Spring Marathon Goals: More mileage, more speed, one crazy training plan.

So it's been a few weeks since my half marathon in Dallas, and I've been trying to recover and rest up as best I can for my next marathon training cycle.

Pffffft--who am I kidding?!?  Of course I already set my spring marathon goal (for the Glass City Marathon) in the My Run Plan training app and it's already got me training like a beast this week.

This is my best beast mode.  I'm sorry.

And by "beast" I mean "just like I did at the peak of my half marathon training."  Check out my mileage chart for this week below:

App had me running 10 miles for a long run yesterday, which is what I topped out at during half marathon training.  Looks like a lot of big miles in my future....and I know this is the case because I downloaded my whole plan from the app and already freaked out at some of the workouts.  Because that's good for your motivation, right?  Right.

I also made the mistake of setting my time goal at 4 hours in the app, which means that the app scheduled some crazy insane workouts for me as a thank-you (but didn't adjust my paces accordingly...grrr).  Let me give you a breakdown of the workouts in this plan, just so everyone can see what I'm getting myself into:

• Speed work. Now, I always do speed work in any training plan I take on, and I'm always up for some 400s or 800s.  But it seems that this plan has me doing mile repeat after mile repeat after mile repeat....which thankfully are my fave.  Not really--I hate them with a white-hot hate.  But they're good for me, so I do them.  While consumed by hate.  So healthy.
• Tempo/Threshold Runs: Again, these are a normal part of any of my training plans.  However, when I looked ahead in the plan and saw "Run 1:20:00 @ 9:19" my brain kept trying to translate that into one minute and 20 seconds.  When my brain realized the truth about that number, I thought I could hear some soft sobbing and whimpering.
• Long runs: Again, a staple of any marathon training plan.  This plan has me maxing out at 21 miles for the long run, with two of that distance on the plan.  The difference this time is that I plan on throwing some marathon-paced segments into some of the shorter long runs (12-16 miles) just to get my legs used to that pace.  I really think that was one of the reasons I started to crash and burn at mile 20 last spring (along with my nutrition)--my legs had never actually run at my chosen pace a lot during training, so they weren't prepared to carry me at that pace for all 26.2.  Since the app is generating my paces based on my fastest result, it's actually predicting a 4:04 finish...and is assigning paces to workouts based on that slower goal time.  Since I want to hit 4 hours or below, I'm going to have to practice running at my race pace throughout the training cycle in order to nail that goal.
• One more day of running. Not that I always believe more is better, but I did give myself one more day of lower-mileage running per week.  Why? So I can have some short marathon-paced runs during the week.  These aren't going to be the same weeks as those spiced-up long-runs I mentioned earlier, but I did notice on the copious sub-4-hour training plans I looked at that they all had short marathon-paced runs during the week at some point.  If I start to get overtrained, however, these runs will be the first to go or modified into easy pace runs.
• 50+ mile weeks, anyone?  I made one last mistake of looking at the total miles for each week of my plan...and noticed there are some 50-ish mile training weeks.  I haven't done weeks with that mileage in a LONG time (since I trained for my first ultra), but they don't start happening until March..so hopefully my poor legs will have become accustomed to the abuse of this plan by then.

If you'd like to see my plan in spreadsheet format, feel free to click here.  Hopefully all this training and weight loss craziness will translate into a crazy marathon PR, but at a bare minimum I know it will translate into large dog being ecstatic to run one more day a week with me.

Well, he would look ecstatic if he would actually look at the damn camera.  But I know for a fact he wants you to read the non-learning learnings that always come at the end of one of my posts:

• I scoured the internet for at LEAST an hour looking at every sub-four marathon training plan I could find, so I'd say this training plan of mine is well-researched.
• And by "well-researched" I mean "like a high school student does research before writing a paper the night before it's due"
• If you need me in the month of March, leave a message because I'll be running thanks.
• I have a feeling my foam roller and massage chair are going to become BFFs this winter.
• I need to forget I ever saw the training plan ahead of time and just do each run as it comes...so I won't realize how much this is really going to hurt.

Race Recap (finally): Dallas Half Marathon 2019

Kids, it's been a week....ok, really over a week since I busted out my goal half marathon in Dallas, Texas.  I really meant to bore people with the minute and intimate details of all 13.1 miles of that race sooner, but these things called "work" and "family xmas gatherings" kept getting in the way.  But now I have some time, so let's get this race recap on, shall we?

Race recap WHAAAAAA

Pre-Race Stuff:

I flew in to Dallas on Thursday night before the race because Friday and twin sis and I (who lives in the Dallas area and runs the races with me) had to hit the race expo downtown and grab our packets. 

Helpfully pointing out the race expo for you.

We signed up for the weekend series, which meant we voluntarily signed up to run a Saturday and a Sunday race because more bling, a sweet jacket, and more bragging rights. Thankfully we had the presence of mind to sign up for the 5K on Saturday rather than the 10K, so it served as more of a shakeout run for Sunday than a race.  And the trip to and from the expo served to give me more experience posing on train platforms and taking touristy photos of Dallas from said train.

Saturday Race: 5K-ing it

On Saturday we got up super early and took the train to downtown Dallas for the 5K.  It was a little chilly outside, but nothing some handwarmers, gloves, and a throw-away sweatshirt couldn't take care of for me.  Oh, and posing in front of the starting corral with a light pole and a twin sister also helps keep you warm, I swears.

The 5K and 10K (and the marathon and half marathon) starts right in front of the Dallas City Hall building, which is a neat little building with a huge street in front of it that happens to be a good place to start races.

The 5K course takes you on a nice little jaunt through downtown Dallas, with a few hills to keep it interesting.  My only complaint is that the finish is a nice little uphill until you hit that sign in the pic above, which is a minor complaint of mine in the 5K but becomes a major complaint when you run the marathon or half marathon the next day and finish in the same spot.  At least running the 5K let me know what I was in for on Sunday at the end of the race.  Speaking of the end of the race, here's me and the 5K blingity bling in a marathon t-shirt.

*bling*

Sunday Race: Half-marathoning-it.

The twin and I again got up super early and took the train downtown to the same start line.  However, the twin hurt her back during the 5K race the day before, and after testing it out with a warm-up jog after we got downtown decided not to run the half with me lest she injure herself further.  She ended up hanging out in the nearby convention center to wait for me to finish...and watch my gear check bag so I didn't have to waste time a) finding where the hell they put gear check this year (please stop moving it!), and b) having to go to gear check after the race.  I dutifully lined up in the start corral, realizing quickly in the 55 degree temps that I didn't need the throw-away sweatshirt, gloves, and handwarmers I had brought with me.

This sign is a lie when you're waiting to start.  FYI.

My goal time for this race was originally a 1:55, but after a look at the elevation profile and realizing just how many hills were in the first 6 miles, I revised my goal to hitting anywhere between a 1:57 and 2 hours.  Since I wasn't trying to PR in the first place, I felt that this new goal range was pretty reasonable for me....and I remembered how much it hurt a few years back when I overdid it on those beginning hills and petered out in mile 17 of the marathon.  Respecting the hills (and not completely destroying my body for my next training cycle) was the rule of the day here.

Nothing like a STEADY CLIMB

So the starting gun went off and off I went, running the streets of Dallas.  I was going to hang with the 2-hour pacers for the first half, but of COURSE they were running too fast...so I decided to run my own race.  Specifically, that race was running too fast for those hilly first 7-ish because I'm stupid like that.  I was running between 9 and 8:50 the whole first half of the race, and I remember that at the 5K mark pictured below I was thinking, "man, I don't have to run this fast...I better slow down."  But my legs were all WE ARE RACING SHUT UP LET'S GO FAST WHEEEE and it was all downhill from there.  Well, uphill, actually until mile 7 or so.

I know that it was a net downhill from miles 7 to the finish, but that didn't stop the race from containing a few more steady uphill climbs.  (NOTE: I didn't pass the 2 hour pacers until mile 8, and my splits the entire time were well UNDER a 2 hour pace...fast pacers are one of my all-time racing pet peeves.) Mentally those hilly climbs were getting to me, but I kept telling myself "your mind gives up before the body does...keep going...wimp."  And I did, but I was slowing down a lot in the last mile due to stupidly running too fast at the start and a sharp side cramp right underneath my rib cage.  I did stop and walk while I tried to work out the side cramp, but then high-tailed it to the finish line for the last 0.7 (and up that nasty finishing hill...UGH) to snag a 1:57:22.

Please to note crappy 13th mile (9:07)

So, of course, rather than celebrating being right on the fast end of my goal time range I was all OMG IF I HADN'T WALKED I WOULD HAVE GOTTEN A 1:56 I SUCK AT THIS...but I had to remind myself that for a 45-year-old broad who just ran a gazllion freaking hills that 1:57 was a time of which to be proud--a time comfortably under 2 hours. Also, I ran the whole race in a pair of shorter-than-normal-for-me shorts that I would never have worn if I hadn't lost 15 pounds...so there was another small win. Bonus win: buying that shirt I raced in at the expo two days before and not experiencing any adverse chafing events.

Overall it was a successful weekend: great weather, great time, great company, great bling.

Not pictured: Awesome weekend series jacket

So, what's next?  Well, I'm taking it easy for a few weeks before I start marathon training again (although I could get used to that half-marathon "only running 10 miles tops on the weekends" thing fer shure); this next training cycle I will be focusing on getting lighter and getting faster so I can get as close to the 4 hour mark as possible in the spring.  More on those goals later...but for now, this post is over.  You don't have to go home, but you don't have to stay here and read the stupid learnings below:

• The weather was absolutely perfect for the half.  I almost took my shirt off in the last 2 miles because it was that nice, but decided no one needed to end a race seeing me like that.
• The course is tough but doable--that's why I keep coming back to this race.  It's a challenge.
• Have I mentioned that pacers that run too fast and then have to slow wayyy down at the end are one of my racing pet peeves?  Like a HUGE pet peeve?
• Another pet peeve is having the majority of the race photos taken at the end of a race.  I would like to see my suffering at all points of the race, thankyouverymuch.
• I'm sure one of your pet peeves is really long race recap posts.  Too bad.

So this diet thing...

...is back on the rails again.  Well, I hope so anyway.

And I hope this dress isn't too Star Trek TNG-y

Since my spring marathon in April I have been taking some gastronomic liberties, adding back food that can only be described as "crap" into my diet because, after all, marathon training cancels all that out, right?

Nope.  This seems to be a weight-loss lesson that I am doomed to re-learn over and over again: eat crap, gain weight.  I gained back about 4-5 pounds that I had lost for my spring marathon....whilst training for a marathon the entire time, mind you.  (This is why the "you run so you can eat whatever you want" line never works with me.  Ever.) But since I had still been monitoring my weight daily by stepping on the scale every morning at 3:30 AM (!), I knew that this was happening and, once I came out of denial ("something must be wrong with this scale!!"), decided to do something about it.  Below is a list of those decided somethings:

1) Take myself off store-bought treats.  I freaking love anything sugary, especially if it comes in chocolate form, and I was hitting that stuff way too hard. (FYI, the dogs are also off store-bought treats, so we're in this together.)

2) If I wanted any kind of treat, I had to make it myself so I could make it with known non-weight-gaining ingredients.  Example: this ugly but edible pudding pie below that looks like it's just chocolate but really has vanilla, banana creme, and chocolate sugar-free jello layers in it and is freaking amazing.

3) Re-establish my love affair with my crock pot.  I had been making casseroles for lunch and dinner that really weren't all that healthy, so I decided to go back to crock-potting it with simple, good ingredients.  Example: Steak tostadas with enough jalapeno peppers in them to set your eyes aflame just looking at them.

YUMMO

Since making these changes, I am happy to announce that I have lost 3 of those previously-lost pounds...and did it without being on Medifast as well.  I did have about three days of sugar withdrawal symptoms that were not unlike quitting smoking...which reinforced the addictive nature of that sweet stuff and why it was a good idea to cut myself off from it.  While my goal was to lose 5 pounds by the time the Dallas half marathon came around (next weekend), I'm still pretty happy with these results.  My ultimate weight loss goal right now is to be down to the weight I was in the picture below by the time I end my next marathon training cycle...not because of getting healthy, but so I can PR the crap out of my spring marathon.  Priorities, people.

1st Half Marathon WHAAA

That means I have about 15 more pounds to lose by the end of April.  I'd say that's doable...and I'd say I have a lot of work to do.  Time to stare down that work and get it done.

15 pounds and a marathon PR...
I'm coming for you. *STARE*

It's also time for a gratuitous pic of one of my animals and the list of nonlearning learnings that signals the end of a blog post:

You read her post...now imagine having
to live with this woman.

• Eat crap = weight gain, no matter how much you're running.  That's one of my universal weight loss truths.
• Those tostadas were fantastic.  Really.
• That jello pudding pie is also fantastic, and easy for someone baking challenged such as myself to make.
• Have I mentioned how awesome those tostadas were?
• Yes, I really can lose 15 more pounds.  Don't make me show you where all the fat is on my body.
• Tiny dog there has to watch me running in just a sports bra three days a week...she can tell you where all the jiggly fat parts are I need to lose.
• Tiny dog has also obviously been irreparably psychologically harmed by having to watch me work out in just a sports bra.  You can see it in her eyes.

Upcoming workouts: Just a bunch of easy 3-milers this week...Dallas Half Marathon is on Sunday!

Race Recap: Schaumburg Turkey Trot Half Marathon

About a month ago I thought it would be a fantastic idea to sign up for a half marathon before my half marathon to see if my legs were ready for the stress of running a sub-two at my goal race (BMW Dallas Half Marathon).  Like any idea of this sort, it seemed like a good idea at the time.  And then the morning of the race came, and it looked like this:

Booooooooooo

Clouds a-plenty, lots of drizzly annoying rain, temps in the 30s, winds in the high teens, and my motivation to run this race was in the negative numbers....that is, until I remembered that this race was part of a race series I accidentally got myself into when I signed up for the race.  You see, anyone who signed up for 3 or more half marathons put on by this race company was automatically entered into the series.  I was unaware of this until they sent me an email about a week ago, telling me of the glories of the extra medal and t-short I would be getting if I completed this last half marathon of the year for them.

They had me at "extra medal."  I dragged myself out of bed and got my butt to the start line, dressed in one my usual awesome "what the hell woman did you get dressed in the dark" running outfits.

That hat is what happens when you accidentally
gear check the one you planned on wearing and
this is all you had in the car.

Thankfully this race a) gives you the option of mailing your bib to you so you don't have to mess with race day packet pickup, b) is small enough that if you get there kind of early you can park close to the start line and snooze in your car until 15 minutes before the start time, and c) is small enough that there are *really* short lines for the port-a-johns so you can take care of an...umm....needs right before the gun goes off.  And that's just what I did, because I decided that I wasn't really going to race this race so pfffft warming up...who has time for that?!?  It was cold and windy and rainy outside, after all.

Anyway, when I got to the start line, I got cozy with the 2:05 pacer after deciding that a 9:32 pace was enough for today, thanks.  And that pace would have been fantastic had I actually run that pace.  Let's run through what happened, shall we?

• The pacer didn't actually start running at the pace advertised on his cute little pacer sign.  We were tracking in the 8:45s and 8:30s at various times the first two miles according to my watch. He finally looked at his watch and then slowed down, but I always worry that this might trash some people for the rest of the race, especially if they haven't trained for those paces and they're busy chugging along keeping up with him.  As soon as I realized he was going too fast, I slowed down to a 9:20-ish on my watch because I'd be damned if he was going to destroy me in the first few miles.
• Eventually pacer guy slowed down to a more reasonable 9:20-ish pace and I began to run with the little pack around him again.  However, he kept slowly speeding up (we had a 9:10-ish minute mile in mile 7) and then, after looking at his watch, slowing down again.  Now, I get that pacing is tough, especially if you're used to running much faster during a race.  But I am of the mindset that pacers should run roughly a consistent pace the entire race so that you're not worn out by too much fast running.  So all the speeding up and slowing down really got to me, especially when we were going to come in well under 2:05 by mile 8 and the pacer had to slow down to around a 9:45 pace just to not come in too early.  
• I decided to go it alone at around mile 9.5.  Even though I know I run way too fast on my own, I was tired of all that speeding up/slowing down business, so I got fed up and didn't wait up for the pacer after a water station at around mile 9.5.  I was surprised by how easy the hills were for me in those last three miles or so, going as fast as I was; I was also surprised by how many people I passed in those last 3 miles. I finished in 2:01:40, which I consider a pretty decent time for this old running broad.
• And about that weather we were having...  I didn't even notice it was full-on raining until mile 11.  And, since this race was mostly through a forest preserve, the trees blocked the wind for many of those 13.1 miles.  Best of all, as soon as I hit the finish line they handed me a hot cinnamon roll, I snagged my gear from gear check, and stepped right onto a warm shuttle bus back to the finish line, where the bus dropped me off right in front of my car.  A nice way to end the race.

Turns out I kind of played this race like two separate races--one 10 mile race and one 3 mile race.

I told you I'm not good on my own...look at those last 3 miles!

No matter how I played it, still got my bling though.

Found out I don't get that extra medal for the race series until the end of the year....rats.


And now you're finding out it's time for learnings (because this post is over):

• I'm not hating on pacers.  I'm just annoyed at this pacer in particular.  So I did what I had to do when I ditched him completely.
• While I dig the big races, there's something to be said for the smaller local races.  And that something is "short port-a-john lines."
• I'll have you know my legs felt really good during the race yesterday.  And today they feel as if someone beat them with a stick yesterday.
• I'll also have you know that boy oh boy they're going to feel even worse in two weeks after I try and run an 8:50 pace for 13.1 miles.

Tomorrow's workout: Speed!  Some 1200s!  Good times!