Marvelous March

March 2022 in review!

Total mileage for the month: 399.6

• Feb. 28-March 6: 110.3
• March 7-13: 93.0
• March 14-20: 88.0
• March 21-27: 70.2
• March 28-April 3: 80.0

Miles from Mentor Saturday long run crew of 11

Races:

• March 12:  Running of the Squirrels 3.25 mile 5k as part of a long run workout in 19:50 for 1st overall female and a white squirrel!
• March 19: Havin' a Crappie Weekend Outdoor Festival Crappie Challenge for fun, pacing, and prize money! I coasted through the 1 mile in 5:43, paced Abby to her second fastest 5k ever in 20:17, and ran an 8.5 mile technical trail race in 1:08. I laughed a lot about doing 3 events that I don't even run!
• March 26:  Prairie Spirit 50k in 3:37:05 for a new Kansas 50k overall female state record, a Prairie Spirit women's course record, 1st OAF, and an experience!

DST took our morning weekday run
 daylight - this was post-run :-(

Workouts:

• March 2:  8 mile wave tempo on rolling hills in 6:44, 6:01, 6:42, 6:09, 6:50, 6:18, 6:39, 6:02. My goal was 6:00-6:10 alternating with 6:40-6:50 (MP-20 and MP+20), so everything was right where I wanted aside from mile 6, but that mile had about 60 ft of gain and I've run the route enough to know that 6:10 effort would yield a 6:20 split, so my goal was to stay under 6:20 there, which I did! Spencer ran this with me, which was very helpful. He hammered his last mile in 5:52 but otherwise we were stride-by-stride. He has Strava premium so I knew my grade-adjusted paces from his data, which took off 4 seconds on average (e.g., we averaged 6:27 pace but grade adjusted was 6:23). This workout is also known as Marathon Pace The Hard Way and I really enjoy it!
• March 5:  4-3-2-1 mile progressive tempos in a 22.6 mile run (5 easy to start, 0.5 recoveries between most but 1 mile between the 3 and 2 mile tempos due to my running buddy taking a bathroom stop, 5.6 easy to finish). My goal times were 6:30-6:20-6:10-6:00 per segment and splits were 6:31, 6:28, 6:30, 6:26 / 6:26, 6:38, 6:33 (this section was nearly all uphill and all into the 20-30 mph wind, so we decided it was worth 6:20 average) / 6:10, 6:11 / 6:03. I love this workout and my paces were pretty consistent with what I've done before on it, but I've never run such a hilly course so I was proud of myself. The 5 miles easy plus the workout portion was 17 miles total and had 1094 ft of gain per Strava. Spencer and I ran this together except for the last mile when he stomped me!
• March 9: The Michigan with 2 mile tempos all on the roads. My goal was to match or better the paces I hit for this workout on the same course in January with 1 mile tempos, and I did. It was about 25 degrees with no wind, which felt pretty perfect. Spencer ran with me which also helped! He was ahead of me on all of the 5k-10k pace stuff but we ran the threshold parts side-by-side. My splits were: 1 mile @ 10k in 5:43, 2 mile threshold in 6:01/6:00, 0.75 @ 10k at 5:53, 2 mile threshold in 6:02/6:00, 0.5 @ 5k at 5:30, 2 mile threshold in 6:05/6:02, 0.25 faster than 5k at 5:25. There was a 3:00 recovery jog after each threshold portion and 2:00 recovery jog after each 10k/5k pace portion. 6 total threshold miles at 6:00-6:05 was great for me, then throwing in the faster work really made this a fantastic workout. I don't think I could actually run a 10k at 5:43 pace or a 5k at 5:30 pace right now, but it felt good to press and didn't seem to hurt the rest of the workout!
• March 12: 5 easy, 3.2 miles at threshold (6:10, 6:12, 6:07), 0.5 jog, 3 miles at marathon pace (6:27, 6:23, 6:16), easy to 18.5. I did the very cold and slightly long Running of the Squirrels 5k for the threshold miles, which was fun - then did the course a second time for the marathon pace work.
• March 16: 3 x (1 mile @ MGP, 1:00 jog, 1 mile @ HMGP, 1:00 jog, 1 mile @ 10k GP, 3:00 jog) in 6:19, 6:03, 5:51 | 6:17, 6:00, 5:47 | 6:16, 6:00, 5:47. Perfect weather and fast friends made this a successful final big workout! I was happy with my times but even happier with how good I felt running this. The entire run (with warm up, cool down, and recovery jogs) was 14 miles, with 9 miles of work, but it flew by. I haven't really bombed any workouts this season, so I knew this could be the one, but looks like I dodged that bullet and that the Run with the Wind 25k was my worst workout of the season - worst meaning I ran pretty much my exact goal pace but found it much harder than I wanted it to be. Spencer ran the MP miles with me, and a shade faster than me on the HM and 10k pace work, so chasing him helped a lot. Also there is nothing like 10k pace to make MP feel easy!
• March 19 and 20: I did the Havin' a Crappie Weekend Challenge as my final tune up workout for my 50k. Saturday afternoon I ran 13.8 miles total (includes a 3 mile morning shake out) with the 1 mile and 5k events. Sunday morning I ran 12 miles total with an 8.5ish mile trail race.
• March 22:  The Race Week Workout That Everyone Runs Too Fast 4 x 1 mile at MP (6:10, 6:05, 6:06, 6:09) plus 0.5 mile hammer (2:48) with 1:30 recoveries. 6:10 or under is my dream MP, but not my current MP, so I held true to the workout's name! I added the 0.5 hammer to help me keep the miles under control, and thinking "I get to hammer at the end" helped but not enough for me to slow down to current MP, which I estimate to be around 6:25.
• March 31: 4 mile wave tempo alternating MP/threshold, 2:00 jog, 3 x 1:00 faster/1:00 off. My wave tempo half mile paces were 6:26, 6:06, 6:26, 6:08, 6:42, 6:07, 6:37, 6:10 and my 1:00 fasters were 5:26, 5:27, 5:38. I wasn't planning to workout until April 3, but I felt good enough to try one on the short side, plus I felt like I needed to stop slogging post-50k! I felt okay enough considering, but I couldn't dig and starting drifting on my paces towards the end of the wave tempo (I was targeting 6:25-6:35/6:05-6:10).
• Doubles: March 1, 2, 3, 7, 8, 9, 14, 16, 17, 18, 19, 22, 29, 31.
• Favorite workout: I really had fun with The Michigan with 2 mile tempos!

Post-long run #2 for the weekend

Those 2 nailed a workout on 3/6!

Long Runs:

• March 5:  22.6 miles, with a workout described above.
• March 6:  16.2 miles (8:20), for the last big double long run weekend of the season - which made me sad!
• March 12:  18.5 miles (7:12), with a workout described above.
• March 13: 12.5 miles (7:58) that felt a lot easier than the last few Sunday long runs I'd done. Turns out there is a big difference between running 18 miles on Saturday vs. 22-26!
• March 19: 13.8 miles total, although I did 3.3 in the morning then 10.5 kind of split in the afternoon at the Havin' a Crappie Weekend Outdoor Festival.
• March 20: 12 miles (8:12) total that included my first real trail race!
• March 26: 31.1 miles (6:58) at the Prairie Spirit 50k!
• Most mid-week workouts added up to long run mileage as well but I did not double-include them.
• Favorite long run: I am a huge fan of the long run workout I did on March 5.

Our UCAN sample run!

Running Highlights:

• I set a new rolling 7 day mileage PR of 116.1 from February 25 to March 3. I wrote about it here because who knows if this will ever happen again!
• My second ultra is in the books!
• I am at 7 overall female wins in 7 races in 2022 so far. I'm celebrating this streak before it ends on April 18! My undefeated in the masters division in road racing streak is also going to end (the only race I haven't won masters in since I turned 40 was on the track). Hopefully Boston is worth it!

I love this Strava graph more
than one should love a graph

Life Highlights:

• Spring break for Albani and MSU + more snow, then spring!

Happy St. Pats!

Books:

• The Girls in the Garden by Lisa Jewell
• Luster by Raven Leilani
• Closer Than You Know by Brad Parks
• Greenwich Park by Katherine Faulkner
• The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable by Patrick Lencioni
• How to Change: The Science of Getting from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be by Katy Milkman
• A Summer Affair by Elin Hilderbrand
• The Last Time I Lied by Riley Sager

Theme for the month:

• Keeping it fun. I greatly enjoyed this month of running!