The More Half Marathon

Post-race with my favorite cheerleader

I was so nervous for the More Half this weekend. I have no idea why. I felt totally prepared. But there I was, packing my bag (and Liam's) super early the day before, carb-loading, laying out my outfit, checking my alarm clock a dozen times, going to bed early. Bill was like "Are you nervous about tomorrow?" I said "I must be. I don't feel like it, but I'm acting like it." I usually blow half marathons off as I would any other race but I was treating this one like it was the full.

It's kind of funny how much other stuff you have to worry about when you are racing as a mom. I guess mainly just the breastfeeding thing...making sure all of the timing works out. Luckily it did. I also realized that the days of seeing Bill cheering me on at 50 different places on the course were over. But that is fine by me. I am happy to see them once (especially since Liam is there!).

My plan I announced to the world was that I was going to try to do a 10:30 pace. My plan in my head was that I would be happy with any pace with a 10 in front of it. :)

I knew that I had to run this thing smart because I had some nasty hills scattered throughout the course (it was two and some change loops of Central Park). I also know that I have a tendency to run fast in the beginning and regret it later. I planned on keeping it nice and easy on the first six and then figure out if I needed to go faster after that. I wasn't going to worry about the first mile too much because that's always the "finding your pace in the madness of the crowd" mile. I also was going to only look at my pace on the mile, not my overall pace.

My first mile felt like I was dragging, but nope, I was clocking a 9:48. Whoops. Time to slow it down. I found two girls going at what felt like a snail's pace, but looked like the pace I was supposed to be maintaining. I forced myself to get behind them. Sure enough, the next mile I did was 10:30. Yay! Right on target! But oh no! They stopped for water. So I had to concentrate concentrate concentrate to keep the same pace. Unfortunately I could feel myself getting faster.

I kept the next mile in the low ten range and told myself to SLOW DOWN.

As I rounded the top of the park (the dreaded Harlem Hill) I decided to stop for my GU. It was a little early, but I found that since I've been feeding Liam I need them more quickly in my runs and more often. Let me tell you, it was the BEST GU I'VE EVER TASTED. (It was Strawberry Banana.) I kept putting my tongue up to the top of my mouth to get the aftertaste because it was just that good. Then I started laughing to myself (not out loud) because four years ago I was literally choking these things down and I could only do vanilla.

That mile was a 10:15. I was kind of mad about this because not only did it include Harlem Hill (and therefore should have been slower) but it also included a long water/GU break. So this is where I started staging this inner battle in my head: Should I just run and not worry about pace? I seem to be feeling good...No, 10:30 is an admirable goal considering how I've been running and I need to slow down to do that. But I feel so GOOD! But you are only in the fourth mile. But in the Bronx Half you ran how you felt and got a huge PR! But that was... and so on and so on. In the end, practicality won. I decided to stick with the original plan.

Boy, I am glad I did! Because after I finished Harlem Hill the second time it was game over. I only had three miles to go but I was so tired. My legs didn't hurt or anything, I was just lethargic...like I wanted to go to sleep. Yuck. At this point I was just working on maintaining. I was in the low 10 and high 9s for the past few miles anyway, so I was very happy.

I almost didn't want to look at my watch for the next mile because I knew it was really slow. But surprise! It was a 10:04!

I knew I would see Bill and Liam soon and was soooooo looking forward to that. And Liam really was the cutest ever. If I hadn't been so incredibly exhausted at the point I would have stopped for a Liam kiss. But I knew if I did that there was no way I would finish running.

As I was coming up on the finish I finally looked at my overall pace: 9:58!!!!
Whoo-hooo-hooooooooooooo! I was so proud and happily accepted my medal.

(Later on I checked the results and they had me listed as having a 10:03 pace. Stupid Garmin. It had me running more than 13.1. I am still counting the 9:58 pace.)

Hot Stuff

So the past three days have been in the 90s here in NYC. Not very fun for running. So I was very very relieved when, Monday night Ramon sent out this email:

TOMORROW'S WORKOUT:

NOTE: DUE TO THE EXPECTED WEATHER, I AM MAKING A COUPLE OF CHANGES TO THIS WEEK'S WORKOUT

(you see, I do have a soft side and do have a heart )

WE will have 2 Workout options, you make you own decision which one you want to attend:

OPTION 1: 5-6 Miles EASY Hot/sweaty/sucky run !!

OPTION 2: Cross Training Killing Workout + Running !!

You decide which of the workouts/options you want to do, just go to the proper location.

NOTE: KEEP in mind that if the weather gets better, the coaches could/may change the workout at the last minute.

Hurrah! It has been too hot to MOVE so I had not been looking forward to the original workout, which on the calendar just said "Hills."

But when we got to our meeting place Ramon had a bit of a change-up. One group could still do option 1, but the second option was going to be hills.

I really felt like an easy run would be a waste of valuable coaching time/practice, so I opted for the hills. I never get to train with Ramon (we usually just have Steve and Pete) and I forgot that his practices were really really HARD.

Everyone was bitching and moaning about the change-up in the plans, but Ramon said "Didn't you read my email? I said that we could change the workout if we wanted to!" So Ramon's workout was basically the worst of both worlds...hills AND cross-training.

We ran easy up to Harlem Hill and stopped off in the grassy area by Lasker Pool. We were already all drenched. I am not exaggerating. (I actually turned to my one friend and said "Uh, I have sweat running down my back into my butt crack." It tickled.) There we formed two lines to do Ramon's favorites. Squats. Ramon makes you do 90 degree squats...and hold them for a minute. And then he goes around and yells at you if you aren't low enough. (I got called out by name for this. Whoops.) After about a bazillion squats he yelled "GO!" and we had to sprint up either the left or right side of the hill, recover back and do more squats.

Harlem Hill (counterclockwise) was shorter, but definitely steeper. Lasker Hill was longer but more gradual. Both suck. My legs were already getting tired before I even started up the hill! But I sprinted to the best of my capability (I picked Harlem Hill...glutton for punishment.)

For the next round we had to switch hills. I must say, Lasker did seem a ton easier. It also seemed about 20 degrees cooler on that side of the park. I thought I was crazy, but Coach Pete said the same thing to me on our recovery.

We ended up doing 4 rounds of hills and 4 rounds of squats. (I kept hearing from different people "I thought cross-training involved more than squats.")

It was a HARD practice, made even hard by the high 80s temps. At the end I was exhausted and my stomach was growling so much that it hurt.

But I wouldn't have had it any other way. I do love a hard practice.

Kill the Hill

It's funny...Bill and I were discussing my training strategy Monday morning and the things that I need to do to improve my time as well as have a good race. I divided it into the mental as well as the physical. Bill had a theory that I needed to push myself more on the physical. I got really mad at first (but stepped back from myself, took a deep breath) and explained to him logically that I DO push myself. He was like "yeah but do you push yourself to your limits?" Now, to be fair to Bill, this is a fair question. I do tend to get into a workout rut, and I did notice that when I was training with Roncker's I would finish a race and be like "Oh wait, I can run that fast?" And then decide to push myself harder in practice, which wasn't even really that much of a push for me. But I convinced him that I was dying at the end of every hill and speed workout during Team in Training, and that most times I was really questioning whether or not I should even be in the advanced group because I was left in the dust so many times. (It truly is embarassing to be the last one up the hill when you are giving it your all).

This conversation probably happened because we were getting ready to do our first hill workout for the Flying Pig.

For our training I have interspersed a LOT of hill workouts. This is totally what I was lacking last time I trained on my own.

Yesterdays was 3 repeats of Harlem Hill. I know. It sounds wimpy, but it was actually quite difficult because Harlem Hill is a killer. It didn't help that we were running the hills clockwise, which I think is tougher.

This consisted of running FAST up the first hill, recovering on the downhill, running FAST up the hill around Lasker Pool (which is forever winding and long) and recovering across the 102nd Street Traverse to do the whole thing again (and again).

At the first hill I took off and Bill was like "What?! THIS is how fast you run?" He did catch up to me on that first hill, but I think the rest of the time he thought I was crazy. It was also the first time that I finished a workout significantly in front of him. At the end of the speedy part, my HR was up to about 179 each time, and then it would drop to 130 during the recovery.

I was very very very tired. But I also felt like I pushed myself and that I had a good workout, and that I was that much closer to being better at the Pig.

PLUS I convinced Bill that I can continue working on the physical part of my marathon as is, because I DO push myself :)

The whole workout (including a short warmup) was 5.1 miles and we finished at 48 minutes. I think that this is actually pretty good, considering that we walked a good portion of the recovery.

Hill workouts stink, but they do always make me feel good at the end.

Garmin Runs

Hmmmm. I think my Garmin plays into my obsessive-compulsive tendencies. It was actually making me a little bit crazy this weekend.

This weekend I had two runs...my "long" run on Saturday (which was 6 miles) and a recovery run on Sunday (which was 4 miles SLOW). Both were in Central Park, and both included lots and lots of hills, which I think is a good thing, since I am training for a very hilly marathon.

On Friday I was getting very antsy about my plans to run the Manhattan Grand-Prix Half marathon, which is on the 25th. I felt woefully unprepared. My quads, hamstrings and calves were sore from all of my running during the week. Also I was feeling VERY slowly. According to my Garmin, Bill and my pace from our 30 minute run was about an 11:34...yowsa. I was also thinking I may have overpromised myself that I could do 6 miles.

Then, I talked to Gina, who is running the Miami Half on the same day. She also has been less-than-vigilant about her running workouts. I figured, if she can do it, I can do it.

Then I ran on Saturday, and although it hurt later that evening, while I was running I felt great. I was thinking "Wow. Running is fun. Why do I have such a hard time wanting to do it in the winter if it makes me feel this great? I'll have to remember this!"

BUT (and here's the Garmin obsession thing) while I was running I was obsessively checking my pace. I started with like an 11:23 (kind of made me freak out). On the downhill in the first mile though, I was at a 9:36 (ok, better). Most times I looked at my watch it was somewhere in the 10 or 11 minute pace range. This made me mentally freak out. In my head I was crying "I'm so out of shape!!! I don't FEEL like I'm going that slow!!!" But then I kept trying to say to myself "It's ok. You ARE out of shape. You'll get back to your 9:15s soon enough." On Harlem hill I looked at my pace and it was like 15:46. WHAT?!!! REALLY?! I mean I know it's a big hill, but...

Luckily, this was near the end of my run. I checked my time (56 ish) and was like "Wait a minute, I'm almost finished...if I'm running 11 minute miles on average I should have a LOT more minutes."

I stopped the clock at 58 something for 6.05 miles. That's a 9:35 pace. And my watch said 11:56 in the pace area.

OHHHHHHHHHH.

Duh. 11:56 is the pace that I was walking RIGHT THAT INSTANT.

Then I felt like an idiot because that is probably the same thing that happened the other night when Bill and I were running.

Whew.

I feel better about the half on the 25th now.

Oh yes, and the reason that I don't have accurate splits etc is because I am still trying to figure out how to make my ANT stick work with all of the drivers I had to install on my mac. (Grrrrr). But hopefully I will figure that out soon.

I do find it interesting that my pace is THAT SLOW on Harlem Hill.