Nevertheless, she persisted: March in review

March 2018 Re-Cap

Total mileage for the month:  297.8 (in comparison:  January - 207, February - 254).  Your body doesn't really know the difference between 297 and 300 miles, but your mind sure does!  Same for 68ish and 70 miles in a week...

• Feb. 26-March 4:  66.7
• March 5-11:  67.9
• March 12-17:  72
• March 19-25:  68.2
• March 26-April 1:  71.1

Races:

• March 10:  I broke my racing hiatus by competing in The Big 12 12K in 47:02, which, despite the very challenging race course, was good enough for a Missouri single age state record for age 37 (only because there are very few certified 12Ks in Missouri, because it's not a great time).  I placed 3rd overall female (the best I could have in the field), and I was glad I made the last-minute decision to compete.
• March 31:  The Easter Sun Run "10K" as a tempo.  This course is off on distance, so my goal for it is always to run it as a workout while visiting my parents for Easter and try to place overall.  I accomplished both, keeping all of my splits within 6 seconds of each other without ever looking at my watch (I'm probably most proud of that part!) and placing 2nd overall female with 39:09 (Garmin 10K split in the 37s).  Albani ran the 2 mile race at the event and I got many great photos of her!

Start of the Big 12 12K (I definitely beat the man with the
headphones, and that is my friend Michelle's arm)

How the end of a 12K feels when mile 7
has 140 feet of elevation gain

Workouts:

• March 7:  Fartlek of 3' on/3' off (2.2 warm up, 1.2 cool down for 7.5 miles on the run).  My push paces were 5:46, 5:48, 5:47, 5:49, 5:46.  I was happy with the consistency in pacing and to keep them all sub-6:00.
• March 14:  5 x 1K in 3:39, 3:39, 3:41, 3:41, 3:39 with 0.25 recoveries (3.1 warm up, 3 cool down).  My goal was 3:30 for these, so I was off that, but I ran consistent splits and with all I had that day.  I was disappointed about being nowhere near 3:30 on them, but then I looked back at my training logs to see what I'd done previously, and this was the first time I've ever run under 3:40 on 1K repeats (and I did it 3 times!)!  While it's still a relatively weak performance for me, considering that I've run mile repeats and even the final mile of tempo runs at a faster pace, it was still a PR workout and my coach was perhaps overly ambitious with the 3:30 goal.  It was kind of like when he told me to run 10 x 800 m in 2:45 and I averaged 2:56!  I did remind him after CIM that it was, in fact, possible to run 2:56 Yassos and a 2:47 marathon, so I'm filing this workout in that same category (see also:  my marathon pace and 5K pace are nearly the same).  This is also a lesson on why keeping a training log is valuable; I was thinking that I'd run them in 3:25 before, but it was really 3:45 previously, which is obviously a huge difference.
• March 20:  4 x 1 mile at tempo in 6:01, 6:00, 6:03, 6:05 with 0.5 recoveries (3.1 warm up, 2 cool down).  I'm 99% sure I'd have pushed this workout back a day had my friend Amy not been coming to run what we call "hot loops" for her workout too (we run a relatively flat 0.83 road loop for a lot of speed and tempo work since our normal routes have so much elevation variation).  It was 40*, feels like 33*, with light rain.  I have no problem running in the rain, but running in the rain with a windchill of 33* is pretty much the worst!  Nothing about this workout felt good, aside from checking it off the list.
• March 27:  10 x 400 with 200 recoveries (2.1 warm up, 2.2 cool down).  I ran this in a monsoon, on a track with standing water in lanes 1-4 in several places, e.g., how to run interval effort but only hit tempo pace (I averaged 1:31, all between 1:30-1:32).  My shoes and clothes felt like they were holding 20 lbs of water.  In a normal week I'd have bumped this a day, but it was supposed to rain pretty much non-stop all week, so I just did it.  The body knows effort, not pace, but this sure didn't help my confidence (after the Easter Sun Run I pointed out the irony that I ran pretty much the same pace for over 6 miles that I could only hold for 400 m a few days previously!).  That evening I ran a second run also in the rain.  It was like Mother Nature called my bluff on saying the weather for my previous workout was the worst!  At least it was 52 degrees...
• March 29:  10.4 miles with 1:00 pick-ups at the beginning of each mile, in more cold rain.  I didn't have this workout programmed into my watch because it was a last minute addition, so I don't know my exact paces on the pick-ups.  But, when I looked at my watch during the run my paces were basically along the lines of the March 27 workout as far as providing the opposite of a confidence boost (6:30+)!  Again, it flummoxed me that I was able to run 6.4-6.5 miles at a much faster pace on March 31 than I could run for 1:00 during this workout.
• Doubles on March 7, 14, 20, 22, and 27 (the 3 days I had both doubles and strength workouts were tricky because they were also work days!).
• Strides on March 1, 15, 22, and 28, and at least a few before all workouts and races. 
• Full body strength workouts on March 3, 7, 11, 14, 17, 20, 24, 28, and 31, and 5-10 minutes of core work nearly every day.  I do either core work or foam rolling while microwaving my lunch at work, and my microwave there takes forever to heat up food!
• Favorite workout:  If I can count the Easter Sun Run race/tempo (and this is my blog, so I can make the rules, right?), then it wins.

Long Runs/Medium Long Runs:

• March 4: 15.3 miles (7:45).  I wasn't feeling well on Saturday (sore throat and congestion) so I bumped this one to Sunday, and I still wasn't feeling well but I got the miles in.  I typically try to run easy mileage through about anything.  This was scheduled with 4 miles progressive fast finish, which I still accomplished with 7:30, 7:22, 7:14, 6:48 (after running 11 miles at 7:44-8:10), but every mile of this run was about 40 seconds slower than I'd have liked.
• March 6:  10.5 miles (7:41).  This week my schedule was atypical and I had two double digit easy long runs, with a workout day between them.  I run double digit mileage on Tuesdays and Thursdays often, but it's usually split into two runs (e.g., 8 and 4 milers).  I felt somewhat sickly for this run, but was okay with getting in the miles at a somewhat slower pace, much like March 4.
• March 8: 11.1 miles (7:11).  See March 6 note on two easy double digit singles this week.  I felt over being sick on this run!
• March 10:  15.3 miles, via 2.3 warm-up, 7.5 race, and 5.5 cool-down.  All of this was terribly hilly, and I was about to die of starvation during the cool-down.  I know I need to take a gel between the race and cool-down when I make races like this into long runs, but I didn't actually think I was going to run this race when I packed for the work trip it occurred in conjunction with, so I didn't have a gel, and the banana piece I ate did not cut it (clearly it needed peanut butter smeared on it).
• March 15:  12.1 miles (7:11).  This came the day after a workout + double + full strength workout.  If you're keeping track (and I am!), that's about 2.5 hours of working out on a work day, so I was a bit concerned that I'd be exhausted for this run, but I surprisingly felt great!  So much of marathon training is just continuing to run on tired legs, so...
• March 17:  17.2 miles (7:19).  "Average" is the best adjective for this one.  It wasn't bad, it wasn't great.  The mileage wasn't an issue but I didn't have much pep.  It was a day I would have struggled with getting out the door on my own, so I was thankful that Rebecca ran the first 10 miles with me.  I practiced drinking mid-run with no watch-stopping - grabbed a bottle off my car trunk, ran a short out and back with it, then dropped it back off.
• March 24:  16.2 miles (7:10) with 3 warm-up, 10 at my friend Michelle's marathon goal pace (6:45), 3.2 cool-down.  This run produced so many inside jokes, because it all started with her texting me that she had 6:45 pace miles within her long run and she wished I could run the workout with her (we live nearly 4 hours apart).  I jokingly asked back how far she was from Southeast Kansas, because we were visiting my in-laws there over the weekend and I knew it would be quite a bit closer.  We figured out she lives just over 2 hours from my in-laws' house, and I told her I'd drive an hour to meet her if we could find some place in the middle to run.  She found a little town for us to meet in and mapped out a route for us, starting at a hair salon called "Bob's Hair."  This ended up being one of those runs where the miles just flew by, and the 10 faster miles were 6:46, 6:46, 6:41, 6:46, 6:44, 6:37, 6:38, 6:45, 6:44, 6:47 so our pacing was on point even in the 20 mph wind (she is so ready to break 3:00!).  I'm not sure they see too many runners in Burlington, Kansas, and after the run when we were stretching a guy asked us if Bob's Hair was open on Saturdays (spoiler: it is not).  I was happy with this run because I thought in my current state the 6:45 miles would be hard, and although I wouldn't have settled into them for an easy pace, they were conversational the whole way and much easier than tempo effort.
• March 29:  10.4 miles (7:22).  This put me at running 4 out of 5 runs in cold rain for the week (fortunately at the end of the week the record was 4 out of 8).  This may have been related to the stat that I was also at 4 out of 5 runs solo for the week at that point.
• April 1 will be my next - a Sunday long run due to Saturday's race.  I'd like to point out that if I'd had a Saturday long run as usual instead, I'd have been over 300 miles for the month...but I guess I will have some extra mileage in April now!
• Favorite long run:  I felt good about the March 24 one and I loved helping Michelle crush her workout (although I also have no doubt she'd have done it without me there, just not from Bob's Hair)!

Highlights/thoughts/randomness:

• Strava and I are on break.
• I'm currently not running the best I have, but I'm not running the worst either.  I keep meaning to write a post about it, but I have been insanely busy at work and have just barely kept up with updating my monthly posts, which I do a little at a time as I go.  I have similar intentions to start a Grandma's Training Journal series here, but file this all under "things I neglect when I have a BCBA out for 6-12 weeks and am covering her caseload."  It's amazing what difference getting home 1-1.5 hours later on a weeknight makes, because I feel behind on everything.  I've been super overwhelmed and stressed at work, which I am sure isn't helping my training either, but this too shall pass!

Non-running life events:

• Albani had spring school photos on a terribly windy day.
• Albani participated in Awana Games, where her team placed 2nd.  I learned a lot about Awana Games by watching this competition.  I highly recommend the Awana program for kids - it starts with pre-K and goes through high school, so all ages are welcome!  Albani has done amazing things in it, such as memorizing all of the books of the Bible in order.
• Albani had spring break from March 12-16, which was the week after Daylight Savings Time began...whoever made that scheduling call sure knew what they were doing!  I suffered the whole week as per usual with this time change. 
• St. Patrick's Day, although we didn't do anything aside from wear green.
• We had a lot of Easter fun 1 week early at my in-laws'.

Picture day pre-photo

Professional photo

Awana Games

I wear these year-round, but this month they are actually
seasonably appropriate!

Opening the chicken tractor at Grandpa's farm

Pre-Easter egg hunt #1

This was an intense search with some Fear
Factor-esque components thanks to Aunt Amy

Big 12 12K: Nothing to lose but the entry fee!

The short:
I changed my mind about running this race approximately 500 times, but I'm thankful I decided to get out there and compete.  It is one to run strategically for place, and also to run without looking at your watch due to the crazy elevation variations.  I finished 3rd overall female in 47:02 (6:15 pace), which was also good for a new Missouri single age state road racing record for age 37, since there are very few 12Ks.  Throughout the past couple of months I've encountered some health and personal challenges, during which I've questioned if I should just cancel this entire season many times, but for this race I felt like racing and found joy in the experience, which would have been a victory even if I had run terribly!  This performance wasn't my best, but it also wasn't my worst, and I was probably more thankful for it than any other mediocre performance of my life.

"When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze." - Isaiah 43:2

The long:
I included the Big 12 12K in my spring racing schedule, after the event went well for me last year.  I travel to my agency's Kansas City division for work about once a month, and typically I can schedule when the trip occurs, so I planned March's trip for the Thursday and Friday prior to this race.  The past couple of months have been up and down for me, running-wise and otherwise, and a couple of times after I had bad runs in February I told my coach, "Just take my March races off my schedule."  Then I had a good 5 mile tempo run on February 26, and said, "Maybe leave those March races on my schedule."   

Then, I got sick on March 3, bumped my long run to March 4, and said with certainty, "I am not going to run Big 12 next weekend", and my coach made the adjustment.  I recovered faster than I expected from the illness and had great runs on March 14-15, but my mileage was heavier than it would have been leading up to a race, so I was still not planning to race, but I guess I wasn't completely ready to rule it out because Thursday morning I added a singlet, shorts, arm warmers, compression socks, and racing shoes to my packed bag before I headed out of town (related note:  this was not an adequate amount of race gear and I had to warm up in pants I'd been sleeping in and the long sleeves and ear-warmer I wore to run in on Friday morning, and also wore the sports bra I'd run in on Friday morning...don't even ask what dry clothing I changed into after the race!).

Friday morning after a night of poor sleep, I was dragging and exhausted on my short morning run, so I have no logical explanation for why I started to feel like I wanted to race after all.  I wavered back and forth, but when the time came that I had to decide for logistical reasons (around 2:00 p.m., because if I wasn't staying to race I'd start my drive back to Springfield), I suddenly thought, "Well, I have nothing to lose but the entry fee!" and committed.  I registered at the race expo and stayed Friday night in Kansas City.

Race-ready

Race morning I woke up excited to compete, so I knew I'd made the right decision.  I wasn't sure what my body would have to give, but I knew I'd lay 100% of whatever I had out there and that would be enough.  I drove to the race site, started my normal warm up, and found my parents, who'd been planning to watch the race if I decided to run it and to visit my sister's family, who lives in Kansas City.  It was in the low 30's with a very brisk wind, but didn't feel too cold in the sunshine.  I of course did not pack running sunglasses...

With my sweet dad pre-race

I knew I would have a lot of competition in the race, and that the course was not conducive to even pacing, so although I wore my Garmin, I didn't look at it at all during the race.  My goal was simply to place as high as I could in the female field.  The 12K and 5K started together (my dad's video of the start is here), and I didn't know which women were in which race, but I started off with a pack that included the woman I narrowly out-kicked for 2nd place at the event last year, Tara, along with some of her Kansas City Smoke teammates (the KC Smoke girls are pretty much all smokin' fast!).  The pace felt right, and I had a feeling that the women ahead of us, aside from Kim (who I expected to win the 12K), were mostly or all in the 5K.

Laughing on the starting line

A little after the 1 mile mark, the courses split, with the 12K going left and 5K going right.  All of the women who were a bit ahead of our pack went right.  I could see Kim far up ahead going left, but the only reason I could tell it was her was because I'd talked with her before the race and knew what she was wearing.  I could see a couple of other runners near her but couldn't tell if they were men or women, although for some reason I had a feeling one was a woman.  However, I knew that even on my best day I could not run at the pace they were doing, so my race for position was with the female pack I was with.  I was hoping that at some point during the race someone would tell us what overall position we were in, but no one ever did, so I did not know if I was racing for 2nd or for 3rd.

Our pack gradually thinned, and for a few miles I ran side by side with Tara.  We chatted some and I mentioned that it was deja vu to last year.  We follow each other on Strava so had some idea what the other had been up to since then, and I knew she was training for the Boston Marathon next month.  The distance clipped by, and at one point after I mentioned that running together was really helpful, she told me that if I needed to go ahead to feel free, as the pace felt hard to her.  I was hesitant to go, but I saw a male ahead who we'd been slowly reeling in, and I could feel our effort slowing so after awhile decided I would take off after him.

When I caught the male, I noticed he was a young teenager, so I encouraged him to latch onto me.  I told him we were coming up on a huge downhill that would feel great, but also that mile 7 was all uphill so to save some for that.  He stayed close as we accelerated down the hill.  We then had a bit of flat stretch before tackling the final uphill.

To add insult to injury, in addition to climbing around 140 feet in mile 7, you also have to weave around 5K walkers coming into the finish.  To my relief, both the hill and blockage of 5K masses were much easier than last year.  I'd been fearing the hill the entire race, but it really didn't seem that bad this time!  As for the walkers, aside from the one who hit me with his hand when turning and pointing something out to his friend (he did apologize), it wasn't terrible but I did have to run wide.  In the final 1.5 miles, I could tell that I was a bit weak from being sick, but I felt like I had my position locked in and that if another woman came up to challenge for the place, I could kick it up a gear and keep my lead.

I kicked in the final half mile into the wind, and saw the clock ticking just over 47:00 (my official gun time was 47:03 and chip time 47:02, so the big clock was slightly off).  The announcer said my name (my dad's video of my finish is here), but not my place, so I still didn't know how I'd fared for overall placing.  As I walked through the chute I saw a fast-looking woman wearing buns to the side, and then I knew I'd been 3rd, which my parents soon confirmed.  Kim won with more strength than the woman in buns in the uphill mile.  Tara came in 4th after me, and my friend Michelle was 5th.  I was satisfied with my place because it was the best I could have done in that field (1st and 2nd ran 5:45-5:48 pace, and results can be found here).  Michelle and I then took off for a 5.5 mile cool-down, giving me 15.3 hilly miles for the day.

The elevation chart has to be shown with my splits for this one!  Miles 4 and 7 have a lot of climbing, mile 6 has a lot of downhill, and the others kind of even out as far as ups and downs.  This is not an easy course and I expected erratic splits!  My pleasant surprise of the day was that my final 2.5 miles were about the same pace as I ran last year, with my uphill mile 7 being faster this year.  I worked much harder in this race last year due to the competition situation, and my overall time was about 45 seconds slower this time around, but I had a strong finish without having to kill myself this time.

I'm happy with how it all panned out, and glad I decided to race this.  I have been struggling in various ways lately, and I was so thankful to be able to get out there and run, and to want to get out there and race!  Right now I don't think that this training cycle is going to be my best, but I will do what I can, and God-willing there will be another in the fall that builds off of this one.  Any day I passionately want to get out there and compete is a blessing, no matter how I finish.

It's a marathon not a sprint anyway, right?