Crystal Lake Half Marathon Recap: For the fun of it.

Well, I did it for fun, but also as a marathon-pace practice race.  I do think it sad that I sign up for a half marathon these days without batting an eye.  When I was a newer runner, I used to agonize over every longer-distance race, wondering if I had it in me to finish within a decent time.

Now I'm all like, "Half marathon?  When?  I'm in."  Sick.  Sick and wrong, I know.

I ran this half marathon last year.  I was actually training for another half at the time, but got what's known as "sick" with the sinus infection from Hades and ended up not running it.  This is not because I am a wimp; when you spend the night before a race with a fever and a head that feels like a block of wood and wake up surrounded by more used tissues than bed sheets, I would think you would tend to come down on the side of "I would not like this to develop into pneumonia if I run" rather than "I will (literally) suck it up and run even if it means I will spend the next 3 months in the hospital."

So, rather than run sick and get sicker, I decided to bag that race and sign up for the Crystal Lake Half Marathon two weeks later.  I still wasn't totally well by then (that's how bad this infection was), but I managed a 1:57.  Not my best time, but a steep hill at mile 9 got me and then I ended up doing a run/walk for the final miles of the race.  I was disappointed, but glad I snuck in under 2 hours.

This year, since I am training for a marathon, I decided to use this race as a marathon-race pace race (say that 3 times fast) so I could get a feel for running my projected pace for 13 miles.  I knew that my marathon pace (9:30) would put my time for the half at over 2 hours, but that was alright.  I must keep reminding myself that the goal is to get to my marathon starting line uninjured and well-rested.

Plus, it was kind of nice to run a half and not bust a gut the whole time.

The weather was almost perfect-cool (in the 60s) and cloudy, with the sun staying away for the entire race.  The only thing that sucked was the humidity; at the start of the race it was actually misty/rainy.  I was drenched by mile 4, with my shirt sticking to my gut uncomfortably thereafter.

This guy was stretching in front of my car.  Grey skies everywhere.

Drenched by the end.  Shirt is stuck to my ginormous gut.

Since this was a training run, technically, let's review what I learned about my training at this point (4 weeks from my marathon), shall we?

• I have a tendency to speed up.  I caught myself many times running in the 8:30s.  I had to continually force myself to slow the freak down so I could practice my marathon pace.
• Pacing people is a great way to force yourself to slow the freak down.  Then, after you've gotten in some "rest" behind them, pass them. 
• I passed 5 guys wearing Ragnar Chicago shirts.  This gave me all sorts of warm fuzzy feelings inside.  I counted them as "kills."
• I maintained a pretty even average pace for 10 miles (around 9:15). Good to know I can be consistent.
• This race was a great way to practice my hill strategy.  Twin Cites is going to be hilly, and this race had a few good-sized hills up in there.  I had to focus on slowing down and picking up my feet (along with keeping my feet under me and not overstriding).
• I wore my Brooks Glycerin 11s to see how they would feel for 13 miles.  I think these will be my marathon shoes.
• Only in mile 12 did I start to get winded, but that's because I was trying to book it at an 8:30 straight into 12 mph winds.  I saw someone I knew at that point that was walking, and stopped to chit-chat for a bit.  That reset my lungs and I was able to finish strong.  But still....all that speed work is paying off.  I think I can maintain between a 9:30 and 9:45 for this marathon coming up.
• I wanted to quit and walk several times after mile 10.  But my trick is to think about how tired my legs really are--if, after I do a mental check, realize that they are not all that tired, I find that I can push on.
• I still assume everyone is better than me.  While waiting at the starting line, I kept looking at people and thinking, "They're going to beat me."  I am glad to report that I passed around 70% of those people, mostly in the final miles.

So, how did I do overall?  Check it out:

2:02.  Not bad; not bad at all for someone who was actually trying to run slower than that.  I was expecting between 2:00 and 2:05, so this is dead on for me.  I know that a 9:20 pace is actually faster than I should have run, but at least now I know that I can run at least half of that marathon near my projected pace.

I guess this race wasn't just for training--it was also to give me a little confidence in the pace I have chosen, which it did.  I'll see if it that confidence remains four weeks from now when I'm standing in my starting corral at Twin Cities trying not to ball up on the ground and go fetal.

Garmin, Charge Thyself.

Workouts:

Monday: More barbell time.
Tuesday: 5 mile easy run
Wednesday: Track ladder workout (speed work)
Thursday: 12 mile bike ride in the dark

After my 22 mile run Saturday, my legs were a bit tired.  Not just right after the run, but until...oh....Tuesday.  That track ladder workout was on tap for Tuesday, but after the first 400m interval, I knew my legs wouldn't be able to climb up and down the rest of that ladder.  My quads felt like tight little balls of...quad muscle that didn't want to contract in any running sort of way nope nope nope.

So I bagged the workout.  Having already done a mile in the warm-up, I ran 4 more miles easy, and my legs felt much better the next day; they were ready for some track ladder up-and-down climbing.  While the quads were still a bit sluggish, I managed a pretty decent workout overall:

Yes, yes, I know-I walk my recoveries.  Don't judge me.

I did this workout at around 7:15 PM, so what else is a girl in marathon training to do but get up and cross-train at 5:20 A.M.?  I went for a short but very nice bike ride in the dark while testing out my new bike headlight.  It works pretty well (a Blackburn brand), and it managed to startle a group of deer along my route.  I don't know if you know this, but when a group of deer gets all freaked out, it's a free-for-all of deer afterwards.  Deer were running every which way; I think if they could have defied gravity they also would have run straight into the sky. Or at least into a parallel universe and back.  The looks on their faces were all crazy-wild; it looked like my dog does when she is freaked out by a sound she does not recognize:

But the one thing that pissed me off about all of my workouts this week was this:  I could not remember to charge my Garmin.  It's like the neural pathway containing that memory had been obliterated each night while I slept.  Here's how every morning went this week that I needed my Garmin:

1. Get ready for run or bike ride.
2. Put on watch.
3. Turn on watch and hear the angry BEEEEEP that indicates battery is dead.
4. Swear profusely and scare the dogs.
5. Put Garmin on charger.
6. Hope that 15 minutes on the charger will give me enough juice for my workout.
7. Get enough charge to do the workout.
8. Take off Garmin after workout and forget to put it on charger.
9. Repeat steps #1-8 the next morning.

My only hope at this point is they invent wireless electricity so the watch will charge just by absorbing charged particles found in the air.  Or just put my Garmin on the charger after each and every run and not set it down on the desk facing away from me so that I forget that it is on.

Anyhoo, tomorrow is a tempo run, and then a half marathon this weekend as a pseudo-training run.  Let's hope my quads are fully rested and the Garmin is fully charged for those running events.

Sometimes long runs suck. But you learn a lot.

Yesterday I ran a 22 mile long run.  It's the first true long run I have done in 2 weeks, having done a Ragnar two weekends ago and a duathlon last weekend.

My quads are telling me loud and clear today that they are NOT HAPPY.  Not happy at all.  But I'm sure they'll get over it in 2-3 days.

I actually got up early for that run and got my butt out to my favorite long-run trail (the Long Prairie Trail) by 8 A.M.  The day before had been in the upper 90s temperature-wise, and yesterday was much cooler--it was around 70 degrees when I started, and the sky was cloudy, blocking out any additional heat from the sun.  Even if there had been sun, this trail has tons of shade along the way.  In fact, the first 6 miles or so is all under a big tree canopy that looks like this:

I started off the run heading to the east, planning on going 11 miles out to the trail head in Capron and then coming back.  Those first 11 miles were pretty awesome-there was a slight breeze cooling me off, and the majority of the run was slightly downhill.  As I neared the trail head, I did have to get creative when I encountered some downed trees on the trail from the thunderstorms we had the day before:

Had to use my obstacle course skills to get around this one.

Right after this I encountered some cyclists that had passed me about three times already on the trail.  They stopped and asked me how many miles I was doing, and when I told them 22, I thought they were both going to fall off their bikes.  They wished me luck, and then cycled away from me as fast as possible.  I don't blame, them, really--when I stopped to talk to them I got a good whiff of my stinky running self at that point. I would have run away from myself if it were possible within the known laws of our universe.

Eventually I made it to the trail head, and I was feeling pretty awesome.  Legs were feeling good, and I felt like I could run forever.  I felt even awesomer when I realized I would be able to use a real bathroom located there rather than have to duck and cover in the woods along the trail for once.

Better than going in the woods.

I realized at this point that I was about half a mile shy of 11 miles, but decided to make it up by running past my car a bit when I got to the end of my run.  I started back on the trail (scampering over the downed trees a second time), feeling good and excited to be at the halfway point.  Apparently I was so excited that my legs decided to speed up on me, and I started busting out some close to 10-minute miles (my goal pace for each mile was supposed to be around 10:30).

Yeah.  This became a problem in mile 14.  My increased speed plus the fact that it was getting hotter (and now the wind was at my back) really started to take a toll on me, and I was in full blown wall-hitting mental whining by mile 15.  So I made a deal with myself-make it to Poplar Grove (3 miles away) and I would stop and get some cold water at the small convenience store there.

Those were 3 miles of mental torture.  I tried to force myself to slow down, but my legs were having none of it.  But I didn't stop.  I made it to that convenience store and to some cold refreshing water (I do wear a Camelbak on my runs, but after 3 hours the water gets a tad warm).  I tried to make my stop as brief as possible, lingering only to refill my Camelbak. I took off from Poplar Grove, knowing that I "only" had 4 more miles until I got to my car.

And I thought the 3 miles to get to Poplar Grove were tough.  These last 4 miles were pure mental hell.

It was all I could do to keep moving.  This time I actually did slow down (finally), but my legs felt heavy.  I was hot.  A sharp pain had developed in my left side.  My Camelbak was heavy again with water.  The route this time was mostly uphill. My running skirt was soaked with sweat and felt like a lead apron around my waist.  Any minor annoyance that I normally would have brushed aside became magnified in my mind to a major crisis.

But I kept going.    And finally I saw my car.  Too bad that, when I got there, I still had half a mile to go before I reached the 22-mile mark.  So what did I do?  Run back and forth near my car until I did that half mile.  I could have turned around and gone back down the trail the way I came, but at that point I desperately NEEDED to be near my car.  Turning around and running away from it would have probably caused a mental implosion of epic proportions.  So, I endured weird looks from cyclists and finished up the run by scampering back and forth in the parking lot near my car.

When I was done, I just needed to walk for a bit.  After walking around the parking lot a few times while having my recovery shake, I stopped and stretched out a bit by my car.  As I worked out my calves (which were screaming, by the way), I noticed that my skirt was sweating, leaving drops on the ground.

It was my skirt, I swears.

If you think that picture is bad, you should have seen the ground after I wrung out a corner of my skirt.  Ugh.

Apparently I was so soaked that the hubbs insisted on taking a picture of my sweaty self after I returned home:

You can't see it but I am drenched.  Also, while I didn't think I was dressed too crazily for a long run, apparently some cyclists thought my outfit was pretty entertaining and were openly mocking me as I ran.  From their comments, it seems my colors were a tad too bright for them, and the calf sleeves were a little over the top.  People, people, people--can't we all just get along and wear what we want to wear while torturing ourselves with exercise?

Despite this run having sucked the big one for the last 8 miles, I think that these types of runs teach you a LOT.  They teach you that you really should eat more than a bowl of oatmeal before going on a 22-mile run.  They teach you that you should have parked AT the trail head so you could have a downhill run after you turn around into the cool gentle breeze rather than park further down the trail.  They teach you that you will wear whatever you damn well please on a run and let the cyclists in their monochrome black outfits be the ones who are committing an exercise fashion faux pas.  They teach you to put on more deodorant before you leave so you won't gross yourself out with your own stink.

But, more importantly, they teach you how to get tough and finish what you started.  No matter what happened out there on that trail, the important thing is that I got through the rough stuff and finished the run.