results.  All 4 attempts have had similar training programs.  Short, 10-14 weeks, because I have serious training A.D.D. and my body has a tendency to break down and most of them have been constructed from the Runners World training programs.  I dabbled with the Pfitz program for Philadelphia, but only the last 5 weeks of it.

For the Brookings Marathon, I'm throwing myself in to it headfirst.  18 weeks of training seems like a long g.d. time to train for one event that'll last less than 240 minutes.  However, I know that my main weakness, other than my ability to stay healthy, is my endurance, so I can use all the concentrated help I can get.

The Pfitz training program breaks the training up in to 4 mesocycles leading up to race day.  Endurance building is a huge focus of the training,  and a majority of the workouts are based on heart rate.  I'll also be putting in a good chunk of miles.  Usually more miles = more broken Jeri, but I'm hoping I've got that under control.  Miles make champions, I think the famous Angry Runner once said.  And while I'll never be a champion at 26.2 i wouldn't mind feeling like one with a monster PR.  I just tallied up the planned miles from today to May 12th, and I have 801.2 miles on deck.  Uff da.  It's go time!

18 weeks starts TODAY!

Marathon Schedule 2012

I’m a very type A person.  I like to have a plan.  And it always has to be the most efficient and well thought out plan.  So when my spring marathon plans somersaulted last week, I was in a tizzy.  Emails were sent to all running buddies to see what their plans were.  I like to optimize my marathon weekend fun by joining up with runner friends. 

My first plan was Grandma’s.  Kyle has been asking when I’m going to do it (presumably so he can have an excuse to go feeshing in Duluth) and I thought Krista was going to be doing it.  And since it’s so late, I could do a half marathon in May as part of my training…..say… in Brookings!  When Krista confirmed she wasn’t running it, I moved on. 

Lincoln?  Drivable distance for my parents (maybe) and I could probably wrangle Angie to do it.  But meh.  Wasn’t really too excited about it.

So then I landed back on Brookings.  But as the full.  It’s a very small course.  Like 400 for the full and half.  But it’d be cheap.  Just gas to get there and a cheap-o registration fee, and shacking up with Megan.  And the money for Mexican food and margs afterwards, obvs.  And I thought that surely my parents and Kyle could be spectator extraordinaires.  BINGO.

This is how I landed on the decision to do my first marathon in South Dakota.  Might as well be at home when I land my first marathon time that starts with a 3.  J

Naturally after deciding on spring 2012, my mind started to work toward fall 2012.  Since I’ll be doing things el cheap-o this spring, perhaps I could spend some $$ this fall.

Think BIG:  NYC.

I think I’m going to enter the NYC Marathon lottery.  I think I’ve convinced myself that the ideal time for me to run a marathon is in November/December, as it’s typically cooler, and I’m able to train for the majority of it during the fall when it’s cooler.  AKA I don’t drown from my sweat.  Visiting NYC is on my 101 in 1001 days list, and I’m sure I’ll need another Susan fix in a year.  J

If I don’t get in, I think my back up marathon will be Dallas White Rock.  I did the half in 2009, and it was a blast.  Plus I need to go down and visit the family, since I have a new niece arriving in 2 ½ weeks.  I secretly want her to be born at the same time I’m finishing Philly.  Is that too much to ask?  Naaaaaaaaw.

So that’s my plan for the next year.  Who’s joining me???