Reaping Hard Work's Rewards

In the waning days of my 49th year, I am applying myself to running in a way I have never done with anything else before in my life. I talk with my kids frequently about how they will improve at [fill in the blank] if they practice. But impatience, innate talent, and age have made me skeptical about my own ability to improve as a runner. These last weeks and months are making me a believer.

When I state that I have never really fully applied myself, it sounds a bit ridiculous considering that I'm a mom and CEO with a master's degree and lots of interests who has qualified several times for the Boston Marathon.

The difference, though, is one of focus. Running. That's all. For a little over five years I have been putting on my running shoes and heading out the door. For five years I have been training and racing fairly regularly. I'm not doing anything today that is very much different than what I did five years ago. I'm thinking more about it and reading and running with other people and talking, lots of talking. I wear higher tech fabrics than I did my first year and my socks cost more. I have a team and a coach and lots of running friends (mostly so we can talk about running without watching our non-running friends' eyes glaze over). 

But out there on the trails and parks and streets, I'm still just running. And somehow, the repetition has made me a "better runner." I'm not much faster yet. But I am oh so much wiser and my body more often knows just what to do. The found wisdom mostly serves to remind me how much there is still to learn. It also points me in the direction I need to go next. The five years of running and running and running gives me the perspective to never make a decision while on a hill.

In my easy five mile run in the park today I played a game I often do, picking out the runners who have made the full-on running commitment. You can tell by looking at them as they pass. They move with more ease and joy. They are no longer trying to convince their minds and bodies that running is good for them. Running has become a bright spot, a joy in their days.

If I were watching from above, I would identify myself as one of those runners. In the thick of fall marathon training, I feel strong and lean. My lungs, even after I have stopped moving, are bigger, more able to hold the required increase in oxygen. I glide.

One month from today I will turn 50. On my last day of 49 I will run my first trail race, a 10K in Pennsylvania. The next morning I will wake and go for an already planned long run. Not what some would consider celebrating, but to me it is oddly perfect and for that I am thankful.

Embracing Learning

I ran another four mile race on Saturday in my continuing effort to figure out this racing thing. It was my second one since May. I finished again sixth in my age/gender group and ten seconds behind my last four mile finish time. 

Still, I consider it a vastly better race for a few reasons.

Post Race Happiness with Tim Peach

1. PRs are nice but they are not everything. Or at least that is what I am telling myself this week. I raced smarter than I did last time. Instead of disappointment about a slower time, I choose to relax, let myself off the hook, and celebrate all I'm learning. If I succeed in believing this, that's a big step.
2. It is finally dawning on me that races of the same distance are not necessarily identical. Even with my two recent four-milers both being in Central Park's loop, the conditions were pretty different in the heat and humidity of July than they were in May. Saturday was a more difficult race. If I consider the merit of every race solely by my finish time, I'm short-changing my experience.
3. I began the race better mentally ready. Last time only at the starting line did I begin to wrestle with the idea that racing shorter distances meant leaving my comfort zone. This time I knew what I was facing and was looking strangely forward to it.
4. My mind is 95% of it. Because my mind was this time ready to embrace 30 minutes outside my body's comfort zone, it spent far less time trying to convince my body to quit the race. 
5. I confirmed again that I can run through rough moments without stopping. Breathing is magic. I belly-breathed away a looming side stitch and used breathing to dispel my enemy nausea that crept up on me during mile three. 
6. My fourth and final mile was spent silently, but raucously, singing Patti Smith's "Gloria" in my head. Not only did Patti stop me from thinking about anything else, but together we channeled my badass racing self to kick it over the finish line.

Usually extremely self-critical, I am grateful to be right now magically open to patiently and kindly allowing myself to learn. It is truly a gift handed to me in these last months of my 49th year. What's next? Bring it.

So THAT'S Why I Run!

Yesterday's five mile run, in the relative coolness of early-evening-Brooklyn, ranks in my top twenty runs. Ever. 

Five days into my fall marathon training. Yesterday was supposed to be a very easy pace (9:27  pace/mile). Again not wearing a watch, I gauged pace by effort, knowing that, as is my inclination, I would run too fast.

To my surprise and great joy my run was truly perfect. I was at the center of it. I noted during one particularly wonderful mile, my third, that I was completely in the moment, at ease, and gliding effortlessly. 

I returned home excited to look at my running app to see what had occurred. First, as suspected, I ran every mile faster than recommended. Mile one was not far off (9:10) and three of my miles (2, 4, and 5) were very consistent (within a couple of seconds of 8:40). 

Ah, but that third blissful mile. That mile. That mile that felt effortless. And perfect. And gliding. And easy. I ran that mile in six minutes and fifty-two seconds. Which for me is pretty darn fast. (My cousin and running buddy Scott later congratulated me on being only 2:30 off pace!)

So, what I learned:

1. The first mile of most runs sucks. It's hard, plodding, I'm a little breathless, and I want to abandon the run and instead sit on my porch with a cup of coffee or a glass of wine, depending on the hour.
2. On a good day, the mile one sluggishness lifts for every mile beyond the first. 
3. I love mile three and it loves me back. 
4. There is something to this running-slow-to-recover thing. 
5. However, if I want to run slowly, I cannot run in places near other fast runners. Or, if I do, I need to wear headphones and blinders. Or practice mindfulness. I really like to run hard and pass people.

Today I am happy and looking forward to: 1) slowing down; and 2) days of speed. Maybe the endorphin tap is now on and won't shut off. But so what?! I'll take it. 

Yesterday is why I run.

Fear of Speed

I am trying something new for this year's marathon: Adhering to a training plan. I did follow a terrific training plan pretty closely for my first marathon, but that one was geared to first-time marathoners and the goal was to finish.

Five years later, my goals are loftier. The training plan I'm enlisting to prepare for the 2014 Chicago Marathon, recommended by my team's coach, has me running three of my four weekly runs at a pace that feels unusually slow, a full minute+ per mile slower than my hoped for race pace. The theory (and research) being to allow my body to recover and to focus on the real task of building endurance through simply logging lots of miles. 

But then there is the 4th day. Speedwork. 

Today's speedwork was a six mile run, four at a tempo pace of 7:50 per mile. I have been anticipating and fearing today's workout since I printed the plan last weekend.

When I really thought about  today's planned run, there was nothing particularly scary. While the consistency of four miles at tempo is a bit of a challenge, four 7:50 miles are well within my reach.Yet fear remained (made worse by the need to be out the door by 6am sharp to miss the worst of the July heat and to accommodate jobs and kid camp drop off schedules). 

I can't point to exactly what I fear. No one is making me run, fast or slow. It's entirely of my choosing. While I have strong supporters in my life, those supporters are there no matter my finishing time. I have no health concerns. Maybe it is the fear of putting in the work and not seeing the desired results. The fear that this is as fast as I can make my engines go. Or is it the opposite, that success, however I define it, is within reach? Or is it that I just don't like discomfort (see also Running Outside My Comfort Zone).

I lay in bed for ten minutes after the alarm rang, contemplating an evening run instead. Then dragged myself up, threw on my running gear, downed half an iced coffee (breakfast of champions), readied the kids' backpacks, and headed out. I didn't use a watch, counting instead on effort and bolstered that I knew enough about myself as a runner to take on speedwork watchless. Never completely without technology, I turned on a running app on my phone so I could review afterwards. 

I was hot and very sweaty and thirsty and a little cranky. I ran an 8:20 for my warm up mile (too fast), then 8:00, 7:02 (!), 7:56, 8:09 and finally a 8:35 cool down. Hard, wildly inconsistent, not spot-on the recommended pace, but finished.

My take-away from today is that I still and forever have a lot to learn--about running and about everything.  And I love, in a terrified kind of way, to be ever-humbled by all I don't know. 

Digging Deep for Chicago

It's that time again. Each time it comes on suddenly. First, I have plenty of weeks to train for my planned marathon. And then it's late and I'm not putting on enough mileage and I'm behind where I think I should be and I pull out my training schedule from my last marathon and it seems woefully inadequate to bring me to a stronger faster 26.2 miles come race day. This is where I find myself yet again.

Mile 16 or so, 2013 Steamtown Marathon

I will run the 2014 Chicago Marathon on October 12th, an intense, running-filled, glorious, achy 15 weeks from today. Chicago will be my 7th marathon and I'd think I'd have this figured out by now. But here I am. 

I often find myself days before a shorter race contemplating my race strategy, panicking just a bit and, of course, berating myself for not taking this particular race more seriously. And while not optimum and probably a key reason why I'm not more competitive, I have a strong enough base to "wing it" and survive on all race distances up to and including a half marathon. 

There is no winging it for a full marathon. Not for me, anyway. Strategy and training plans must be sorted out now and my legs must cover the 400+ miles that lie between me and marathon day (and yeah, I just added up the miles in a customized training plan and it revealed an astounding 400 miles over the next fifteen weeks).

My 10.1 miles in the Brooklyn heat this morning felt sluggish. Uninspired. Somewhere deep down shines a bright gem of strength and motivation and love of this wonderful sport that I know will pull me through the training miles and set my toes on the starting line in Chicago. Now to dig deep and find it. Training starts tomorrow.