Pre-Covid training update

Note: This is a long overdue, pre-Covid training post. It was tempting to abandon the post, in light of everything going on. But, it's a part of my learning process, and I realize my learning process might be helpful to other masters runners figuring out their own training puzzles. A post-Covid training update will follow.

I'm happy to report that, at the beginning of 2020, I had ten weeks of the most solid training I've had since 2015. My focus for this block was mechanics, overall strength, and mileage. I wanted to put together a really strong foundation for my goal races in July and August, and I also wanted to be running well. In other words, no slogging, no aches and pains, and running fast should feel good.

After a couple of weeks getting back to running every day and doing a couple of speed/strength workouts per week, I shifted into a 2 week training cycle. The two weeks are not vastly different from each other, but different enough to allow me to get in a great mix of workouts and also to keep making small increases to my overall mileage. 

Week 1: 

M - medium-long easy run (7 miles, increasing to 11 miles in 1/2 mile increments per week)

T - speed at the track (full warmup, moderate strides, drills w/ fast strides, 1 mile or less of work at ~800m pace, a few 200m extensive reps, then a few strength/plyo exercises)

W - easy run (7 miles early, increased gradually to 8 miles)

T - medium-long easy run w/ 2-3 miles of MP effort towards the end (note "effort", no watch on this)

F - easy run w/ a little bit of stair bounding towards the end (7 miles early, increased to 8 miles)

S - long run w/ moderate progression in pace by feel (gradually worked up to 14 miles & stayed there)

S - 2 mile jog around the neighborhood, followed by pre-hab strength

Week 2:

M - medium-long easy run (same as Week 1)

T - easy run (7 miles early, increased gradually to 8 miles)

W - "normal" track workout - continuous workout (on efforts w/ float recoveries) in sets, alternating weeks at 10k, 5k and 3k efforts, with a little bit of plyometric and strength work afterwards

T - easy run (7 miles early, increased gradually to 8 miles)

F - easy run (same as Week 1)

S - long run (same as Week 1)

S - 2 mile jog around the neighborhood, followed by pre-hab strength (same as Week 1)

Mileage progression over 10 weeks: 47 miles to 62 miles (mostly in 6 days)

While I never had eye-popping workouts, I also never really started to feel run down. There were some tired days, for sure, but my overall trend was feeling stronger each week. After 5 or 6 weeks, my long runs started to feel downright enjoyable. Running ~60 miles in singles over 6 days is not something I've done before. In the past, when I've wanted to average more than 7-8 miles per day, I've switched over to adding short morning runs. Doing increased mileage in singles turned out to be very enjoyable. I keep coming back to how strong I felt. I'd go out for an 11 mile run on a Monday, and it would just go by, even at a leisurely pace. It became my new normal.

As a result of all this great training, I was really looking forward to getting into a race. With my previous goals, and the fact that I was in such a solid training groove, I decided to pass on February races and target mid-March. (Oh, hindsight, you're a devil.)

My first race was supposed to be the Teddy Opener at Roosevelt on March 7th. I was going to get in an early season 2k steeple, and I was really looking forward to it. But then some last minute work travel came up, leaving a few hours before the meet, and of course, by the time I got back, the world was a different place.

Coming next: training in the Covid world.

Training Update - Trying Some New Strategies

Most races classify runners as masters when they hit age 40, but I think most runners would agree that masters running really starts somewhere between ages 42-46. If you stay healthy, you can roll through ages 40 and 41 without losing much, and you might even think, hey, this masters business isn't so bad. Some lucky ducks manage to keep rolling a little longer, but eventually there's a shift.

I was no different. I was in the best shape of my life at 38-39, had a brief lull for iron issues at 39-40, and then was running pretty solid at 40-41. Late in 2015, still at age 41, I developed a nasty case of high hamstring tendinopathy, and there ended the honeymoon phase of masters running for me. Two and a half years later, when I was finally able to do something approaching normal training, it was like I was a completely different runner. Now it was mid-2018, I was turning 44 and I had zero fitness.

A frustrating year followed, with some progress and hopeful moments, interspersed with slow racing, poor recovery, minor aches and pains, and hormonal ups and downs (hello perimoenopause!).

All the while I was doing my best to pay attention and learn from the things that weren't going well, and when this last spring/summer season ended with one of my most disappointing races yet, I decided it was time to make some more significant changes.

One of my main goals for the fall season was to only do training that I could recover from. Sounds obvious, but for me that meant dialing things down and keeping them dialed down. Really erring on the side of caution, instead of just thinking about how it would be good to err on the side of caution. The other main goal was to work on strength/pure speed for the first portion of the season, even though taking the time to do that would leave me with a very short regular season.

I'll spoil the ending here and tell you that there was no big triumphant race at the end of the fall season, no magical moment that showed I had finally figured out the secret path to fast running in your mid 40s. In fact, the only race I ran this fall was a bit of a letdown. But I did learn some things, some of which were kind of surprising, and somehow I ended up cautiously optimistic that next year will be better. And so here are the highlights, presented as bullet points in an attempt to keep it concise.

• Started With a Speed Base - Using the workout structures from Pete Magill's speed book, I did 2 workouts a week for 4 weeks. The workouts included drills, strength exercises, plyometrics, and only a little bit of running (although I did run for warmup and cooldown). It turned out to be a fun change of pace, and one of the early workouts was challenging enough that I was sore for 4 or 5 days afterwards. One of the surprising benefits of these workouts was that my easy running days started feeling better. I was just moving better. I felt more comfortable at all speeds, and going out for an easy run become enjoyable in a way that it hadn't been in quite some time.

• Changed the Distribution of Easy Mileage - Previously a normal easy day run had been 6 miles (4 days a week), but this season I bumped that up to 7.5 miles and ended up keeping it there. This wasn't something that I planned on doing ahead of time, but early on I was trying to increase my overall mileage to normal levels while doing the aforementioned speed workouts which had very little running in them, so I started adding a few minutes to each of my easy days each week. I thought I might go back down to 6 mile easy days once I finished the speed workouts, but I found that I really enjoyed the longer runs and also that it made me feel stronger overall. Also, at the time we were going surfing for a couple of hours early on Sunday mornings, which meant I wasn't going to be much use for running that day. I ended up not running at all on Sundays, and the result was that my overall mileage was about the same, just done in 6 days instead of 7.

• Changed up the Track Workouts - I experimented with the "New Interval Training" style of workouts (http://www.newintervaltraining.com/) and found that approach to be a nice change of pace. In keeping with my goal of only doing training I could recover from, I kept the volume of these workouts conservative. I felt like I recovered completely each week, which was terrific! In the future, I will consider small increases in the volume on those.

• Reduced the Intensity of Long Runs - I only do 2 quality days a week, and one of them is my long run, which I usually do as a progression run by feel. I start very slow on those, but often I am going pretty darn hard at the end, especially as the season progresses and I'm gaining fitness. The last time I did one of those where I really hit it hard at the end, I was exhausted for the rest of the day and I felt like I didn't recover the whole next week. So all this season, I let myself progress only to a moderate effort level (aiming for 80% of how hard I might have gone in the old days), and then I made myself hold there. It worked, in that I got some work done, and was fully recovered by Wednesday's track workout. Similar to the track workouts, I was probably a bit too conservative on where I held my effort level, but that was the whole point: to establish some baselines. I already knew what too much was, now I needed an idea of where too little might be.

The thing I didn't do well? Besides race?

I let my prehab strength routine slide. While I had intended to keep doing it once a week, I was also trying to maintain mini versions of the early season strength workouts, and in the end, I didn't make space in my schedule to keep doing my prehab strength on a regular basis. By the end of the season, some mild soreness in my glute/hamstring had become a bit of an issue, so I decided to skip the other chance I had to race, and I promised myself that I would get back on the prehab strength next season.

That's it. Pretty simple and hopefully effective changes.

Going in to a new season, I'm planning a few more adjustments:

• Since my goal races are way off in the summer, I'm going to try a bit longer, more traditional base cycle than I typically do. 
• Adding a short, shakeout run on Sundays (at least until surfing gets going again), and doing my prehab strength routine twice a week.
• Field event Sundays! As soon as I get a few weeks stronger, I'm going to spend a little time on Sundays playing at track and field. By that I mean throwing, jumping and hurdling for fun. If a convenient opportunity arises, I'll hop in some field events at a meet, but really it's just for the enjoyment. Because after spending too much of the last few years frustrated with running, I think it's important to remind myself that I love the sport. 

Race Report - Officially done with Run Like Hell

This morning I ran the Run Like Hell 5k in downtown Portland. I had paid $45 for the entry. In return for my $45, there were zero mile markers on the course, no course marshalls at several unmarked turns, a mistake in the overall race results, and an awards ceremony that took place one hour after it was scheduled (or longer, we had to leave before it took place).

That made me angry.

Was the course at least accurate in the end? I have no idea. I went off course following the lead motorcycle at one of the unmarked, un-course-marshalled turns.

That made me really angry.

Now I know the boilerplate response from race directors when this happens: "it is the responsibility of the participant to know the course, blah blah blah". I did, in fact, know the course. I looked at the map just this morning. The course was new this year, so I made sure to have a picture of it in my head.
And that's why, when the lead motorcycle turned right where I thought we'd be turning left, I was confused.

Let me back up just a sec.

This was at about 2.5 miles into the race. At around 2 miles, I had passed the two guys right in front of me, moving into 3rd place overall. The first 2 guys were together a little ways off, but I could still see them and the lead motorcycle. As I struggled to maintain a hard effort, tunnel vision started to creep in. For a few blocks, I turned my focus inward to keep myself from slacking off, and without even realizing it, I wasn't looking at the leaders anymore.

Running north through the park blocks, I came out of my mental cocoon and started looking for the anticipated left hand turn, but what I saw instead was the lead motorcycle turning to the right.

I was confused. There hadn't been any arrows on the course map....   maybe I had misunderstood the direction of the loop around the park blocks? I looked up ahead and to the left. I couldn't see the leaders anywhere. There were no course marshalls anywhere either, none at the turn the lead motorcycle had taken, none at the next block in front of me (where the street came to a tee, forcing a turn one direction or the other).

I was fast approaching the corner where the motorcycle had turned, and I was getting increasingly frantic, looking everywhere for a clue. I threw my arms out to my sides and screamed at the top of my lungs "WHERE IS THE COURSE?!?!?!?!?"

No answer, no nothing. There were no course marshalls to answer me.

At the last second, I turned to follow the motorcycle. I came to a dead stop about 15 feet later when I saw the cop sitting at his bike at the next intersection. I started to turn back, paused, started again, then Joe came running around the corner the same way I had turned. I yelled to him, "is this the course?" He didn't know either, he'd been following me. I started toward the cop, yelling, "WHERE DOES THE COURSE GO?"
I was yelling. LOUDLY.
The cop just looked at me. Did he think I was joking? Or that I was nuts?
Finally he started making a gesture at me. For some reason, instead of just telling me where the course went, he was making hand signals at me that I could not understand. I yelled, "WHICH WAY IS THE COURSE?" Again.
Finally he responded verbally to go back the way we had come and turn right.

I have no idea how long this all took, but it felt like three years. I took off running back to the course, and I was so angry I almost burst into tears.
I don't know exactly how I was doing to that point, SINCE THERE WERE NO MILE MARKERS ON THE COURSE, but I was trying hard. I had possibly gotten just a bit complacent in the middle mile, but I had been rallying, and I had really been trying to get myself into a discomfort zone in the 3rd mile. There was spit flopping out of my mouth, I was talking to myself, it was going to be an effort I could be proud of.

But man, this is a 5k. You don't have 5 seconds to give, let alone 20 or 30 or 40 seconds or whatever I wasted not knowing where to go.

So when I started racing again, I was deflated in a big way. I tried to keep running hard, tried to pretend it didn't happen and focus on running as fast as I could in the moment, but it was pretty useless. I couldn't get much out of myself that last half mile or so.

I was angry afterwards. Angry angry angry. And disappointed. Really disappointed. I've been running a lot the past few months, working really hard to try to get ready for a marathon in November, and this was my only real tune up race. I knew the time wasn't going to be awesome, but I very much wanted to see what it would be. I wanted some objective feedback.

Plus, damn it, I wanted to race! The first two guys ended up separating sometime in that last mile, and now I'll never get to know if I would have reeled one of them in, or if I would have at least gotten one of them back in my sights. At least I wanted to try.

All of this brings me to a larger point.
I am really tired of race directors using the whole "mass participation" thing as an excuse to put on shitty races. The handful of people at the front of the race are not the only people that care about a course having mile markers, and a course being accurate, and being to follow the course. If you pay $45 for a race, you deserve all those things. If you pay $10 for a race, you deserve all those things.

I'm not one of those people that thinks mass participation is, in itself,"ruining our sport", or whatever it is that people say. But I do think race directors are under the impression that all people want are gimmicks, and that they don't care about anything else as long as they can get a free beer after the race. I think that's bullshit.

An accurate course, mile markers, and course marshalls are the things you should have first. Those should be mandatory. If you want to have a 3 ring circus above and beyond that, knock yourself out. But don't insult the runners by calling your event a race if you can't even provide the basics.

Redemption! - Masters 3k at USAs

This past weekend I ran the masters exhibition 3000m race that was part of the USATF Nationals in Eugene. It was a pretty darn cool experience.
There was a lot to it, too much for my usual blow-by blow accounting, so I'm going to try and summarize the highlights:

• I was chilling in the shade of one of the athlete tents before my race, and I glanced up and saw David Oliver walking by. Oh, hello there, fastest hurdler in the world! You know, no big deal. 
• Once your race has had its final call, you are then escorted everywhere you go. Escort to the call room. Escort to the start line. Escort off the track. Escort to the awards stand. Escort back on to the track for a group victory lap. Escort off the track again. And finally, escort to the media tent, where you are finally released on your own recognizance. 
• There were start line introductions. This was so foreign to me that I didn't even hear my own. I assume it went something like this: "Wearing hip number one, running for Oiselle out of Portland, Oregon, Andi Camp. She's a runner too!"
• There were beautiful, gigantic digital clocks at both the finish line and the 200 meter mark. They were mesmerizing enough to be distracting. You could also read them from very far away. When I looked over for my mile split, I saw some numbers that were very impressive until I realized that I was still about 75 meters away! 
• Having fans at a track meet is pretty great. My TRL friend Tim was in the stands on the home stretch, and I could distinctly hear his voice every lap. A group of Oiselle ladies down from the nest in Seattle were clustered at the fence on the far side of the first curve, and they were banging on the fence and chanting my name every single time I came by. It's hard to not be inspired by that kind of enthusiasm. There was even an unidentified cheer-er on the back stretch. It all helps.
• The USATF officials and volunteers are just plain good people. With all the controversy and shady doings at the top of the USATF food chain over the last couple of years, it can be easy to forget that the vast majority of the organization is made up of really cool people that just plain love track and field. A significant number of these people do not get paid, yet they're friendly, patient, and happy to be out there. They rock. 
• Watching a track meet in real life rules. I was only able to hang around for a few hours afterwards, but it's so much more impressive seeing the athletes right up close than it is watching them on a tv or computer screen. Being at Hayward Field is magic.

And the race itself? 

You know, it felt very redemptive for me. After a pretty grueling 3k a couple of weeks ago at PTF, I made some dietary changes that had an immediate positive effect. I had a couple of great workouts and was feeling much more positive going into this race. Maybe I didn't run a pr or blow people out of the water, but I showed up and ran smart in difficult conditions (80+ degrees and humid!). I had a plan and I executed. And that felt pretty darn good. 

Everyone else went out too fast (with the exception of the eventual winner, Sonja Friend-Uhl, who was in a class by herself), so I hung off the back in dead last (9th place) and waited. By 600m I had moved up to 4th place, settled in to a rhythm, and was feeling confortable, and so I started to ratchet my pace down little by little. At around 1400m, I moved into 3rd place, and with 1st and 2nd way out in front, I ran the rest of the way all by myself. Each lap was progressively faster until the dreaded 6th lap, where I faltered a bit and lost a few seconds, but I pulled myself back together for a respectable last lap and secured a spot on the podium. 

Lap splits (courtesy of fancy modern technology!): 44.1 (200m), 88.1, 89.5, 87.6, 86.1, 85.99, 87.8, and 83. something.

Oh, and one other thing: masters events are the best. Even when the masters race is held in conjunction with a major pro meet, the masters athletes are friendly and welcoming (without losing any of their competitive drive once the gun goes off). I don't know why more women don't show up for masters track events. I don't know if they're not interested or if they're intimidated about getting back out on the track, but if you're at all interested, just show up. It's fun and there's nothing to be intimidated about. You'll meet people who have been doing their events their whole lives, and others who learned to hurdle at the age of 60. 

Everyone is welcome.

PTF 3k Race Report - Out of the gate with a whimper

Having a bad race sucks. Beyond just the actual end result of not getting the time/place that you wanted, bad races are physically and mentally harder than good races. Putting out a race effort when your body is not up for it is about the hardest thing that we runners do.

So I'll say it again.

Bad races suck.

I had a bad race last night at the Portland Track Festival Masters 3k, and true to form, it sucked.

The masters womens 3k was run at the same time as the "open" 3k (open in this case meaning high school girls). The start list had been released prior to the meet, and they included seed times. There were to be 8 ladies total in the race, 4 open and 4 masters. The four high schoolers and one of the masters ladies had seed times in the 10:10-10:20 range. Mine was 10:52, and then there was an 11:00 (Jen Seibel), and another a little slower than that. The woman with the last seed time was a DNS.

In other words, there was going to be a race up front, then a gap, then the last couple of us well behind. 

Also, knowing that these were high school girls, my assumption was that they would go out fast. 

Off the line, they did just that. I was well in last place by 50 meters in. I took a split at 100m just to make sure I wasn't crazy, and it was about 18 seconds, or 72 second quarter pace. A 10:00 3k is 80 second quarter pace, just for reference. I backed off another notch and settled in to wait.

But let me back up just a second. I have very little experience at this distance, so I actually wrote out splits on a piece of paper for four different lap times, 84-87. I wasn't expecting to memorize any of them, I just wanted to have a range in my mind of where I might be. I'd also been thinking about strategy in a more general way, trying to figure out how best to run this distance, how to break it up in my mind, pacing, all that stuff. I decided that laps 5 and 6 were the key. It seems like the best thing to do is get through the first mile at just the slow end of goal pace, dig in and press for laps 5 and 6, and then hang on for all you've got for the last 600 meters. 

Knowing that I wasn't in the best racing form yet, I was really only looking to run an 86-87 pace, but I was hoping to finish strong off that pace. Or at least not die off that pace.

My lap splits did not all stick in my memory, but the first was a little fast, the second a little slow, and the 3rd about 86. At 1200 meters in, my total time was in a good place, but I was not. The pace did not feel sustainable and I was "concerned". (That's the nice way to put it.)

I went from last to second-to-last when I passed Jen about 600 meters into the race, but she was only behind me a couple of seconds. I know she's a good runner, so I wasn't expecting her to just drop off the back. The big gap to the front group had materialized, as expected, so it was just the two of us bringing up the rear. It had occurred to me that if some of those girls in the front group had gotten in over their heads with the fast start, they might come back to us later in the race and give us something to chase down, but I could already tell I wasn't having the kind of day to make that a possibility. 

The 4th lap dropped to 89. As we crossed the mile, Rick (TRL/Jen's coach) yelled out, "ok, now's when the race starts". He was right about that. Unfortunately, at that point I was sapped. I was tired, I felt flat, no spring in my legs, no joy in the running, no nothing. But there I was, running in this stupid race anyway! And it's really hard to justify dropping out of a 3k, so I pretty much had no choice but to soldier on the best I could. 

I pictured getting passed and falling even further behind. Negative brain was definitely winning at that point. But when you tell negative brain that whatever happens you're still finishing the stupid race, he pipes down for a while. 

Either lap 5 or lap 6 was a 91 (!!! Really?! what the fuck, Andi??). Jen had moved up close behind me during lap 5, but was apparently not interested in passing. I guess I neglected to mention that there was a pretty good headwind on the back stretch. Also I'm taller and wider than she is, so I imagine I made a pretty good wind break. In fact, she was so close to me that she clipped my heels 3 or 4 times in laps 5 and 6. She apologized each time, and I know she meant no harm, but I was pretty irritated. I was struggling mightily, having a painful off day, fighting the good fight, all while also doing the work for a freeloader behind me, so I felt like the least she could do is not fucking touch my feet while I'm trying to run with them! (It's possible I was also a little grumpy.) In the 6th lap, I briefly considered slowing down a bit to force her to lead and then outkicking her at the end, but that's not really how I roll. This was not some big championship race where finishing place was everything. I needed to see where I was fitness-wise and get more of a feel for the race distance, and to me that meant grinding it out as fast as I could until the bitter end. 

With 600 to go, Rick told Jen to pass me. I believe he said, "she's dying, go around her" or something to that effect. As a small aside, I find that kind of during-race coaching to be kind of funny. First of all, let me say that it's accurate that I was dying. I was sucking big time. So I certainly don't fault him for saying that. But at the same time, he knows I'm also right there, right? I can hear him just as clearly as she can. So does she really need him to tell her to pass me? And is it the best idea to announce that move to me before it happens? I don't know, I just find stuff like that amusing. He's a great coach, by the way. And it's something that a lot of coaches do. And maybe it works well for a lot of people. What do I know?

Anyway. 

She clipped my feet again as we rounded the turn into 500 meters to go. But now I could almost feel the end of the race. She was probably not feeling that terrific either, but feeling like she should make a move. As we hit the bell lap, I felt her start to move up on my shoulder. I let her run out there around the turn, increasing my pace just a teeny tiny bit to keep her out there, and she followed that up with sidling up next to me on the backstretch. Another tiny pace increase held her out there in lane 2, and then, finally, we only had 200 meters to go, and my brain woke up. I'm not going to claim I put on some beautiful, awe-inspiring kick, when it was really just increasing from a terribly slow race pace to the pace I probably should have been running the whole race, but I think I put 2 or 3 seconds on her in the last 200 meters. 

My finish time was 11:0-something, and I was spent. It was a good 20 seconds slower than I'd been aiming for, and it had been a struggle most of the way. Not a good day at the office. But in my brain I was able to walk a little taller for not giving up. I probably should have found Jen and made sure she understood that I had no hard feelings for her drafting off me and clipping my feet, (the former is just the smart thing to do, and the latter was not intentional), but I was hot and tired and yes, a little grumpy, and I needed to get a jog in and be across town for a show in 30 minutes.

So what happened exactly? Why the crappy result?

That's what we always wonder after a bad race, right? If you can resist beating yourself up too much about it, figuring out what might have gone wrong is very useful. A lot of it is conjecture, of course, but it's a good chance to get positive things out of a negative experience. 

In my case, it could have been any or all of a number of things: 

• I'm only a few weeks into my season, and the reality is that I'm just not very fit yet. 
• I've had some digestive issues the last couple of weeks which culminated in gut pain throughout my race warmup. 
• It was too warm for me. Low 70s is probably considered to be "not too bad" for a lot of runners, but I am someone who typically doesn't even race in the summer because the heat is so awful for me and who would choose 45 degrees as the perfect race temperature. 
• Low iron. I hope this isn't a contributing factor, because I am ridiculously tired of it being an issue, but that is my lifelong weight to bear. Last time I was checked (~6 weeks ago), my ferritin had dropped to 37. I expect it may have dropped further since, but we'll see.

In the immediate aftermath of this race, I found myself wondering if maybe the 3k is just not a good race distance for me. I haven't run it much, but each time has been a significant under-performance. I wondered if I should skip the upcoming exhibition 3k at USATF Nationals. 

I don't know. I'm usually pretty good at sticking with things long enough to learn how to do them. I'll keep following my plan, get my iron checked, and take it from there.

Oh, and one other thing..
Playing a super fun show is probably the best antidote ever to post-race malaise. Seriously. So cathartic.

One Season Ends, Another Begins: the review and the preview

Shaking off the Dust (Last Season in Review)
It wasn't the season I expected (is it ever?), but it was the most solid training & racing I've had since the fall of 2013, and that leaves me feeling hopeful.
It was also good because I trusted myself to make some adjustments on the fly, both to my training and to my racing schedule, and those changes worked well.
And you know what else? It was just plain more FUN to be a runner than it has been in a while.

TRAINING highlights and lowlights:

• January sucked. I made a concerted effort to consume more iron from food sources, overdid it, and suffered through a couple weeks worth of digestive woes before I could get myself back on track. I lost a couple of weeks of mileage and workout progression in my early season build, and canceled my early February rust-buster as a result. Not a great way to start.
• During the season, I made a couple of small but powerful adjustments to my training and they were pretty terrific. 
• I had noticed that I was no longer physically comfortable running at fast speeds. I felt awkward and sluggish, despite doing strides twice a week and running a good mix of speeds in my workouts. I just felt slow. I decided to try 200m repeats. My idea was to do them in sets, mostly to avoid boredom, where I would run one set on the track, then jog up to Terwilliger and do one set uphill, and then jog back down to the track for the final set. The first set on the track was dismal (200s in 42-43, which I believe is about my pr pace for 5k). I felt awkward and slow and the effort wasn't right. I was already discouraged when I jogged up to Terwilliger for the uphill set. But then a funny thing happened. The uphills were great! I was running them only a couple of seconds slower than the flat ones, and my body was being forced to get itself back into speed form. All of a sudden I felt a million times better. When I dropped back down to the track for the last set of 200s, my times dropped to 38-39, still not terrific but at least better. And it was actually FUN to run fast again. I've never been a believer in any particular workout being a magic bullet, but for my exact circumstances, this workout was just that. I repeated this workout twice more during the season, adding repeats each time, and getting faster and more comfortable each time. Hallelujah.
• I added doubles two days a week, in the form of a very short (3 mile) early morning run. It's harder to pinpoint what specifically prompted this, I was mostly following a hunch that I needed a few extra easy miles per week, just a little extra endurance stimulus, in order to absorb my workouts better. I tend to be an all or nothing kind of person when it comes to doubles, meaning my mileage will either be in the 80s when I'm running twice a day (during marathon training), or high 50s when I'm running once a day (the rest of the time). Twice a week doubles seemed to work out pretty well, though, it was a good balance. My long runs finally started to come around, and everything felt just a bit better.
• I added a new strength routine twice a week. This one: Dobert strength routine. I kept all my usual routines (dynamic warmup, yoga, myrtl, foam rolling, stretching), but adding this short new strength routine did a bang-up job of getting some more intensity to my core and upper body. It was challenging yet manageable, and I could feel it working. I will definitely be carrying this over to my next training cycle. 
• I weaned myself off the TCM herbs I'd been taking. I did this gradually, and as I did, I felt better and raced better, but my ferritin also dropped. Jury's still out on that one. Not to get too far off track here, but I think this is something I will always struggle with. I have to remind myself sometimes that I was a 17:40 5k runner before I ever started getting IV iron. That's still pretty good. Sometimes I think the best solution going forward is to eat (and be) as healthy as I can, and accept, at least to a degree, the limits of my physiology in regard to iron uptake. Like I said, jury's still out. 

RACING highlights and lowlights:

• My racing plans changed significantly during the season. Originally I had only 3 races on the schedule: rust-buster 5k in February, Shamrock 5k in March, and Vernonia Half in April. I skipped the rust-buster and significantly under-performed at the Shamrock 5k, and then all bets were off. I ended up adding 3 races to my schedule on the fly, and finishing my season by racing 4 weekends in a row. And it was ok. It was fun, even. This will probably NOT be a new way of doing things for me, but it feels good to have recognized the situation at hand and adapted accordingly.
• 5ks: I ran 3 of them: Shamrock in March (19:15), Hop Hop in early April (18:45) and Race for the Roses in mid-April (18:33). That's a decent but not spectacular progression of times, and I would still be a little disappointed (workout fitness was pointing to low 18s, not mid 18s) if not for the specifics of the last one, the RFTR 5k. In that one, my first mile split was ~5:50, the fastest I'd gone out in a 5k since late 2013, and I responded to that first mile split by speeding up for the second mile, running closer to 5:45 for the second mile. Those first two miles put me about 20-30 seconds ahead of two miles in any other 5k (again, since 2013), and I wasn't dead, I was just normal hurting for 2 miles into a 5k. Obviously I lost some time in the last mile, but there's also a pretty mean little hill about 600m from the end. On a flat course, I'm sure I still would have slowed in the last mile, but the hill cost me at least 10-15 seconds (it chewed me up and spit me out!).
• Vernonia Half: I wrote a race recap of this one already, so let's just say it was damn good.
• TRACK!! It seems like every spring for the past few years I've been meaning to get back to racing on the track, but it never pans out. This year was looking to be more of the same, but then I found out that there's a 3000m masters exhibition race at USATF Nationals this year (conveniently held in Eugene). That means you get to run at the pro-level nationals meet at Hayward Field. Even though the exhibition races generally take place before the main meet starts, it's still pretty cool. The only caveat is that you have to have a qualifying time to get in. I've only run a couple of 3ks in my life, and the last one was in 2010 (too long ago to count). So I found myself down in Eugene for the Hayward Classic, on what would be the 4th weekend in a row of racing for me. The qualifying time was not particularly fast relative to my fitness, so I mostly wanted to start learning how to race the 3k. I'd been hoping to run 10:40 or under, but I settled for 10:52. My focus during the race was mediocre at best. I got stuck in a little gap behind the fast dudes and ahead of the rest of the field, and I didn't have the mental fortitude that day to run well by myself. I'm ok with it, though. The last 1k went by faster than I thought it would, and that's important to remember for the future. Most races (5k and shorter in particular) are about trusting that you can handle the pace even though it will seem too hard too early. That takes experience and now I've acquired a bit more.

Onward and upward! Hopefully! (Next Season Preview)

My next training block is 10-12 weeks long. I kept my break shorter (2 weeks) and more active (maximum 2 days off per week) than other recent breaks, and I feel pretty good about that. The first 6-7 weeks will be geared a little more towards speed, culminating with (hopefully) a couple of 3ks on the track, followed by a month or so of higher mileage and strength work, leading up to a half marathon. It's a slightly shorter training block than typical, but that's the length that lends itself best to fall marathon goals.

Along the way I'll be making a small adjustment to my transition workouts (first 3 weeks of the block). Instead of my usual casual strides during a run on Tuesday followed by a fartlek on the roads on Wednesday, I'm going to be doing some low volume 200m repeats (uphill followed by flat) on Tuesdays followed by fartlek on Wednesdays. 

Unfortunately, I'm already being tested in my first week back. While I enjoyed the back to back "workouts" (both were pretty short) in the first half of the week, I was then hampered by an allergic reaction to the lidocaine hidden in the aloe vera gel I was using on some slightly over-exposed areas of my skin (uh... what?!?!). I was too slow to figure out what was going on, unfortunately, as the more irritated it got, the more aloe I used in a vain attempt to stop the horrid itching. The result was a really gross infection spreading all over the skin on my chest and belly, 3 missed days of running, and general fatigue this morning as I tried to get back into it. Also, I am now on the dreaded antibiotics (oh the horror!!!) and all I can do is hope that they don't fuck me up for an additional three weeks like they did last time I took them. 

Ah well, it's never simple, right? 

Vernonia Half race report - a pretty darn good day

Let's get one thing out of the way up front: The Vernonia Half is a net downhill course. The first couple of miles had some uphill and some downhill that was a little too steep for my taste, but then there were 4-5 miles that were a mix of flat and gentle downhill, followed by 6 miles of flat to the finish.

So this was a pretty fast course. On the other hand, my go-to strategy for the half marathon is the big negative split: super easy first couple of miles, easing down to a decent pace, running the middle at something resembling goal pace, and then cranking out the last 5k like my pants are on fire. That's how I like to run a half marathon. Unfortunately, you can't really get away with that when the fastest part of the course is the first half. Not that flat is generally considered slow, but if you run more or less downhill for 4 consecutive miles, when you then hit the flat, it's hard to turn on the jets.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

It was almost perfect weather this morning. The only thing that would have made it better was a strong north wind, because this was a point to point course, going pretty much south the whole way. The predominant wind direction this time of year is south, though, so really I should be thankful that the wind wasn't stronger.

The race was put on by ORRC, which, in my limited experience, means that it will be relatively small, but very well run. Low emphasis on swag and glitter, high emphasis on accuracy, professionalism, and ridiculously reasonable prices. All of that was true today.

We started up in Stub Stewart State Park, with the first couple of miles on the road up there, and then just after 2 miles we merged onto the Banks-Vernonia Trail, which is a paved bike path, rails to trails style.

Off the start line, there didn't seem to be any women around me. The first couple of guys took off like they meant business, but a pretty decent sized smattering of guys remained in my general vicinity. About a mile in, one guy pulled up next to me and said hello. I gave a non-committal nod or whatever until I recognized him as the guy that had finished one place behind me in last weekend's Hop Hop 5k (hey, I don't name the races!). We chatted a few minutes and ended up running the next mile or two together.

Right about the same time, a woman appeared on my right and rolled right by me. She had one of those arm band ipod things, and I didn't recognize her, but she rolled on by like she knew what she was doing. Huh, I thought, interesting. Either she is more serious than she looks, or she'll be coming back to me in a few miles. I don't spend too much time worrying about things like that in a race, though. I may not be a seasoned half marathon runner, but I've run enough of them to know that you can't win the race in the early miles, you can only lose it. I didn't let her go because I didn't take her seriously, I let her go because I didn't want to run that fast in the 2nd mile of the race.

At two miles, I was already averaging 6:45 pace, which was quite a bit faster than I planned to start, so I made a concerted effort to check my effort level and relax. By the third mile, the guy running next to me had moved off ahead a bit and I was glad. I need my own rhythm in a race, especially a long race, and it's harder to find with someone right next to you.

Even with relaxing and letting the guy go, I found I was still running faster than expected. But I stopped worrying about it and just ran. Whenever the trail would straighten out a bit, I would see the woman who had passed me up ahead, maybe 100 meters or so. She had fallen in with a small group of guys. I was starting to get genuinely curious if she was going to tank or not. But I refused to chase. Way too early for that.

I was in a good place. I was feeling smooth, I was not labored at all, and the miles started clicking by. I was grabbing my mile splits, and was slightly startled to find that I was averaging sub-6:30 pace. Guys had stopped passing me by about 4 miles, and one by one they were starting to come back. From mile 4 to around 7 or 8, I probably passed 4 or 5 guys, one at a time, spread out quite a bit. It was good though, gave me something to focus on.

And still, I'd get glimpses of the woman and the little pack in front of me. I concluded that they were definitely not putting any new distance on me. They seemed to be running about as steady as I was.

Just after mile 7, when the downhill section is just about to end, the trail comes out of the trees and goes right through the middle of a big open field. That's when I first noticed the wind. There hadn't really been much of any wind in the tree covered sections, but now it was smacking me in the face. And I was all alone and my competition was up in front of me, tucked in behind a pack of guys. Nice going, Andi, I thought, way to be the lone wolf. 

At the same time, I couldn't help but think that I was starting to gain on that group. Were my eyes playing tricks on me? I didn't know for sure, but as the trail finally flattened and my legs said, uh, hello up there? flat feels like uphill now! we don't like this!, I knew the real race was finally starting.

As we moved into the flats, I dialed up the effort level a notch. Free and easy was back there with the downhills, now it was just work. Through 8 miles I was still under 6:30 pace. I had a buffer of about 20 seconds (total). By the way, 6:30 pace was not specifically my goal going into the race, but it is awesome because the math is so easy even a race brain can do it.

At nine miles, I was still under, but I'd lost a few seconds of my buffer. I was slowing, but remarkably very little. And the gap was shrinking. Inch by inch. But it was also getting harder. Breathing was getting questionable, legs were starting to get heavy...  I know from past experience how much the wheels can come off in the last couple of miles of a half marathon, and I still had 4 more to go..  but what the hell, I was already in 2nd place, I had nothing to lose by pushing through.

I started moving myself into the one-mile-at-a-time head space. I told myself how 10 miles was double digits, and that would make it feel good to get there. And instead of thinking that I will still have 3 miles to go when I get there, I told myself that it will then only be two miles to the end of the trail, and that the last mile on city streets will go by way faster because it will be different.

At ten miles, I was still 17 seconds under 6:30 pace, and I'd gained a few more precious feet on the pack in front of me. 6:30 pace started to become this magic number. All I had to do was get to the next mile marker without losing my buffer, and then repeat.

Things were starting to get ugly, but I wasn't slowing much. A line of cyclists came by in the other direction, and the guy in front said to me: she's right up there, you can catch her! 
Every time I felt myself losing momentum, I'd re-focus and think, just don't slow down yet. Just run this speed a little while longer. 

At 11 miles, my buffer was down to 7 seconds, but I was now probably only 30 meters or so behind the group I was chasing. Things were getting grim. Just one more mile to the end of the trail, I thought. And now I really felt like I was chasing. My form was getting questionable, my breathing was starting to get crazy, my legs were all kinds of pissed off at me, but I was gaining, damn it, I was gaining.

I started to be able to see the end of the trail, like a light at the end of a tunnel. Buckle down, Andi!, I thought. At the 12 mile marker, I looked at my watch to see that my buffer was gone, but exactly gone. I was dead nuts on 6:30 average pace at 12 miles. (I should note here that I didn't even know what overall time 6:30 pace would yield, but I figured it had to be under 86, right? And low 86 had been my A goal coming in, so I was clinging to that 6:30 number like it was a lifeline.)

Where the trail ended, we had to make a right turn followed by a quick left on to the sidewalk of the main drag through town. To my dismay, the lead woman, now probably only 20 meters in front of me, turned to look back and see where her competition was. Fuck, I thought, so much for sneaking up on her. I could see her give a little surge, but damn it, I'd made it this far, I wasn't going to just give up.

Unfortunately, we were now running down somewhat narrow sidewalks, and up and down curbs, and that's actually way more challenging at the end of a race than it sounds. I'd gain a few more inches, then I'd lose focus and stop caring for a few seconds, then I'd look up and re-focus, and then I'd get hit by a wave of fatigue and stop caring again. When I'd stop caring about catching them, however, I'd remind myself that I was running a pretty damn good time, and that even if I didn't catch them, I needed to get my ass to the finish as fast as possible.

Finally I could see the school. I didn't know exactly what the finish looked like, but I knew we had to run most of a lap around the school track to finish. I fervently hoped that we weren't taking some convoluted route to get to the track. My legs were nearing a full revolt. Please let the track be very close to the street, I thought.

We hung a ridiculously sharp left turn into the parking lot of the school through two rows of cones (seriously, do you race directors know how sharp turns like that feel at the end of a race??). Across the parking lot and there was the blessed track. I was so tired that I spent the few seconds across the parking lot hoping that it was only a half lap on the track, because a full lap seemed ridiculous.

I had once again stopped caring about the woman in front of me until we got on the track. She was maybe 20 meters in front of me as we entered the track. But then we were on the track. The track! I love the track! I thought, damn it, Andi, just try! who cares if you don't catch her, just try!

So I tried. I dug in and started "sprinting", and for about 3 seconds it actually felt kind of good. I don't know if someone yelled to her or what, but she looked back again and saw me. Again I thought, FUCK. She looked once more. She started to speed up a little, and my legs turned to bricks. I felt my speed slow drastically as my legs refused to participate in this foolishness anymore. Down the back stretch I wobbled (because yes, it WAS a full lap around the track, and in the 3rd lane, no less!). As I hit the 200 mark, I gathered myself one last time. I knew I wouldn't be catching her at that point, but a race is a race, and even an awful sprint is better than no sprint. As the clock came into focus, I saw 85:0X ticking away, which made for some very bittersweet last few strides. I was stoked to be seeing 85, but totally bummed that I'd not sneaked in under.

My official time was 85:17. The woman who won crossed the line about 8 seconds in front of me, although I found out later that she had also chipped me by quite a bit, and her official time was 84:59.

Still, I was pretty happy. I have no idea why I was able to overachieve (based on my workout fitness) for a half marathon when I've been completely underachieving on my recent 5ks, but holy cow does it feel nice to have a decent race result.

As we "walked" (Paul walked, I wobbled) to the car, I can say without a doubt that I ran my freaking legs off today, and that is something I have not been able to do in over a year and a half. Is it premature to say that it feels good to be back? Does this mean I'm BACK? God, I hope so.