Oh Everest, My Everest

This weekend's 20-miler really highlighted how far I have come since last year at this time. The first indicator of the difference was my ability to walk around, squat, and ride my bike without an extraordinary amount of pain. I didn't even take any NSAIDS to kill the swollen knees! (And they didn't even swell until after I stopped running!) The cold shower took care of that in a jiffy.

Despite not putting as many miles in the bank in preparation for the big marathon withdrawal, my fitness level has been far above where it was at any other time in my life - with the single possible exception of when I was studying karate. I did some mean stuff in those three months, strength-wise, but even then I had nothing close to the endurance I have now. Aside from being in a general fitness arc that's on the rise, I believe I can thank riding fixie all over town since the end of last semester, working for the park service in a job where I had to hike around the sides of the highway carrying a GPS unit on my back, and continuing to run even if it wasn't as regularly as I would have liked. All of this really showed during every step of those 20 miles I ran on Saturday morning.

For one thing, I didn't feel significantly different in the second ten miles than I did in the first. That is pretty unusual for me, with the last five often feeling worlds worse than the first five. Yet it felt to me like a steady forward effort from beginning to end, instead of the game where I guess at which mile my nice day in the park degenerates into never-ending torture. (Yes, it really used to feel that way.) As I have always known about the marathon but perhaps not kept in mind nearly enough, running 26.2 miles is more of a mind game than anything.

The mind game of which I speak is not magic shoes or what do you think will happen if I put my foot in this blender. I am talking about the challenge of getting into the right mindset, of arming yourself with the right tools to succeed. The first step is always to begin with the end in mind (hat tip to Stephen Covey). I think this is where I really let myself down last year (and again in LA). My only goals were to have a good time (what does that even mean in a marathon?) and to finish. Finishing is a worthy goal, but why not finish and also push your limits? Why not see what you are capable of? This never occurred to me while training for MCM'07 because I think the idea of running a marathon was still sort of untouchable to me, and I inexplicably clung to the image of concerts and ball games where the people in the very back are having the best time despite having the worst seats in the house.

This year, my goal is pretty clear. I want to run it a lot faster than last year. Exactly how much faster is not as important because I have a second goal - to cover the distance with more or less a continuous effort. I'm not deluded, because I know things are going to get progressively harder and more painful as the miles add up, but I know that there is a vast difference between last Saturday and one year ago. I want this marathon to be more like last Saturday.

I am going on at length about all of this because I wasted a lot of time on unimportant things during this run, but I did manage to maintain a steady sense of forward momentum while I was running and avoid excessive walking. This was reflected quite accurately by the numbers. I had once again forgotten to turn off the auto-pause function so the timer stopped for every pit stop and loss of satellite reception, and that conveniently separated my short GU breaks (walking) from my getting lost and waiting for people breaks (standing). Leaving out all of the map checking and waiting for people fluff, I finished in 4:07:48 with an average pace of 12:23. This is a pace I can not only live with, but be quite happy about for a marathon finish. That would mean breaking 5:30, which is a significant improvement over my first two marathons.

The really encouraging news is that the actual time for this 20 (when I factor all of that wasted time back into the equation) is 4:40:14, which is a 14:13 pace. (As a reminder, my average pace at MCM'07 was ~14:35.) That means that the worst case scenario is that I continue to waste lots of time by hanging around at the aid stations for way too long and still I am better off than last year! Of course, I am NOT planning to waste so much time again, and am instead figuring out the best way to run with people who are slightly faster than me. There is one candidate in the group this year (my saint from the 18-miler), but she may turn out to be too fast on race day when she has no incentive to wait around for me. My other alternative is to sign up with a pace group. Either way, there are options. I am trying to con some friends from school into showing up on course to pace me for a while, too. This feels like a recipe for success.

Labels: blue powerade, GU, knees

Official Time: 3:16:47
Average Pace: 15:06

I don't have a lot to say about this, except that it was a bloodbath. By itself, it is a challenge and I fully expected to finish in the neighborhood of three hours since my PR is around 2:43 and my first half was Riley's (what I thought was the hilliest of the hilly races), which I did in 3:02. Trail running is new to me and I have been told time and again to expect a much slower time because of the extra effort it takes to cover the terrain. Granted, I had a pretty easy time of the actual terrain thanks to all those day hikes Michele and Keith took me on in my teenage years, but the constant and rapid elevation change was definitely a killer. Not to mention the single track dirt "path" that made it pretty harsh to pass people who are going slower than you or who decide to start walking when you're not ready to do the same. It seemed like every time I got to the bottom of another hill, I'd have just enough energy to keep jogging up with the same effort I was using on my approach but not enough to go faster than that. This cost me many precious minutes as I'd often get stuck behind some walkers without the necessary juice to pass them.

So, I'd say 15 of those 30 extra minutes above PR were because of the race conditions, most of which I knew about in advance. (Next time, I'll quit thinking it's rude to pass nice ladies who start walking in front of me on a narrow, single-wide trail and make sure to save energy to get past them and stay past them.) The other 15 minutes I attribute to all manner of stupidity.

Bobo move #1: donating blood three days before the race after having spent the last 4 months accidentally losing weight because you haven't had time to eat as much as you used to.

Bobo move #2: going through with your blood donation three days before the race even though your period decided to start in the minutes it took you to make your way over to the building with the blood drive.

Bobo move #3: drinking less water than usual for the entire week preceding the race because your nalgene is smelly and heavy, and you don't want to make your bike commute to school more unpleasant than it has to be.

Bobo move #4: leaving your fuel belt at home and not being able to carry any fluids with you on a race through the woods with less than ample course support.

I guess the bright side is that the race premium was a sweet v-neck, short-sleeve performance shirt that happened to match my kicks. While this experience left a bitter taste in my mouth regarding my ability to perform adequately when I fail to plan properly, it did light a fire under my seat about trail running. I like all the muscles that were sore the next day and I particularly like that I didn't have to spend a single moment inside a gym to make them sore. Me and ol' Fountainhead are going to butt heads a few more times this winter and see if we can't be better friends.

Here are my photos at the two deceptively flat sections of the race:

Labels: blood donation, curse of womanhood, fountainhead, GU, half marathon, mountain trail, race, swollen hands

There may be a piece of my brain missing, but I sure do love a good long run in the rain. Last Sunday, I spent three and a half hours slogging through puddles and wiping Tropical Storm Hanna out of my eyes to keep my contacts in. I am fairly certain I complained a lot (at least in my head), and felt like giving up just about every other second. But then I felt guilty for promising to keep a newcomer from getting lost so I did my best to stay with her despite my internal protestations. I was watching her heels and jumping over (or through) enormous puddles most of the time, so my mind was sufficiently occupied. I am thinking they should create a new track & field event - the marathon steeplechase.

The highlights of the run were the ridiculously steep hills at the turn around (miles 8-10) and a group of fellow runners' reactions to a sign warning not to touch the water because the creek was a sewage overflow area. I decided to just keep it to myself that the sign was referring to the water in the ditch about 10 feet below and not to the stuff that was coming out of the sky. I guess that's a little bit evil, but if you don't have enough sense to know that sewage overflow doesn't come from the clouds, then you probably deserve to feel a little icky from thinking that the rain falling on you contains urine. If there were actual human waste getting on them somehow, you can be sure I would not stay silent.

In any case, I am very grateful to the saint who slowed down to run 18 miles with me in order not to get lost because I surely got the better end of that deal. I am also glad to have passed the test I made for myself today! I increased my mileage by 50% in one week, which is generally not advisable, but I didn't injure anything and even made record time. MCM, here I come!

Labels: blisters, GU, long run, purple gatorade, rain