Week 7 Marathon Training: Swedish Fish
Mama is TIRED, y'all. For real. Also, I think my hip is going to fall off.
With sunday runs, Monday is a complete rest day. So no cross training this week.
Total Running Miles: 29.5
Total Activity Miles: 29.5
Total Cumulative Donuts: 177 (24 donuts burned this week!)
From Monday-Sunday I ran 29.5 miles: 5, 3, 6, 3.5, 12. Whew. Next week, if I don't do Wednesday's run (usually 3 miles, I may opt out), I'll go down to 26 miles, or, be around the same mileage two weeks in a row. My training has sort have been like steps or platforms rising. Go up, stay steady, go up. Which means, the week after that, I jump to 35 miles for the week and that terrifies me.
But one day at a time. Honestly, that's how I'm making it.
Yesterday I had 3 miles + 4 strides and I also had to work. Neither of these coincided with being able to catch summer streets, and so I've missed it for the second week in a row, and because I'm signed up for the NYRR Long Training Run # 2, I don't get to do a long run at summer streets, but I do have to do 4 miles, so maybe I will make it out there, or do 2 miles over the bridge and back and then ride my bike to be better able to enjoy it. We'll see. The 3 miles yesterday felt SO HARD. My hip has been stiff, and one day I'm going to do something about it (like stretch right) but right now I'm just medicating with advil. My "easy" pace which I had convinced myself during the week was easy felt horrible and I was just struggling to get the 3 out of the way and out of my life. After the 3, I had 4 strides--I'm on the treadmill, btw-- and did .06-.07 at 6.0, 6.5, 6.5, 7.0 (!!) luckily .06 is like a minute of running, LOL, but it does something to your psyche to know that your feet are physically capable of doing such things.
Last week's 10 miler, as you might have read, sucked the whole life out of me, and almost knocked me off my game. I definitely felt defeated on several levels, like, what on earth am I doing right now? But then I had good mid-week runs that made me believe in myself again, and I was ready to give today's 12 miles a try.
My running coach knew that I had registered for a 5Mile race, Join the Voices Against Brain Cancer, and so prescribed: "3 miles warm up, 5 Mile race, 4 Miles cool down". I have to say I was nervous being one of those who ran to, or ran miles before races, but honestly, except leaving the house a lot earlier than I wanted to, it was fun, and I felt so accomplished and limber and warmed up by the time I got to the starting line (save panic while I tried to get a banana from THE SLOWEST STARBUCKS EVER IN LIFE.) that I felt confident that the 5 Miler would go well, and even though at that point, I was only 3.35 miles in, I felt good about the 12 miler in a way that I did not feel at 3.35 last week.
I got out of the house at the exact moment I said was the latest I could leave, and realized I had timed the train arrival by the further train stop. GREAT. So I started out the house running the 8 blocks to the train. My plan was to get off at West 4 train station and run north to Columbus Circle via Greenwich Street and 8th Avenue.
It was fun seeing sleepy NYC (it's 7:15 am by the time I EXIT the train station) and having the sidewalk practically to myself, and watch the neighborhoods pass me by: West Village, Chelsea, 34th Street (lol does it have a name? Madison Square Garden Hood?), Times Square. At Times Square, I'm waiting for the light to change, and a woman sees me with my race tag on and asks, "Is there a Marathon around here today?" I say, no, there's a race in Central Park and I'm running to it! (At this point, still about 15 blocks north) And she congratulates me, and then another woman looks me over (I'm sure judging---cause, weight gain) and says, "I'm going to be like you! I'm going out there and getting a run in!" I use the boost to run strong past them, tell them have a good morning, and then promptly zip out of sight to run over to 9th avenue to make up some mileage before hitting the park. Over on 9th avenue, I have my first experience with men yelling obscenities at me while running. I've had people encourage me at all stages of fitness while running on the street (in fact, it was my favorite thing about running in Harlem), and the women in Times Square gave me a boost, but these men, I dont even know what they were saying, but they were laughing and yelling and pointing at me from across the car. And we were both stopped at a red light, and I didn't dare run in front of them, and so I was stuck for those agonizing seconds wondering what I was doing, really? You know when someoone says something so hurtful, you believe it? Thank god I had my shades on; I could ignore them in a sense, but I felt so much in and out of my body at that moment. I pressed on, but I felt the lingering impact the rest of the run, and probably certainly when I would run back down that path again. I finally hit 3 miles, and decide to run a little past that so that I don't have exactly 4 to make up after the 5 mile race.
Insert starbucks annoyance here. All for a banana and a cup of water. 15 minutes, yall.
So I am cutting it close now to the start time, and they are making announcements. For the first time I see the announcers talking before the race, because i'm not in the corral. Tony Danza is speaking about something, and I"m just trying to make it to meet Jill before the start of the gun. We find each other! I make it there with 5 minutes to spare. @ 3:35 miles.
I feel a way about it, but oh well. There it is. Also, tank top was probably the smartest thing I've done so far this marathon season.
Anyways, the race starts, I tell J she can do her thing, she says she wants to see where she's at, and I no longer have pressure to go fast, and she has no longer pressure to go slow, and we agree to meet at the end. Only at this point do I put on my headphones. (I don't do city running with headphones, because dangerous. see above)
So I have 5 miles now, and I will tell you. For the first time I didn't care that people were passing me and zipping around me with their fresh legs. I was like: "I ran 3.35 miles to get here, so you do what you need!" and I did what I needed. I didn't "race" it per se, because I knew I had those miles after it, and I knew what happens when you go out too fast, but I did push myself, including pushing myself up some of the hills, and taking advantage of the downhill. At the 102 street transverse, where you start to go south down the west side, a woman stops me and says, "why are you behind me! i was following you!" and i said, "i needed a bit more of a break, I ran 3 miles before the race" and we continued to leap frog each other the rest of the race until I'm sure she found some extra juice to make it to the finish line. I did too, find some extra juice. I made it there, and took a few bites of a bagel, and an apple, met up with jill, filled my water bottle, and went to the medical tent for a salt packet and free (here's the secret! visit the medical tent!) gatorade :). We stretched a bit, and I kept the garmin on for part of the walk out of the park (which ultimately impacted my time after the race, but, also impacted how much I still had to "run"!).
I decided that my brain couldn't handle running not in the direction of going home, so we suffered through dodging the full city streets all the way back down to West 4 and did a loop finally until it hit 12. My miles were slower after the race, and I allowed myself more walk breaks than I would like, but the great thing about the step training plan, is I have another chance to do this 12 mile distance. I'll be in the park the whole time = no stopping the garmin, just constant movement between start and finish.
OH---------the title! So I've been running since June with NO souped up (and, lets face it, expensive) running gels, GU chomps, Clif Shot Bloks, etc. My stomach can't handle all of that weird sugar anymore. It wasn't able to handle it then, when I used it, but I thought that was just what came with running, you know, finish a race, deal with the stomach cramps, suffer through the port a potty. Until I started reading other folks' marathon training blogs and saw what other folks fueled with on the runs, and for shorter runs (less than 8 miles. Yes, I called 8 miles short. Listen, when you get 4 miles past 8 miles, 8 miles is "shorter) I use Welch's fruit snacks, and after the disaster of a 10 miler that was last week, I decided to graduate to Swedish Fish. I use that for my carbohydrates, and a NUUN tablet for my electrolytes, and luckily these next few long runs I have a race mixed in there somewhere, and so have opportunities to sneak some other types of natural fuel. My body is at least thankful for the one small thing that I can do for it in the midst of all this training.
