A welcome curse

I think I've come to a conclusion about me + marathon training: the 16-miler in my 16-18-20 cycle is cursed. And I am OK with that. Evidence:

Detroit Marathon, 2009: shooting pain from an ITB injury, cut the 16-miler short and limped back to my car frustrated, defeated, sad (read that anti-pep talk here). I repeated the 16-miler the following week and went on to a huge personal victory with the race (here).

Lewis & Clark Marathon, 2010: The 16-miler was a total disaster. I didn't hydrate properly and waited an hour too long in too hot weather to start the run. The 18-miler the following week went really well and I went on to PR the race by over 27 minutes. (now I'm just bragging)

Cleveland Marathon, 2011: Last weekend's 16-miler didn't go badly, it didn't go at all. Thank you all for the comments. You made me feel so much better about it, and convinced me to be easier on myself. I still wasn't convinced that I could spread my 13.1 mile success from Martian into 26.2. My workouts went well this week, but I was still apprehensive. So when I started out today's 18-miler, I wasn't at all sure how it was going to go. Here's how it went:

Mile 1--9:34 (whoa lady, slow down! You know from experience not to run long runs at race pace! What are you doing?!?)
Mile 2--9:40 (well, this does feel easy, but cool it, lady. Cool it.)
Mile 3--9:55 (ok, slow-down enforced. But I wanna go fast.)
Mile 4--9:36 (I might pay for this later)
Mile 5--9:54 (now KEEP IT HERE)
Mile 6 & .3 (end of first loop)--9:45 pace

Second loop: 9:38, 9:36, 9:37, 9:31, 9:35, 9:28.
Holy consistency, Batman! By this time (total, 12.6 miles), I'd decided that the pace was fine and I probably wasn't going to pay for it. But I've never pulled a pace like this at this distance. I was sort of in disbelief!

Third loop: 9:31, 9:28, 9:33, 9:23, 9:31.
I felt awesome. AWESOME. I felt as fresh at mile 16.5 as I had at mile 2.

I don't want to get cocky here. Believe me, I'm still terrified/excited/terrified about race day. But I'm really pleased with today's run, and I got a little confidence back. One more (very) long run to go--20 miles on deck for next weekend.

Post-half training

I noticed that JoannaRuns got a few new followers this week--welcome, and thanks for joining my journey!!


I learned a lot this week. Primarily, that I left too much on the course last Saturday. But it took me a few days to figure this out. Going into this week I had 40 miles on the schedule, which is a first for me, ever. I kept telling myself, "Sure, it's 40 miles, but it's an easy 40." Um, right. Just because there was no speed or pace work doesn't make the distance any shorter.

• Monday: 5 miles, easy. My legs felt like J-e-l-l-o for about 1.5, then it was fine. 
• Tuesday: our yoga instructor didn't show up...again. So my yoga buddy and I went out to breakfast instead. Yeah, I'm hardcore like that.
• Wednesday: 8 miles, easy. It was pretty unremarkable. Average pace 9:46. 
• Thursday: missed the 6:40am text from my neighbor saying she needed more sleep. So I waited 10 minutes then headed out to hit our usual route. Soon thereafter I went to the airport to pick up The Beastie for our epic scrappy weekend, which included this:
  
  
• Friday: due to a scheduling conflict I decided to switch my rest day from Sunday to Friday, then run Saturday and Sunday. So I rested. 
• Saturday: Friday night I stayed up late eating cake and drinking wine, so an early morning run wasn't happening. That left me 6:30-7:45pm to run. Conveniently placed right after dinner, I wanted to puke every.single.step of the way. It was a really bad decision. I finished 6.3 of my 8 mile run before it got dark and I *really* wanted to hurl. Gross. My stomach hurt all night up to and including,
• Sunday: at 4am, when I woke up to take The Beastie to the airport. I got home at 5:30am, crawled back into bed, and just fell asleep before The Kiddo awoke at 5:45 demanding chicken nuggets. WTF. Even though Sunday is my weekend day to get up with him, Mr. Joanna took the bullet and let me stay in bed. i love that man so much. 

I really never did recover enough today to be productive. It was hard enough to walk to the park and sit on a bench while the kiddo played for an hour. And grocery shopping was almost torture. It was only this morning that I accepted the truth: I PR'ed by a bigger margin than I expected last weekend. Then I didn't decrease mileage at all (just intensity). Then I ran 6.3 miles about 20 minutes after eating dinner. Then I got up at 4am and slept in snippets through the morning after that. The outcome:

the 16 miles just wasn't happening today.

I've accepted that life got in the way of my best laid plans. I also acknowledge that I have a tendency to over-schedule myself, but honestly, that's how I'm happiest. Even so, I've accepted all of the following about today's FAIL:

1. I'm afraid. I have a marathon in 5 weeks. I only have 2 more really long runs, and I've only hit 16 miles once so far this training cycle. So I'm afraid. Am I really going to be able to PR by the margin I've imagined?
2. I'm relieved that I allowed myself to rest. I needed it, and it was the right decision. 
3. I have no idea what time I'm going to pull at Cleveland. 
4. The recent heat wave (90? In April? Really?) has me scared about weather on race day.
5. I now understand what it means to "leave too much on the course" 

Tomorrow begins a new week of marathon training. I'm going to nail this week. It's another 40 mile week, and it includes speed and pace work, and I'm determined. The next 2 weeks are absolutely critical. Stick with me. 

Race recap: Martian Half

Pre-race
The kiddo and I flew into Detroit on Friday night. Landing after 6pm, I was focused on getting out of the airport ASAP so we could go pick up my race packet. I got into ODP's car to discover that he'd picked it up for me; I was sad to miss the Expo but so relieved that it was in-hand and we could just go eat dinner. We headed to his place for a yummy pasta dinner with the fam. And to take this picture. Just so there's no question here, this is K-dot flipping off my shirt (which I only own to spite her) and I'm wearing a ribbon that I pulled off their birthday present to me and put in my hair to be silly.

It took a while to get the kids settled into their sleeping arrangement, and not long after, we all headed to bed for the night. I had everything all laid out so morning went pretty smoothly. Just a few minutes behind schedule, ODP, the kiddo and I were off to the start line, thanking God for the glorious weather! It didn't take long to find The Redhead, decked out in signage and sparkle as promised. She had an awesome goody bag put together for the meet-up. I'm ganking her pic from pre-race.

I pre-Gu'ed and headed to the start line with ODP and the kiddo there to see me off.

Miles 1-4
After reading good reviews online, I'd decided to use a Pace Band for this race, since, as I'd told Meg, I was going to audibly cuss if I didn't break 2 hours. Using their modified warm-up strategy, I forced myself to take it easy in the first and even second miles, settling into the race. I totally looked like a newbie with the pace band though, manically checking my left wrist to read the band and my right wrist to read my Garmin.
mile 1: 9:13
mile 2: 9:03
mile 3: 8:57
mile 4: 8:58

Miles 5-8
The pace wasn't supposed to vary much since the course was pretty flat. So I held the pace and attacked the rolling hills and felt awesome. My Garmin kept chirping away at each mile marker. Well before the turn-around I started seeing the fastest runners coming back toward us, which is fun. There were some hoots and hollers of encouragement when the first chick passed us coming back. Then this happened:
Mile 6--Garmin chirped, ran past mile marker
Mile 7--Garmin chirped
Me: "Huh, I must have missed the mile marker."
About 0.3m later, the mile marker.

I had no idea what had happened. I couldn't figure out how I'd lost more than a quarter mile between miles 6 and 7. I thought maybe the mile 7 marker was misplaced, but when markers 8 and 9 came 0.3 later than my Garmin, I was just confused. And a little worried. If I was off 0.3 miles, then I was also off pace by just shy of 3 minutes, and how in the world was I going to make that up?
mile 5: 8:55

mile 6: 9:00 (Gu)

mile 7: 8:49

mile 8: 8:44

Miles 9-12

I kept running sub-9 minute miles and I kept feeling great! I couldn't believe how easily the miles were ticking by and how much energy I still had. I had a brief moment of fatigue around mile marker 11. I backed off a few seconds then found I was ready to attack all over again. After that moment passed, I knew the remaining distance was short enough that if I felt good, I should just go for it!

mile 9: 8:41

mile 10: 8:38 (the extra 0.3 on my Garmin is in here somewhere, I'm just not copying it)

mile 11: 8:46

mile 12: 8:45

Last 1.1

I felt great! I kept looking at the total time on my Garmin, sort of in disbelief that I was going to finish under 2 hours even though I'd somehow tacked on an extra 0.3 miles. Thinking of all the times I'd envisioned finishing this race this way--under pace, in gorgeous weather, feeling great, and thrilled. 

mile 13: 8:19

mile 13.1: (0.12 actually), 50 seconds, or 6:51 pace

About that extra distance

The turn-around was in the wrong place! I wasn't crazy--the race really did measure 13.4 miles. Race officials are handling this appropriately and will issue adjusted finishing times soon. 

All the stats

Gun time: 1:59:39

Chip time: 1:58:37

My totally unofficial adjusted 13.1 time: 1:55:56, a 10:13 PR.  

Overall place: 624/1836

Age/gender division: 33/136

Post-race

The Blogger/DM meet-up was a blast. I got to meet some new people and some people whose journeys I've followed online for a while, including my bloggy friend and co-conspirator for the Martian Invasion in the first place, Jess!

The trip home

This morning. The kiddo was tired. I was tired. We were both a little cranky. It was not fun. So why mention it? Because just after we got home, ODP called asking if I had his....wait, let me look, oh I did, how did that get there? Seriously?!?

His keys. Car keys. House keys. Office keys. All his keys. Hitched a ride to MO in my purse. One overnight mail envelope to Detroit, please!

March recap

this will be my last transmission from Earth's Central Time Zone, er, this will be my last blog post before the Martian Half. The kiddo and I head out tomorrow and we're ready for an awesome weekend. Mr. Joanna is ready for a long weekend of mostly yard work at home, sadly. But before heading out, the March Recap!


Miles planned/ran: 141/128.9
Rest days planned/taken: 5/6
Highest mileage week: 36.8
Long runs planned/ran: 4/3.5 (because this happened)
Pace workouts planned/ran: 3/3 
XT days planned/done: 5/5
Tempo or interval runs planned/ran: 5/5
Favorite run: I'm going to have to say my 16-miler. I had some fun and confidence-boosting tempo and pace workouts, but the 16-miler had gorgeous weather and I got my pacing right FTW. 
Current goal: sub-2 half on Saturday!!
Current obsession: see Current goal.
Current need: new dress pants, because nothing I own fits. See "current excitement," and no, I am not pregnant. 
Current excitement: too many to choose from~the trip this weekend, my continuing weight loss (thank you, sparkpeople!), and a visit from The Beastie next week!!
Current bane of my existence: the big toe on my right foot. Yep, still hurts. 
Current wish list: Crabtree & Evelyn lavender shower gel. I'm almost out and I always feel like it's a luxury to buy it. 
Current indulgence: As an early birthday present, my Mom bought me a necklace that I fell in love with while we were strolling around a boutique a few neighborhoods over. It's gorgeous and I love it! 


Special March Addition to the recap:
I've finally picked a name for the new Garmin: Clepsydra. This was a nomination from RunningFirst and I really like it. It's Greek for water clock/water thief. What better name for a running accessory could there be?!? Thank you for all the name suggestions! 

Heading into Martian!

I haven't posted in a week?!? A week?!? Things have, admittedly, been busy. About three weeks ago my parents called and said they wanted to visit during their spring break. We explained that if they were OK with the fact that we are never home and work constantly and could not be their tour guides, then sure, we'd love to have them visit. They readily agreed and bought plane tickets. So on Saturday (a week+ ago) I picked them up at the airport. We wasted no time. There was a room to paint!

That's Dad in his "Diva Pants." When we told them to bring painting clothes, we thought he still had pants here. Turns out they were Mom's. Brand: Diva. Oops.
{sidenote: I am LOVING having some direction on interior decorating choices. It took a while to figure out what I wanted my "grown-up house" to look and feel like. And it was equally fabulous having help from the parentals!}

On Sunday we basked:

And just in case you can't tell, that's SPRING there under my Mom.

And then the week started again. Even with my hectic work schedule, I was able to meet them for lunch twice and we had a lot of fun. Then Saturday rolled around and we got this craptastic news:

I called my SIL, in freaking Detroit, where there was NO SNOW. I LIVE IN MISSOURI. What is this crap? She said it snowed just to piss me off. Eleven miles later, and still snowing and slushy out, I felt a renewed appreciation for the treadmill.

So all that brings me to the running portion of this post. Yes, I ran 11 miles on Saturday. Yes, my toe hurt when I was done. I thought I'd given it enough of a break. I took y'all's (I get can away with a double contraction like that because I'm from WV) advice and XT'ed until Wednesday of last week then cautiously tested it. The toe was fine after the Wednesday run (which I nailed--good confidence boost pre-race), so I thought I was in the clear. I think my choice of work footwear is part of the problem. I'm forcing myself to wear flat shoes (or at least shorter heels than normal) to work this week and keep the miles easy.

Am I ready for Martian? Yes. More ready than I've ever been for a half. Am I nervous? Yes, because I *really* want that PR. Am I excited? YOU KNOW IT!! To meet a bunch of you, see family (& let the kiddo see family!), and hopefully post a great race. I LOVED racing in Detroit in 2009--hoping for another great race!

A new weekly best!!

SO PUMPED to tell you that I hit a new personal best mileage week: 36.8 miles! Last week was insanity on a few fronts. My running attire went from thermal tights to short sleeves and shorts. Work was totally out of control. Oh, and in case I didn't mention it, I put 6+ miles on my standing highest mileage week ever. Go me. Here's the recap.

Monday
4 miles easy. It was 34 degrees for this early morning run, so I hit the streets in thermal tights, a jacket, gloves, and, for the last time ever, my Penn State ear warmer.

Tuesday
Yoga. Class starts at 7am. By 7:15 I was ready to walk out. This chick was hardcore and I wasn't in the mood for it. But I guess she does the hardest part of her workouts first. It turned out to be a great workout.

Wednesday
By far my most memorable run of the week. I told The Redhead that if "Hills are for Heroes" then "Wind is for Winners." Yes, yes, I am laying claim to this mantra on behalf of all Midwesterners. It was gray, windy, and cold out. Every time I rounded the bend of the track and came into head-on wind, I just had to repeat that mantra and keep pushing on. I did a 1 mile warm-up, a 4 mile tempo+ run, and a 1 mile cool-down. My tempo times were 5-18 seconds faster than scheduled. I feel good exceeding my goal times consistently. And in case you're wondering, when I do tempo runs mid-day at work, I use the track because I work in a highly urbanized area and get stopped at lights too often to reasonably run a tempo workout.

Thursday
3 mile recovery run with my neighbor. I think we're going to make this a regular thing, which I'm pretty excited about. :) Also a point of excitement: the debut of my new Pearl Izumi ear warmer. LOVE it.

Friday
7 mile pace run. Went well. Not much else to say there. Debuted the new pairs of Brooks.

Saturday
16 mile long run. By far my most successful long run this training cycle. Woot! I made a conscious effort to keep the early miles at the same pace I'd expect of the later miles. I kept roughly a 10:07 mile pace, which is only about 17 seconds slower than my goal race pace. It was a gorgeous 60 degrees and sunny. Absolutely beautiful. It felt so good to do my long run in shorts and a short-sleeved shirt. Eat your heart out, winter!!

I'm feeling good about the distance at this point. I build miles again next week, then cut back before Martian. Next week is also a lighter week at work. It's gonna be awesome.

Do I jinx it??

So, a few weeks ago I tempted Mother Nature by suggesting that I might get off the 'mill and back outside soon (read it here). Then the Midwest's Snowmageddon happened (Snowpacalypse? Storm of the Century?). Soooooo......didn't go back outside. I am beyond impressed by those of you who live up north who have braved the elements.

StL has this city-wide policy of not plowing neighborhoods. Like, at all. I understand it and don't necessarily criticize them for it, but it does sort constrain the limits of running safely. Our streets (and most sidewalks) have been a solid sheet of ice for weeks. It was only today that I finally saw someone even attempting to run outside. He still had a lot of ice to dodge, but I was really energized by seeing someone try it. C'mon spring!! Do I jinx it?? Do I say it looks promising to make it outside this week?!?

Today concluded Week 3 of training for Martian/Cleveland. I listened to you all and kept this past week as a cut-back week. Y'all were right--next week is a huge step up, and I couldn't risk being tired going into it. I bumped up today's long run by one whole mile, just to situate myself a little better for the transition. Bring it, week 4!!

I don't have any pictures for today's post, so instead I'll leave y'all with the highlight of my week last week. On Tuesday night, around 2:30, I woke up abruptly because....I punched myself in the eye. Hard. I woke up quickly enough that my arm was still moving, so I knew I'd done it. And it hurt!! I think I was lying on my back with my arms at my side and had a muscle twitch in the crease of my arm, and my arm bent quickly at the elbow and flailed up and hit myself full-speed in the eye. Yep.

XT love!

First things first--you guys are much more concerned about my blog name than about my Kick Assphalt shirt. Therefore:

1. I will refrain from changing my blog name. 
2. The Kick Assphalt shirt goes to....Jessie! Send me your shipping info at joannaruns@gmail.com!

Moving on to the XT Love, I don't have much time to post, but wanted to post some love for yoga! I went to my Tuesday morning yoga class today. It's so humbling to be in the class and know that I can run my ass off, but have absolutely no core strength. And then the stiffness that comes with running. Oh my. Even though I've only been doing yoga for a few weeks, the chronic pain I've had in my "left buttock" has decreased. YOGA LOVE.

One of my co-workers just wished me luck on getting through today's pack of cigarettes. NO, I DON'T SMOKE. Stop freaking out. I just sound like a pack-a-day smoker with this cough. But it's much better than it was over the weekend and I can't stand to miss any more days of running. So I'll be back on the training schedule tomorrow with my pace run. Question: this was supposed to be a cut-back week. Do I leave it as a cut-back or try to make up my missed miles?

Eight weeks until Martian and 14 weeks until Cleveland!! 

Some random thoughts

1. Don't forget my giveaway. Free technical shirt, people.
   
2. I got an email from Barnes & Noble earlier this week. The subject line was "Nothing says LOVE Like 10% Off!" Does anyone else find this deeply disturbing??
   
3. What Would Kara Goucher Do? Being a mommy is pretty awesome, but one of the downsides is picking up colds from the kiddo. He seems to have given me a nasty cold while we were hanging out earlier this week during our snow days. I've been running anyway (no asterisks or footnotes to the training schedule!) and have been crazy run-down. That made me think twice about this morning's 9-miler. So when I finally dragged my congested, haven't-slept-well-in-days self out of bed this morning, I decided to get some Coach Mike (RunningFirst) input. We had a longish text conversation that went something like this:
   Me: Nasty cold. Should I run?
   Coach: If you have the cold, probably not. Running will wear you down and you won't get better. If the nasty cold is outside, run inside. And then cheer for the Steelers tomorrow. That will help. 
   Me: It's me that has the cold. I've been running anyway and am really worn-down. I just hate to miss a run. Two weeks of perfect training, you know?
   Coach: Rest. You'll feel better in the morning. 
   Me: Ok, I'll stay in today and reassess tomorrow. 
   Coach: And?
   Me: Root for the Steelers.
   Coach: There ya' go. That will help, too. 
   
4. I'm going to start my full monthly recaps at the end of February. But I can tell you that I ran 47.4 miles in January, compared to just 29 in January of 2010.
   
5. Training is going really well so far! I've hit all of my workouts and felt great about them. Eight weeks until the Martian Half and 14 weeks until Cleveland!! I cannot tell you how excited I am about this pair of races. I will get to meet lots of runner bloggers at both and I hope to PR both. SO freakin' excited!!
   
6. Last but definitely not least, I need some input. I'm considering renaming my blog. I know, I know, this is generally frowned on once your blog has been established for a while, but here's the thing. When I started this blog I had no idea it would live for so long! I started it for the singular purpose of fundraising for the 2007 Chicago Distance Classic. I put zero thought into the name. So I need some input here. 
1. Should I rename the blog at all?
2. If so, what should I rename it? I'm leaning toward MoJo[anna] Running, or perhaps Running from the Crazy. I need your input!!