Tonight was a big night. BIG night. My Bolder Options mentee and I got together for the our first outdoor run of the Spring (we’ve been indoors all Winter except for a few outings ice fishing & sledding). Our usual outside run is a 5k loop around the lake and, when we run, we aim for a 1-minute on / 2-minutes off approach with some longer intervals thrown in. And, tonight, as we warmed up, I asked what she thought about alternating 1-minute and 2-minute running intervals with each one having a recovery walk of 2 minutes. She was up for it. And she was pretty tough throughout the entire duration. In fact, the 1-minutes were almost a breeze with the 2-minutes challenging, but doable.

And, you know what?

She beat her PR by over 5 MINUTES! She beat her training workout PR by over 10!! It was pretty incredible and she was very proud.

It’s really fun to experience these victories through her eyes. On our drive back to the house tonight afterward, she even suggested that maybe next time she’d attempt a few 2-minute intervals IN A ROW! Then she caught herself and said, “I can’t believe I suggested that.” I told her that must mean she’s competitive with herself. She thought for a minute; shook her head. “I am really competitive,” she said, “but I can’t believe I’m so competitive with MYSELF.”

It was very cool. I might turn her into a runner just yet.

On a side note, my forced exposure through her to pop radio has me discovering a few things tonight:

* I do like that new Train song. And I didn’t even know they were still together as a band

* Jay-Z has redone Alphaville’s Forever Young. WTF is up with that?

* I might just need to download that Lady Gaga / Beyonce Telephone song for my own runs

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Saying goodbye to a beautiful Ashland weekend.

After that last Grandma’s marathon freak-out post, this has been a good week. Sure, I’m still freaking out about Grandma’s and have more than my fair share of doubts about my ability to cross that finish within my goal time limits (if at all). But I know the work is done. There is nothing I can do now training-wise that will really affect the outcome other than proper rest.

So, this week, after taking the lead from a very thorough Three Week Taper artlcle on RunnersWorld.com, I proceeded with my week two suggestions of eating plenty of protein and running a few easy runs, most within the pace of 1-2 minutes below marathon pace. For me? That’s an 11-12 minute mile.

That means, after the brutal 18-miler, I went on an indulgent 3.8 mile run Monday night at this luxuriously slow pace. It was a beautiful evening. The sky was blue. The temperature was perfect (low 70s) with no humidity. There were loads of people out at the lake enjoying the weather just like me. I bounced along to some of my favorite tunes. At times, I actually sang along and I enjoyed it all. It’s been a while since I’d enjoyed a run and the stress of Grandma’s has made me lose perspective just a little bit. So, Monday was very appropriate and very much needed.

The same went for my 5.3 mile run on Tuesday as well as my short 3-miler on Thursday morning. All lovely runs at a pace slow and steady that allowed me to just enjoy the effort, the scenery and, best of all, the music.

Then, today, my 10-miler was just a pleasant. My final “long run” (although, only a fraction of what I’ll be covering next Saturday) I experienced the same love of the sport. The weather, again, perfect: breezy, 70s, sunny, low humidity. I just chugged along mainly in the 11-minute mile ball park. My heart rate rarely went above 140. And I was even treated early on with an eye-to-eye stand off with a doe.

She was less than 10 feet in front of me! I had just turned onto the Gateway and there she was — getting ready to cross — but obviously spooked by my person. I just stopped and stared into her large, gentle black eyes. She was so pretty. She was also so still. I’m not sure how long I stood there — seconds, maybe a minute. Then I looked back on the trail and noticed a cyclist approaching. I signalled gently to him to indicate the animal close to the trail and I continued my run.

“What a way to start a Saturday, huh? With wild life?” the cyclist said as he passed. I just smiled.

Funniest part? That wasn’t my only encounter with wildlife today. Granted, I always see loads to geese, cranes and little birds, squirrels and chipmunks on these runs. But, at about mile 4.5, there was a turtle in the middle of the trail. He was a small one — I don’t know my types of turtles, but he had yellow stripes on his body when I looked in his shell. He was in the middle of the pavement in the hot, shining sun and I was worried he was going to be run over by a cyclist or dry out in the sun. I actually wasn’t even sure if he was alive (he was in his shell the entire time I stopped to check him out). So, I nudged him over to the grass on the side of the trail that was closest to the creek. And when I passed the area on my way back, he was gone — so I’m assuming he was alive and, once I left him alone, went on on his merry way.

So, that was my morning. I choking down my recovery drink now. I’m going to rest a bit and this is it. A few short, short runs this week. But by this time next week, I’ll will (hopefully) be finished at Grandma’s.

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I got sick this week. Really sick. So sick I was in the office for a total of 1.25 days and I’m only just now, 6 days later, starting to feel relief. This virus is a doozy and I’ve felt like such a wimp being taken down in such swift fashion. It’s been so bad that I haven’t drank coffee or exercised in 6 days, I’ve been practically bed-ridden and I’ve watched more episodes of bad online TV than I dare to admit. This has been so not fun. Don’t even talk to me about how behind I am at work now, too.

The thing is, I pride myself of the fact that I’m a pretty damn healthy person. In fact, I wasn’t sick all winter-long (not even a sniffle) and I think it’s been a good full year since I’ve had a cold. It’s easy to get cocky. And it isn’t easy to be kicked in the ass with a mother of a virus. Not only did I get sick, but I got sick hard. I had a fever, horrible cough and congestion, body aches, fatigue.

It hit me shortly after my long run on Saturday. I completed 20 miles. This was only my third 20 mile run in my life (my first two during my Madison marathon training in 2006) and it was tough, but I did it. It was a progressive run meaning I had to run miles 1 – 17 at 10% below marathon pace and then ramped the final three up to marathon pace. I was beat by the end, I barely pulled out the 10-minute mile finish for the last mile (although, ironically, I did have a few random 9:30s thrown in throughout the run earlier by accident) and I immediately hit the sack to rest after the exertion.

That night, I was coughing, but I thought it was due to allergies. There was a lot of pollen out during the run. We went to a party that night. I was feeling pretty tired. We didn’t make it a long night. Then, Sunday morning, I knew something was up. I was just EXHAUSTED. I finally dragged my butt to the grocery store and that’s when I knew I was sick. I couldn’t focus. I felt terrible. I stumbled through the store and, when I got home,  I hit the couch and lived there for the remainder of the week.

The worst part has been the cough. It’s so deep and raw that I’ve felt like there have been shards of glass in my chest. And coughing this hard for this many days has left me sore all over. The congestion has been pretty bad, too. At one point, I couldn’t even Neti Pot because my nose was so stuffed up. I also had a fever for four days — something that never happens to me. This has been crazy. On Wednesday, I finally went to see the doc (love on-site health care at work!) and he confirmed it as a nasty virus and I was on the verge of a sinus infection. He gave me Codeine cough syrup to help me sleep and a prescription for antibiotics to fill only if the congestion & sinus pressure got worse in 48 hours.

The good news is, it hasn’t gotten worse. Wednesday was probably my worst day (although, ironically, that was the day I went into work). I stayed home again on Thursday and managed at half day at the office yesterday. I did have to break my plans for the weekend. I was supposed to head up north to a cabin with a bunch of my tri-buddies for a training weekend sprinkled with much Memorial Day play. It’s really broken my heart to cancel the trip. I was so looking forward to it. But I knew my buddies didn’t want my germs up there — and I need the weekend to rest more so I that I can get back into shape for both work and training (my first tri of the season is next weekend at Buffalo!).

But still, the fact that they are all up there and pontooning and drinking mojitos without me makes me really sad. It’s even sadder because James is in Duluth with other bike racing buddies this weekend for a four-day stage race. I’m essentially home all alone this weekend with all of my friends out of town. Boo Hoo.

The plus side, if I have to look at it, is that I have peace and quiet within which to rest and recover. I also have some time to get the house in order (it’s been a mess because I haven’t done a damn thing since I got sick). Maybe I’ll treat myself to a solo movie. I can’t remember the last time I’ve had this amount of time to be all by myself.
As for training, I’m hoping this virus doesn’t set me too far back for Grandma’s. I was supposed to have both a 10 mile tempo run this week and a 16 mile slow run today. Neither are going to happen. I just hope my fitness will get me to my 22 mile run next weekend with a few easier jogs before then. Keeping fingers crossed.

I do think I am going to venture out and be active today. A nice, easy bike ride by myself should be okay. The weather is nice and I haven’t been on my 27-mile Mahtomedi route in a while. And if I’m feeling better by Monday, I may even head out for a 60 miler. But we’ll see about that. I’m also going to attempt a shorter 5 mile run tomorrow. Very slow pace.

So, there you go.

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5 second summary of today’s race: a 51-minute 10k was not accomplished.

That said, it was a decent race. Finishing stats below:

Time: 53:03
Pace: 8:33/mile
Overplace place: 238 out of 1638 women
Division place: 34 out of 285 women age 35 – 39 (although, I guessing at the total by the last woman in that age group who finished her place).

Not bad. I finished within the top 15% of women overall and within the top 12% of women my age. I was shooting for a goal pace of 8:30/mile and I missed that by 3 seconds. 51 minutes was just a goal I threw out there — dummy me didn’t even realize that was a 8:12/mile pace until later today when I actually did the math. But I still think it’s a good goal. It’s a time I’d like to see myself hit for this distance and I think it’s possible. Especially given my 8:44/mile paced half marathon from last year.

That said, today wasn’t without its challenges. The weather was probably the first. Forget the spring-like temps we finally received last weekend, this morning I awoke to snow. SNOW. I had to scrape the friggin’ car. And it didn’t just snow. It was snow-ing. That’s active tense. The wind was blowing. The snow was falling. Weather.com was predicting mid 30 temps with mid 20 windchills. And while I run pretty strong in cooler weather, this was a little much. Where are my 50s and 60s????

So, the other “less than ideal” factor was that I hadn’t picked up my race packet yesterday. In fact, I didn’t even know I was supposed to until I was reading about parking late last night (and well past the pick-up hours). How did I not know this? I didn’t see anything when I registered. I looked at the race site earlier in the day to see start times and location and I didn’t see it there either. I’ve only done 2 other 10ks in my life and I figured it was like all the 5ks I usually run with race day pickup. Oops.

Luckily, there was same day packet pick-up (for out-of-towners). But the Web site said this was only from 7am until 8:15 am. Race time was 9:30!

But I took this as my punishment for not reading the site thorougly. I knew this was a big race (the biggest 10k in Minnesota, apparently, and the 15th largest in the country). So, I wasn’t opposed to getting an early start. I drove to the parking area with nary a problem (not many people were out yet). I hopped right on the shuttle to the park and I arrived at pick-up by 8am. There were no lines, no hassles. I had 90-minutes to wait.

Luckily, I brought a book. And, although it was cold and snowing, I found a seat in the pavillion where I read for a bit. People began to arrive. The pavillion began to get more and more crowded. Finally, at about 8:45, I decided I needed to gear up and get ready to race. I put away my book, put on my tunes and hit the rest room. I then packed up my non-race clothing and handed over the belongings for storage. I headed out for a warm-up from about 8:50 – 9:10. My feet were cold. My fingers were cold. Luckily, the light running began to warm me up.

After my warm-up, I got in line for a port-a-potty for one last rest stop. I jogged around the area a bit more and was ready to line up for the start.

During the warm-up, my heart rate monitor was giving me grief. Lately, it’s been kind of wonky at unpredictable times. Two weeks ago, it wouldn’t register during a long run and drove me batty. In Texas, it started registering off the charts (between 175 – 200 bpm) during the final 20 miles of our 110-mile ride. And quickly into my warm-up today, it was registering 185 or nothing at all. I adjusted the strap. I restarted it numerous times. I began to get very aggitated and frustrated because I’d planned on using it to pace myself — especially now that I know 163 is my lactate threshold and not 158. I wanted to go out and aim for 160 bpm for the run and see where that got me.

But it wasn’t in the cards.

When the race started, I messed with it a bit. But I soon had to give up or my performance was going to suffer. My monitor was clearly not going to cooperate and I would have to go by pace.

Because this race is so large, the start was lots of dodging around and getting past the slower runners (and this was when I even lined myself up at the 8-minute mile pacers. I don’t know my first mile pace was (because I was fussing with my watch), but I think it was around 8:16. I have no idea what Mile #2 was. But, from then on, I clocked in the remaining miles as follows:

Mile 2: 8:26
Mile 3: 8:37
Mile 4: 8:35
Mile 5: 8:33

I felt like the pace was tough but manageable. There were some rolling hills. It certainly wasn’t a flat course. The wind on the Ford Bridge sucked ass with the snow and wind. I had a couple of women that I used to keep me going at the end. A woman in pink kept catching up and I’d speed up to match her. Finally, in the final .2 mile when I thought I was cooked, she started to pass and I just booked it with whatever I had left. I crossed the finish line feeling I’d left everything I had on that course.

Thank goodness for the lady in pink and her making me work at the end because I felt close to giving up a few times.

So, decent race even though snowy, cold and more challenging that I’d imagined. I’m a little dissappointed that an above 8:30/mile pace cooked me so much. I’m even more disappointed that I couldn’t record my heart rate during the effort.

But it is what it is. And I can’t complain. There was a point out there in the race today when I looked around and it was mostly men and a few women around me and I kind of admited to myself that maybe, yes, I’m actually an athlete.

Man, I’m on Day 7 already?! I can’t believe it’s going so fast. I haven’t gotten don’t half of what I’d thought. Ugh. Pressure. Eek.

Okay. Seriously, I’ve been loving this. I was telling my hair stylist just last night that I finally feel like the old me again. Like I lost part of myself in the past 15 months and that part is now being restored. Which is not to say that I didn’t dig my job, I totally did. But it started to define me so much and I was so dedicated to it that everything else in my life receded. I’m really hopeful that this new opportunity will not have the same effect and I’ll be able to balance my life in a way I haven’t for the past year. That aspect was a selling point of the recruiter for the corporation that I’m joining, “we work hard, but we play hard, too.” As cheesy as it sounds, it was also WAY appealing.

Okay. On to Day 7.

Day 7 wasn’t as productive as Day 6. I didn’t come out with a room that I’m happy to be in again, but I *did* get out of my PJs before noon. Hee.

I spent the morning blogging, once again, while noshing on my very Weight Watcher’s friendly breakfast. I also went through a bunch of mail. I paid bills. I submitted expenses to my Flex Spending Account. I refilled prescriptions. I made a doctor’s appointment that I’d been putting off for ages. All things that are very mundane but I hadn’t made time for — it was really sad, actually. But it is amazing how good I felt to get this stuff done. It’s amazing how good getting a prescription refilled felt. I know, I already said it was sad.

After the computer / office / busy time, I got dressed and met some buddies downtown Minneapolis for lunch which was really nice. We ate at a Greek joint I love (and will highly miss as I’m about to work in the suburbs once again). And since I was in Minneapolis, I took the opportunity to stop by the Surdyks Fall Wine sale on my way home. It was fun browsing the store and tasting wines on a weekday afternoon. I came home with more bottles than I probably should have and I’m especially excited about the Chateau St. Michelle Indian Wells Merlot

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and Plungerhead Zinfandel. In fact, I’m thinking of going back to get a few more bottles of these.

When I got home, I finally went on my 8-mile run. I used the workout that I reviewed in the previous entry. It was a very chilly run in comparison to this past weekend’s weather. In was in the 50s and I had to wear my glove liners for the duration of the run. It was crazy windy, too. But I had a nice pace going (again, I run soooo much better in the cool weather) and even with 10 minutes warm-up, 10 minutes recovery intervals and 10 minutes of cool-down, I still did the 8 miles in 75 minutes! I felt good. And I was experimenting with the pace I’m going to attempt on Saturday. I’m not sure I can repeat last year’s performance (I trained much better last year). But if I try to keep my heart rate between 155 and 160 for the duration of the race, I’m hoping for a sub 2-hour half marathon. We’ll see. That’s a challenging pace for me. But it’s worth a try.

After the run and shower, I had a 6pm hair appointment. It was nice to go in and get my greys and growth covered. We’re sticking with the long hair — especially since I’ve grown my bangs out. And while I felt like I should be going dark for fall, I’m kind of in love with the blonde patch that we did in front last time. So, we stuck with it and traded the reds for more chocolates and caramels. I’m pretty happy with how it came out. I can be partly-blonde in the Fall. I don’t care what ya’ll think. ;)

The rest of the evening was uneventful. I noshed on broccoli and a baked sweet potato topped with veggie chili for dinner (again, very WW-friendly) while watching the end of The Biggest Loser. And I was proud to finish my second successful day of WW adherance (you don’t know what a victory this actually is for me). In fact, I haven’t used all the activity points I earned between Monday and Tuesday! And I even spent 2 points on a glass of wine. I felt very triumphant at the end of the evening.

And that’s it. Boring, maybe. But it was actually a very enjoyable day.

A couple of weeks ago I posted a link to these

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: two running workouts provided by Powerbar and hosted by Chris Carmichael (of Carmichael Training Systems) and Lance Armstrong. The workouts are free for a limited time (until Nov. 22) and I decided to give them a try because I’m always looking for something new and the idea of tempo and interval runs coached via my iPod was intriguing.

There are two workouts, a tempo workout that is about 1 hour and 14 minutes and a interval workout that is just under an hour.

I tried the run interval workout a couple of weeks ago. It was a pre-work, pre-dawn workout. I knew I’d have to cut it short because I only had time for a 5 miler. The workout is structured with a 10 minute warm-up and a few stride-outs to get warmed up. It then follows with sets of running intervals at 100% for 2 minutes with 2 minutes recovery and then 3 minutes with 2 minutes recovery each and then repeated, I think, 4 times. There is then a 10 minute cool-down.

I found the workout challenging and enjoyed it. I did skip the last interval due to time constraints. And it was interesting to hear Chris Carmichael’s take on marathon training. He kind of railed against the whole “long slow distance training” theory — which I’m not totally sure I agree with considering, when I did train that way, I actually did get faster. Of course, I’ve also included some type of speed work in my training, so there’s always been a mix. He also contradicted the entire “negative split” theory with speedwork. He said each interval should be run “all out” — that way nothing is conserved. Sometimes, if we’re trying to negative split, we don’t get as much as is possible out of each interval. Again, that is according to him. I’m not sure what I think, but I still enjoyed the workout and it was kind of nice to just go all out each time. There is adequate focus on form and proper technique during the intervals so, even though you’re going hard, you’re reminded not to get sloppy and risk injury.

The second workout is a tempo workout. I did that today on an 8-miler. Again, there is 10-minute warm up with a couple of stride outs. The core of the workout is 5 intervals each at about an effort level of 8 out of 10. They lengthen in duration starting at 4 minutes with 2 minutes recovery, then 6 minutes w/2 minutes recovery and so on growing to 8 minutes, 10 minutes and, ultimately, 12 minutes. I did each interval at a heart rate of between 158 and 160 bpm. Again, I found the workout challenging. I felt the coaching was good — especially the countdowns. I felt there was enough expectation given for how long was left on each interval without too much talking.

Feedback covering both: obviously, they have a product to sell and the workouts are free so you can expect a lot of selling of the gels, bars and endurance and recovery drinks. It almost gets trite at how Lance testifies his reliance on the product. And while I do believe the science supporting the products, I think they are too quick to coach users of the workouts to taking gels and drinking the products. These workouts are only an hour to 75 minutes. And, if you’re not racing, you really don’t need all this fuel, at least *during* the workout. For people actually trying to drop some weight, being coached to take a gel 20 minutes into a 75 minute workout is a little much if you ask me. And, my opinion, if you are going to talk about the product so much, you might want to get into a little more explanation of proper use. For all the times they mentioned taking gels, they never said to make sure to drink 6 oz. of water with each — which is really necessary for your body to break down the nutrition properly.

My only other beef was just how false the conversations between Chris and Lance sounded.

The music was pretty good — mostly rock with a bit of blues and alternative lean. There is one GOOFY song at the end of the tempo workout about “my roommate is a girl and she makes my life hell” that was entertaining in a completely idiotic way.

So, all in all, my two cents is that the workouts are worth downloading — especially since they are free right now. I’ll probably continue to use them. But I don’t take any gels while actually doing these workouts. I don’t think they are necessary. That said, I do appreciate the importance of a recovery drink after each.

Confession: I didn’t make my yoga date this morning. And a day full of meetings and obligations and a late bus ride home find me exhausted and un-stretched. My best bet at this point is to just go to bed and get up in the morning.

The good news is that I finally downloaded these two free podcast workouts that I received an email about a few weeks ago. It was in a PowerBar email and the workouts were created by Chris Carmichael (of Carmichael Training Systems) and Lance Armstrong. There is both a running interval workout and a running tempo interval workout. Here’s the link:

http://www.powerbar.com/PartnersEvents/LanceAudioWorkouts/Index.aspx

Hopefully, they don’t suck. :)

If you’re interested, they are free through November. And I’ll try and post my thoughts. I’m going to attempt the interval run in the morning.

In other news, I did finally replace my heart rate monitor. I didn’t manage to do it prior to Turtleman (I know, still owe that race report), but I have been using it to slack on logging my training since I got one with a crazy memory that saves workout data. Of course, it should. The damn thing is gi-normous. I feel like Wonder Woman with her fancy wristbands everytime I put it on.

I got the Polar RS200 in case you care:

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Hmm… I should probably product review that, too.

Now, though, I’m off to bed.

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Okay. I made it out this morning. It was cool — but kind of beautiful cool. The air was so crisp, it felt refreshing and natural to just pound the pavement. I was almost able to ignore the fact that it was so dark between 5:30 and 6:30 am. Damn, I hate it when summer ends. I do love the fall running, tho

I’m going to try and repeat the good behavior with Yoga tomorrow AM pre-work.

Let’s hope I can pull myself out of bed. As nice as this weather is to run it, it’s also mighty fine sleeping weather.

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I’m reclaiming my fitness. Therefore, I need to go to bed.

I have a half-marathon in a month and god knows, I don’t want to run slower this year than I did last….

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