Race Report: Rock 'n' Roll St. Louis Half Marathon

I've been saying this for weeks now but I swear at some point I'm gonna get it together and get back to logging on this blog regularly. But again, I find myself here playing a game of catch up. So. Quick skim through the two weeks leading up to the race first, then I'll do my race recap!

The Final Workouts:

• 10/07 Wednesday: short trainer ride, sprint intervals, ~45 mins
• 10/08 Thursday: OFF
• 10/09 Friday: trainer ride, under/over threshold intervals and single leg drills, ~1:25
• 10/10 Saturday: long run, 10.47 mi, 1:35:16, 9:06 pace
• 10/11 Sunday: easy run w/ Henry, 4.08 mi, 38:17, 9:23 pace w/ two legs of fast pick ups in the middle
• 10/12-10/14: OFF (med school midterms)
• 10/15 Thursday: tempo run, 7.07 mi, 1:01:05, 8:38 pace
• 10/16 Friday: tempo run, 4.79 mi, 41:38, 8:42 pace
• 10/17 Saturday: OFF
• 10/18 Sunday: RACE DAY!

A couple thoughts about the lead up two weeks:

• I'm glad I did my longest run a little further out than I had originally planned. Getting comfortable with the distance more than a week out was pretty key.
• I'm not really sure why I was doing trainer rides, I think it was a matter of convenience more than anything because I was busy and trainer rides are quicker. Also there were some rough days thrown in there where I couldn't get a run in during the day and my only options after dark are indoors, so the trainer just ends up being a good default. I also had some knee pain in that time span so I thought maybe less impact would be helpful.
• The tempo runs I took just before the race blew my mind. I was feeling great because I was rested from not training during midterm studying and the weather had cooled down, which was super key. Between those things, I busted out some pretty quick runs and was feeling pretty good going into the race yesterday. 
• As per usual, I had a ton of phantom pain the night before the race and I had a really hard time sleeping. Luckily I got a lot of good sleep two nights prior, so I definitely had the rest reserves I needed. 
• I think I put quite a bit of pressure on myself to do well, because my running has been improving and I've been seeing it come through in the training, so I really wanted to come through in the race as well. It made me really anxious and it made the experience a little bit stressful, but on the other hand, "it hurts because it matters", right? Or at least that's what I told myself. I care. It's not bad to care, that's how we get to where we want to go.

Race report time!

5:10 AM - Woke up, ate breakfast (a breakfast sandwich, a banana, a bottle of water), got changed, headed out. Took a 6 am metro train down to the venue, consumed half a bottle of Vitamin Water in the process.

6:30 AM - Arrived at the venue, used the porta-potty, took off all the layers keeping me warm (it was 30 F out and I had made the decision to race in shorts and a t-shirt) and packed it away for bag check. I took a gel 15 minutes from the start w/ half a bottle of water and stayed warm with an old mylar blanket from the Philly Half Marathon. Got in my corral and waited for the start gun!

7:00 AM - The first corral was off! We were off about a minute after that. The pack I was in took off at a nice leisurely pace which I needed. I pinned my eyes on two guys who were running about the pace I wanted in front of me and just relaxed into that pace. I was getting passed by a fair number of people in the earlier miles, but those two stayed right on track in terms of how fast I wanted to be running so I calmed myself down that way. The first 4-5 miles felt really easy. According to my watch, the first set of splits were: 8:14, 8:19, 8:22, 8:00 (mostly downhill), and 8:28. I was enjoying some great cover bands and music from the 80s/90s every once in a while and just cruising along fairly happily. To be fair, I was hoping to start out in the 8:30s range in terms of opening pace, so I did genuinely take it out too fast, but the effort had felt smooth and I decided to take the risk of crashing in order to maybe be rewarded with a big PB. Who knows, I thought it was worth it and I went for it. I really don't regret that, despite the fact that there were tough times ahead in the rest of the race.

Then there came a stretch with a little bit more elevation variation (the entire course was super super super flat, I'm just saying there was a little bit more less flat in this section than in others) and the effort started feeling a bit harder. The guys I had kept my eyes on before ran away from me as I assume they started picking up the pace, as a lot of people around me had. I just kept my eye on my watch and tried to stay the course. The splits from miles 6 to 9 were: 8:08, 8:23, 8:36, 8:36. As you can see, the pace started slipping a bit on miles 8 and 9. It's also worth noting that my feet really started to hurt around this point. I guess I normally train on softer gravel and the combination of the pavement and my shoes being way past their shelf life was really wearing on my feet. I just ignored it for the rest of the race though because it wasn't a problem I could solve, so I just put it out of mind.

After passing the mile 9 marker, I started picking it up knowing there were only a handful of miles left. At mile 10, there was a clock showing a little after 1:25 (gun time) and I knew that it would take a big push to get under 1:50. Honestly any PB was my goal, but a sub-1:50 would have been amazing, so I really tried to step down on it and push hard. The next round of paces (miles 10 to 13.1): 8:13, 8:23, 8:02, 8:02. I was really hurting all those miles. I got through it by just repeating to myself "Who do you want to be? What are you willing to fight?" and I knew I was willing to fight through it to get to my goals so I just kept pushing. My face must have looked terrible but that's just a part of racing for me: I can't keep what I'm feeling off of my face ever. My effort is probably better expended on trying to run faster. 

I could usually tell when I was slowing down because my posture got more and more upright and my head tended to lean back. Every time I noticed that I would just reset and look down and lean forward a bit and focus on just driving and I would feel the pace come back up. It sucked, but it was getting me closer to where I needed to go so I went for it. I tried really hard to do the thing where I kept my eyes on someone ahead in those last miles and would reel them in and pass them. I got a couple girls that way, although one fought her way back and ended up crossing the finish line just seconds before me. 

The finish involved a rather long uphill into a turn into a quarter mile "home stretch". My brain was so ready to quit by that turn and my pace was definitely slowing down. Then I hit my Garmin and switched it over from giving me lap paces/times (I wanted to focus on one mile at a time while I was racing) to giving me the cumulative time and I saw that it was around 1:48. I didn't want to miss that sub-1:50 so I really busted it out and ran hard into the finish and managed to make it under! I was insanely proud of that. 

All in all, I think the pacing and the racing went of as smoothly as I could've asked for it. I didn't wear gloves, which was a mistake, because my hands were going to freeze off, but otherwise I'm glad I went the t-shirt/shorts route because the weather was perfect for it in my opinion. I do best in cold weather races anyways, so I'm glad the cold front came blowing through. And now I have a huge PB to show for it!

Here are the official race result details:

8:50 AM and onwards - This was around when I finished. I picked up my bag, bundled up, found a med school friend randomly and went and watched my M2 big finish his first race! (He killed it, it was awesome.) Then I headed home (and ran into an M1 friend who had just finished his first race) and proceeded to spend most of the rest of the day lamenting the physical condition my body was in. I was lucky enough to not feel super terrible after my half at home this summer, probably because my mom drove me home (I didn't have to walk) and immediately put me in a bathtub full of ice for 20 minutes. I had no such luxuries yesterday, I was really hurting the entire day. When I got home, I took a bath/shower, ate lunch, and just laid in bed for a while (eventually I fell asleep and took a nap). The nap helped give me some energy back but my body was still pretty wrecked. I did end up taking a shopping trip in the afternoon (got new running shoes and socks and swim suits at Sports Authority because I had a coupon from the race and then groceries) and that helped shake out my legs a little bit which was nice. The rest of the day was just dinner and errands and PATRIOTS FOOTBALL and then bed!

This morning I woke up way more sore than I was expecting to be, which, again, is a bummer (the surprising parts of that include how sore my obliques and my forearms are...) but I'll get by. Next up on the calendar is the Hot Chocolate 15k in mid-December! I'll be back with an update on what the training plan will be for that soon hopefully and hopefully that will help keep me accountable these upcoming months. Yay!

Other comments on the race: 

• The course here is super flat, aka super fast, which is really awesome.
• Rock 'n' Roll events are really well organized. Most big races are, and it's fantastic because everything runs so smoothly.
• There were so many photographers on course! I hope there are some good photos of me. Although I sort of doubt it because I was definitely riding the struggle bus. 
• Cold weather races = ace. T-shirt and shorts is fine, but wear gloves.
• St. Louis is definitely a smaller city. There was nothing like the crowds of the Philly Marathon Weekend, but I guess you can't expect that kind of turnout for every race. The people who did come out to cheer were awesome though. As were a lot of the volunteers and staff and safety personnel who were so positive and amazing. 
• I am so insanely proud of myself: I wanted to think that I had a sub-1:50 in me but I really didn't know and the fact that I've come so far in the past year or two of running just really blows my mind. It also gives me so much hope and motivation towards continuing to get better and I can't wait to chase getting faster and improving as a runner and as an athlete. 
• I can't wait to do this again next year! Woot woot!

That's all for now! Time to grab noms and go to anatomy. (:

Much love,

Jess

Race Recap: Cyman Triathlon 2015

Last Sunday I went and raced my first Olympic-distance triathlon and the first collegiate conference race I've ever been to and it was FANTASTIC. Here's the day by day:

Friday: Took an afternoon 6 miler run, went fairly easy, it was hot and I wasn't trying to actually work out so much as just get my legs going. I don't normally do runs that distance this close to a race, but I had been feeling sort of sluggish all week and I wanted to get in a little bit more. Really I just wasn't confident that the taper was doing the right thing for me. I know we're always told to trust in the taper, but I have a hard time with that, and I figured 6 easy miles weren't going to ruin anything for me so I went for it. It definitely still felt sluggish, but I came out of it with a bit more confidence in at least my ability to finish. The numbers: 6.11 miles, 58:47, 9:37 pace.

Saturday: Henry had arrived late on Friday and we got loaded up and ready to go nice and early on Saturday. Molly drove us and we got into Ames, IA around 3:30 pm, picked up our race packets, and went to our homestay's house. For the most part I spend the day working (in the car, at our homestay's, etc.) because that's the med school life. Lunch had been Thai food (pho and a lot of egg rolls) at a random small town in Iowa and dinner was penne from Noodles and Company. All the carbs! We went to bed pretty early, around 9:30, for a 6:45ish alarm the next day.

Sunday: The race had a nice late 9:00 am start, but we did have about a 40 minute drive out to the venue so we left around 7:30 am. It's nice how routine race mornings feel to me now, I have a sense for how much I should eat (this time it was a bagel with cream cheese and a banana) and drink (half a bottle of water, most of a bottle of fruit punch Vitamin Water) before we leave and how I like my set up for transition and what I like to do pre-race (take a gel 15 minutes from the start, washed down with the remaining Vitamin Water, typical pre-swim warming up).

We were told the lake was 77F, but in reality it was probably closer to 67F, I think they just messed that up. It was wetsuit legal but since I thought it was warm, I opted not to use my wetsuit. It was an in water start and I was really cold waiting for the start, but in all honesty it would have still be too warm for the full sleeved wetsuit. I definitely think I'll have to invest in a sleeveless wetsuit because it is a disadvantage to be without one and there are going to be frequent weather conditions like in this race where the sleeveless would have probably been helpful.

The mass start was all the collegiate athletes, which meant it was predominantly male. I was really freaked out in the start, I got trapped between some huge dudes and it was quite intimidating. My swim was disappointing IMO, it was a 27 minute split for a mile and I think I really could have done better than that. The glare on the swim out was really bad though which made sighting almost impossible and in all honesty my swimming just hasn't been very en pointe lately. That's something I'm really going to try and hammer out in the late winter and early spring to make sure I'm capitalizing on my strengths in future races, especially when collegiate nationals comes around. I was the 5th girl out of the water, 19th (of 34) overall, which wasn't fantastic. I'm not used to getting dropped by the lead pack but that was what happened. I did come out of the water footsteps after two of my teammates though, so I took that as consolation and did my best to get ahead and stay ahead the rest of the race.

My transitions were fantastic this weekend, 59 seconds out of T1 and 34 seconds out of T2. Part of that was that the transition area was small, but I also genuinely think I was moving very well and I was very happy with that. The bike started off great and sort of faltered as time went on. The way out involved some tailwind and net elevation loss and I blasted through it. It was a two lap course and about halfway through the loop there was a turn into an uphill into a stretch that was straight into 9 mph headwind, which was a struggle. I got passed by a fair number of people, mostly on TT bikes but also one or two on road bikes, so I know I have room to improve and I can definitely still work on my biking strength. I finished on a 1:27:08, just under 17 mph, which I was okay with given the distance and the headwind. I do want to be faster and I definitely think I can be faster, so I'm just going to keep working.

What I enjoyed most about the ride though was that I really hammered the entire way. I went out at a hard effort and just kept pounding at it and I was much more bold with that effort than I thought I would be. I'm really proud of myself for committing to that and having the conviction that I was fit enough to push that sort of effort the entire race, I really do think it paid off.

The run was pretty good by my standards, especially given that I hadn't been running very much in the lead up to this race. It was under an hour, which was the goal (the reach goal was under 55 minutes, but I knew I was going to need a lot more training to get there). I split a 56:54 on a nice flat course and great weather conditions (despite the wind, it was a nice 57F air temperature wise which made for great racing weather). I felt way more relaxed the entire run than I imagined I would which I think was super key to the performance. I was also extremely consistent pace wise from mile to mile despite not having any indication of pace on my watch (I had it set to give me cumulative time only) which I was very happy with. Yes, it got rough towards the last few miles but that was more because I was trying to turn it up and squeeze a little more speed out of my legs than because I was faltering or anything. I had taken a gel in the last 5 miles of the bike and drank my entire Gatorade bottle and some water from my just water bottle so I was well fueled and well hydrated the entire run. Even though for the most part, it was people passing me on the run, I also passed one of my teammates, which I was very proud of seeing as I literally never pass people on the run.

All in all, I finished in 2:52:37 (27:00/00:59/1:27:08/00:34/56:54), which I thought was phenomenal. Getting the sub-3:00 finish in my first Olympic race made me really proud. It was a super fun race, I really tackled it with a sort of conviction and aggression I don't get from myself often, and everything went off without a hitch! I couldn't have asked for a better day or better first Olympic experience. I really loved the distance, I know that it would probably have been super brutal on a harder course (like the course I raced last weekend), but this is really the distance I want to train towards getting better and better at. Loved every moment!

The rest of the day was sort of a mess of driving and eating outrageous amounts of terrible (for you) but delicious (awwwww yeah) food. The things eaten: a butt ton of free bagels (with my leftover cream cheese) and a banana immediately post race, McDonald's for lunch (Big Mac meal, 6 chicken nuggets, iced tea), an ice cream bar from a rest stop, Pi's deep dish for dinner. Awwwww yeah. My MFM professor who has been lecturing us about healthy eating all semester would be so disappointed in me. But it was post-race! I deserved it!

In any case, we came home, I did some work while eating and watching primetime football and getting my legs rubbed out. Then it was getting ready for the week and sleeping!

Monday: Henry and I's second anniversary (yay!) and a rest day!

Tuesday: That's today! I was planning on going for a short 3 miler this morning but ended up Skyping home for like an hour. It was worth it to miss a recovery workout for some quality family time. The rest of my day is insanely busy so I'm probably not going to try and make it up or anything, will just let this one go, it doesn't hurt to take some extra post-race recovery.

Moving Forward: My next race is the Rock n Roll St. Louis Half Marathon which is just under 4 weeks from now. The plan is to take it easy this week (maybe slowly ramp up a bit towards the end of the week) and then go hard with the running for two weeks and take a week of taper (which also happens to be my midterm exam week). I do have a vague structure planned for workouts for the two key weeks but I really want to prioritize life and medical school right now above racing since I've put such a big emphasis on racing these past two months, so how well I stick to that will depend on how busy my schedule continues to be. The goal for Rock n Roll will just be to run the best race I can, get more experience, have some fun. I won't worry too much about the speed. Don't get me wrong: I'm going to race it. I'm just not going to put any pressure on myself in terms of goal times or anything.

Hit rates: I finished the training block in the lead up to last week's race at a 61/67 (91%) hit rate. That definitely reached my 90% goal (and crushed the 80% minimum I set for myself) and lo and behold! My races went great. I think this is a great way to think about training and the workouts that I hit or miss and is a nice easy metric that helps keep my anxiety levels down while allowing me to be realistic about balancing training with all the other things going on in my life. The next serious training cycle I get into, which probably won't be until the spring when I do the build up into nationals (which will hopefully be about a 3-4 month build), I will definitely use this system again to keep track of my progress. For now though, I'll step back and be a bit more relaxed about training and take some time to prioritize everything else like friends and school and generally taking care of myself while doing some road races to keep me going with the running.

Second summer/fall of triathlon racing = complete! Can't wait to see what the next year has in store. (:

Much love,
Jess

Race Report: Running from Cancer Half Marathon (Tecumseh, ON, Canada)

So my Garmin is telling me that I did not actually run a half marathon, which is sort of sad...But the course is certified so idk, maybe the GPS is just wrong. In any case, I will present my Garmin data as if it were accurate and we can debate whether or not I'm 0.08 miles off some other time.

Yesterday's Race: Running from Cancer Half Marathon
Summary: 13.02 mi, 1:53:19, 8:42 pace.
Pace splits by mile: 8:02, 8:24, 8:38, 8:48, 8:45, 8:49, 8:42, 8:43, 8:46, 9:07, 9:01, 8:49, 8:37, 8:15.

Let's start by commenting on my finish time. I don't have an official finish time yet, although I will update this post when I do. As of right now, we'll go with my Garmin time, which says 1:53:19. This should be pretty close, I started the watch when the race started, I stopped the watch after I crossed the line. My time from Philly was 1:55:37, which makes this about a solid 2 minutes faster. Most of that I honestly think can be attributable to the fact that this course was as flat as physically possible (there was a total elevation gain of 16 ft, which is nothing) but I'm still generally pretty happy about hitting that time range since my training has felt on the slow side. I want to be under 1:50 by the St. Louis Rock 'n Roll Half though, so there's still work to be done for sure.

The day started with me waking up at 5:38 AM (just before my 5:40 AM alarm) and getting dressed and starting to hydrate with some water. Mom took me to Timmy's where I got two 12 grain bagels toasted with cream cheese. I ate most of one and then couldn't really eat any more. We arrived, I checked in and got my timing chip and sat around while drinking the first half of my Vitamin Water. (Up to this point, I had already drank a little more than half of a bottle of regular water.) I also scoped out the competition, which, because it was a running event, was intimidating seeing as it looked like everyone else was a real runner, and I feel really out of place amongst real runners. Some Ironman finishers were thrown in there as well, including one man who had a cocky attitude about him I really disliked. It was intimidating.

Mom left to go back home to Coen and I hung around while sort of warming up (really just loosening out my legs, doing some mobility movements, I didn't do any jogging like a lot of the other competitors did). At 6:45, I downed a single chocolate Clif Shot and washed it down with the remainder of my Vitamin Water and just chilled until the start.

It was interesting to note that up until this point I was very much so feeling unconfident and sort of freaked out by all the other runners and my comparative lack of running experience, but as soon as they announced "5 minutes to go" (we started at 7:05 instead of 7:00 because they had a bit of set up to do on course still) my brain like flipped a switch into race mode Jess and all of that fell to the wayside. It's funny how that happens, I guess the mental half is something that really does transfer across sports. Before races, I'm all business, and my brain is good at zeroing in on only worrying about making sure I execute the way I want to and I'm glad that instinct kicked in when it did yesterday morning.

I started out too fast, and I knew that as soon as I took off. One lady who passed me just after the one mile mark had commented to a friend/teammate of hers that it was an 8 min flat first mile and I was like, whoops. But the pace settled down pretty well for me over the course of the next few miles so I don't object to it too much, even post-race.

Around the 4-5 mile mark, my right foot started hurting and it was more of a bone ache than anything else and I knew it might develop into a problem further down the line but I didn't give it too much thought at the time. It didn't negatively affect my running yet and I was willing to let it go until it did start to bother me more. It never did, so that was good. (Although it was hurting all of yesterday and still hurts today so I'll probably have to give that some time to heal up.)

Also around this time, there was a man who had come up on me, pulled up beside me briefly, and then fell back and ran on my shoulder for most of the remainder of the race. On one hand, he was probably drafting off of me which was mildly annoying, but on the other hand having someone behind me pressuring me is exactly the kind of thing I need to keep me going. Usually people in front of me are less motivating because trying to catch up to someone is always a struggle, but trying to stay in front of someone or trying to drop someone are much easier for me to motivate myself to do. So it was sort of nice to have that kind of pressure on my back for most of the race.

The plan was to try and make sure that I only got passed in the first half of the race and only passed people in the second half. With the exception of the guy who sat on my shoulder most of the race and passed me in the last mile, no one else passed me and I passed a few people (including a girl who had passed me at the beginning of the race and pulled way ahead, I was very glad to have been able to real her in in the final parts of the race).

Overall, I was very very happy with that race. I had mentally given myself permission to look at my watch for splits starting with my mile 10 split, but I found myself not even wanting to know because I was running a well executed an well paced race (or at least that's what it felt like) and I was really enjoying my race experience and I didn't want to ruin it with pressures about pace or PBs. So I was happy to run in and determine my end pacing on feel alone and that worked pretty well for me. Also as the man behind me passed me, he ran side by side with me for a bit and encouraged me to get after trying to get in front of that girl who had been ahead of me the entire race and it was nice to have that encouragement near the end. The last time I raced this distance, the last 4-5 miles were just torture and I was mentally pushing myself really really hard just to try and hold onto the pace that I was going. This time, I felt like I moderated the effort much better throughout and it was just a very comfortable and enjoyable run. At no point did I feel like the distance was too much, it doesn't intimidate me anymore, and that's also really really nice. On top of that, I felt absolutely destroyed physically after my last half, but I felt much better after finishing this one. I mean my legs were super tight and I had to spend a lot of time walking it off and my ankles and hamstrings especially hurt a lot throughout the rest of the day, but I was able to stand and sit without feeling like my joints were going to explode open and was mostly in control of my ability to walk throughout the day, so it definitely took less of a physical toll on me than my first race had. Progress!

The only big things I want to be able to improve on are taking things out a little slower and trying to hold onto the pace without big external motivators. I had actually dropped guy on my shoulder briefly whilst passing someone else in front of me, but at that point I was mostly alone because the next person in front of my was quite far in front and I had no real motivation to keep pushing the pace. That was where the 9 minute mile drops came from I think so trying to hold onto that pace in the absence of pressure from competitors is something I have to work on. Also, as much as I am mostly very happy with how consistent the run was in terms of pacing, I would still like to be faster on the back end compared to the front end (and I would like to be able to do that by making the back half faster, not by making the front end slower), so that's something I will continue to work on.

Other things worth noting: The race, despite it being very small, was very well organized. Props to the organizers for hosting a great event! And there was plenty of water on the course, which I tried to get a little bit of at every station, and drinking while running is something I'm slowly improving at. Well organized small races are very impressive to me though, so I'm really glad I had a chance to be a part of that.

As far as recovery goes, it's been a day now, and I'm definitely more sore today than I was yesterday, especially in the quads (which I wasn't feeling at all yesterday), but I have less structural pain in my ankles and other joints, which is nice. I wanted to take a short recovery run this morning, but a few minutes out I knew that it wasn't going to happen because I just couldn't hold decent form on my tired limbs, so I turned around and came home. I will try to be active about walking and stretching today and we'll maybe give it another go tomorrow.

All in all, the race was a really great experience and I'm really glad that 13 days ago I randomly signed up! I'm excited for the rest of the adventures this season of racing will bring. (:

Much love,
Jess

Priorities

Last night and today were much needed reminders that as much as I love racing and training and I try to hold myself to high standards when it comes to these things (and by high standards I mean standards in terms of commitment and effort, not so much performance), the real priorities in my life are not racing and training. It's the summer so I don't have school commitments, but I do have a family and a lover and these people in my life are my priority. And when school starts, school will be another priority. Henry and I had a rough night in a lot of ways last night. I sort of picked a fight with him and he's been going through a rough patch and in the end I think we both needed to just spend some time together, even if it was over the internet, being there to support the other. It meant I didn't get to bed until close to 2 AM. And I had promised Coen a trip to Adventure Bay today, so I had to be mentally present for him. Henry said something that was really important to me last night about this: Being there for my family right now is worth losing 5 or 10 minutes on my race finish time. And he's right. Competing and training is a really selfish thing in a lot of ways because it is such an egocentric activity and takes a lot away from what I can do with my time/energy outside of that. It's important to remember that this isn't the most important part of my life: I've got a lot of other things to prioritize above my training and performance.

So I had actually consented myself to the fact that today was probably going to be a missed workout day, but found some time in the morning to squeeze in a very short easy run. I had a base 4-6 miler planned, but seeing as I was slightly sleep deprived and somewhat stressed and exhausted, I decided to cut myself some slack and just run an easy recovery 5k. It was a nice relaxed way to decompress in the morning before my day got started and I feel very lucky to have been able to get a run in today, however short and slow.

Today's Workout: Easy recovery 5 km.
Summary: 3.15 mi, 34:56, 11:05 pace.
Pace splits by mile: 10:55, 11:03, 11:16, 11:09.
Hit rate: 13/15 (86.7%)

On top of that, today was a fairly active day. Coen and I spent 10 AM to 1:30ish PM at Adventure Bay (climbing stairs for the water slides was pretty rough on my evidently still exhausted legs - may have to adjust training load next week to make sure I'm properly rested before the race). I came home and took a short nap in the afternoon and then spent some time playing one-on-one basketball with Coen in the evening. (He's always beating me at basketball. The scores are close, but it's sort of embarrassing seeing as I'm way taller and way older than him.) It was the right call to keep things short and easy today, glad I made the adjustments as necessary.

I had a long run (10-12 miles) planned for tomorrow, but Coen and I are being taken to a classic car show in the county during the day so I don't know if I'll have the time or energy for it. I might take the day off instead and re-adjust my training plan so I take the long run on Monday and possibly an extra rest day sometime during the week. We'll see how my body is feeling. I think being fresh for the Sunday race is the priority, so I'll do what I have to do to get there.

In other news, I've been taking a look at what I would like to go and the paces are really aggressive and intimidating. I have no baseline to compare this experience to because I wasn't tracking my training very accurately in the lead up to my first and only half marathon (the Philly Half Marathon from the Philly Marathon Weekend; 1:55:37 finish time on a fairly flat course) and I know I took the race out too fast but I also have no sense for how much faster than my usual training pace it was. My goal (ideally) is to go faster than I did in Philly, especially since the Windsor course is way flatter, but I very rarely am able to hit that kind of pace in training. Ideally, I'd like to be under 1:50, but an 8:22-8:23 average pace sounds ridiculous to me. I will stick with the plan of starting out at 9:00 pace and hopefully dropping that down as time goes on, which should at least get me to my old finish time, but we'll see how I'm feeling when I'm (hopefully) rested on race day. I also hope that the smaller scale of the event doesn't cut back too much on the intensity that I'm able to summon up. I know that the size of the crowd and the event was a huge motivator for me throughout the Philly Half, and I don't know that I'll be able to repeat that kind of performance without the energy of that kind of crowd. A lot of factors go into race results, I know that already, so I just have to be prepared to face the music when it happens I guess.

Much love,
Jess

Long run and short swim

Yesterday afternoon/evening was an interesting adventure in varying states of exhaustion. I went for a long run during Coen's hockey practice. I was aiming for closer to 12 miles, but there came a point on Old Tecumseh when I would have had to cross the road, which was sort of busy, and then run a bit and come back and cross the road again, and I was at mile 5 and tired and just turned around. So I only got 10 miles. In the evening, when I was talking to Henry about it and voicing my concerns that I hadn't run far enough, he just sort of laughed like literally nobody thinks, "Man I ran 10 miles today I don't think it was far enough". And I guess he has a point. I finished fairly strong (my last mile split was much quicker than the rest, which was fairly smooth paced throughout) and I didn't feel like I was going to collapse or die at the end, so I think I have the extra distance in me if I go for it. It was a sort of slow run though which worries me a little bit because I am definitely going to try to take it out around 9:00 pace during the race and for some reason I have no confidence in whether or not I'll have the ability to hold that. We shall see...

Yesterday's Afternoon Run Workout: Long run, 10-12 miles.
Summary: 10.09 mi, 1:38:39, 9:47 pace.
Pace splits by mile: I didn't turn my auto lap timer on until about 2 miles in, so the first two mile splits are the same pace value. 9:37, 9:37, 9:57, 9:58, 9:52, 9:47, 9:56, 9:57, 9:52, 9:18, 8:54.
Hit rate: 9/11 (81.8%)

So in hindsight I realized that I took a slightly different route than what the race course will be, but it's close enough to be a good preview of what race day will be like. The nicest thing about Windsor running is that it's super super flat here, which makes holding a pace much easier. The course interestingly felt very long on the way out and significantly shorter on the way in. When I'm racing I'll have to remind myself not to get intimidated by how long things feel on the way out, since everything seems to move quicker on the way back in. Otherwise, it was a solid run. My legs were hurting from the very beginning, but settled into a rhythm and even though it was a slow one, it was one I was happy with given that I had a hard track workout the night before. Fingers crossed that things continue to feel good going into next week. And maybe the back half of my long runs might even get a bit quicker? We'll see.

I felt okay immediately after my run but honestly the more time went on the more exhausted I got. I even fell asleep for a bit while Skyping Henry. So I figured if I continued to be this exhausted I would just skip the pool this morning and take my easy recovery run in the afternoon. But I woke up with enough time to go to the pool, so I did. My left shoulder is really aching, I think it's because of how Coen slept on my arm last night, which sucks. It was giving me a lot of problems during backstroke and kick and so I didn't push it too hard. I was also feeling generically lazy so I kept the set short and easy. It was sort of a cop out swim to be honest, but I'm happy enough about having just showed up when I really didn't want to that I'm willing to accept it.

Today's Morning Swim Workout:

• WU: 1000 SKIPS
• Main Set:
• 10 x 75 free pull @ 1:30
• 6 x 75 free swim breathe 3/5/7 by 25 @ 10SR
• WD: 100 swim, 200 kick
• Total Distance: 2500 SCM (55 min)

Hit rate: 10/12 (83.3%)

I'm slowly crawling my way back up to 90% in terms of hit rate. Above 80% though which is nice. I'm altering my schedule to cross out tomorrow's morning swim. It's a function of two things, I want to give my shoulder time to get better and I also want tomorrow's run to be high quality and focused. I have to sacrifice the extra training volume for the quality because Coen doesn't have hockey on Friday so I don't have a solid period of alone time where I can take my run unless I do it after dinner (which generally sucks because I don't usually have enough time to put enough time between dinner and my run) or in the morning before everyone is awake. And I generally swim in the morning. So the swim is probably going to be sacrificed in the interest of making sure my run workout remains high quality. And the priority right now is the running, so I don't feel too bad making that call. I'll try to get a few swims in next week as well. As of right now, the swimming is just some base work before I try to commit to very early morning masters practice once I'm back in STL anyways so I'm not going to stress too much about missing a single swim.

On the calendar for this afternoon is an easy recovery run. I'll aim for somewhere in the 3-5 mile range, nice and slow and even 9:30-10:00 pace (or slower). (I'm setting these standards now to make sure that I don't end up running a negative split 6 miler that finishes with sub-9:00 paced miles because I feel like working harder. Today is an easy day, it has to stay easy so that I have fresher legs in the tank for tomorrow's workout. It's important that I get tomorrow's run right, which means I have to commit to doing less today in order to recovery properly.) Yay! (:

Much love,

Jess

Late runs and early swims

So...I spur of the moment signed up for a half marathon yesterday! Mom pointed out a flyer she had noticed previously at the rink where my little brother has hockey camp and thought it'd be a good idea for me to go run the race. So I decided to do it! It's in 11 days. I am (perhaps falsely) confident in my ability to cover the distance, but super unconfident in my ability to run it at anything mildly resembling a reasonable speed. It's an out and back course though, so I figure I'll go out easy (the goal is averaging ~9:00 min miles, but I'd be okay with anything in the 9:00-9:30 range) and try to build and negative split it on the back end on the way in. That's the game plan, we'll see if it plays out that way.

Because of this upcoming race though, I've had to make some changes to my training plans for the next two weeks to make sure my run game is up to par for the race. It's also forcing me to really take training seriously (including swimming, since that's a cardiovascular endurance thing) which is a nice change of pace. I need that race pressure kick in the butt, we've talked about this already, so it's a good place to be I think.

That having been said, I took last night's run pretty late and sort of close to dinner (about an hour afterwards) and it was rainy which was simultaneously nice because it was cool and simultaneously not because wind/wet. But whatever. I had a negative split 6ish miler planned but ended up doing a track workout because Coen wanted to go play basketball and I can supervise his ballin' while running on the track. He was a trooper, he played a lot of ball, because my run was pretty long. I had been hoping to do a pyramid set (400 through 1600) with 1/2 distance active recoveries, but it became very clear early on that I wasn't going to survive that at current fitness slash closeness to dinner so I reshaped the workout. Here it is!

Yesterday's Workout:

• WU: 1 mile easy (9:47.7/9:50)
• Set: 5 x 
• 400 fast (1:56.3/7:40, 2:00.5/7:51, 2:07.7/8:28, 1:59.9/8:04, 2:03.3/8:16)
• 200 easy
• 800 fast (4:04.2/7:57, 4:04.1/7:58, 4:24.8/8:50, 4:13.0/8:22, 4:07.7/8:14)
• 400 easy
• WD: 1 mile easy

Summary: 7.54 mi, 1:12:46, 9:39 pace.
Hit rate: 7/9 (77.7%)

I was really aiming to be closer to the 7:45-8:00 pace range (also I realize that the pace numbers are sort of out of whack, I don't really know why which is why I included the overall time estimates, although those aren't perfect either since I was hand clicking the lap buttons rather than using a more accurate measure) so I was disappointed with the pace overall, but honestly it was a tough workout and I put in an effort I was more than happy with. All this tells me is that I have to put a lot more work into speed in the future (August?) but I'll take what I've got for now.

This morning I took an easy swim, just trying to get back into it after having been pretty inconsistent with pool time since ECCs. My arms are weak, I felt very slow/sluggish, but I'm glad I went. St. Clair is nice because the pool feels fast since it's shallow and the ceiling is low, but it's also really hot which is annoying. I need to do more core work, I can really tell that my core is weak and my body position isn't great. I also need more discipline when it comes to breath control (breathing pattern consistency, not breathing in/out of walls, etc.). Will probably get back in and try to do a lot of pull work tomorrow to slowly bring that upper body strength back. But in any case, here was today's set:

Today's Morning Swim Workout:

• WU: 1000 SKIPS
• Main Set:
• 4 x 200 free @ 3:45 (wow so slow, lots of rest)
• 8 x 50 IMO @ 1:00
• 4 x 100 kick @ 2:00
• 4 x 100 free pull @ 1:55 (really slow compared to the kick)
• WD: 200 easy
• Total Distance: 3200 SCM (70 mins)

Hit rate: 8/10 (80%)

At the end of the day, the goal of these swims is just to maintain some semblance of swim fitness while I try to train more of the running (and cycling in August). This afternoon I'll take a long run (haven't quite decided time/distance yet, will see how I'm feeling) while Coen is at hockey camp and that'll be that for today! I'll be back later in the day with another update hopefully. (:

Much love,
Jess