One lump...or two?

Or maybe they're more like humps...

source

After my ambitious and successful workout week capped by my happy birthday celebration (with hoopty cake!), I awoke Monday with a vicious migraine...which I didn't mention in yesterday's post...denial :(  I think I've said before that when I get a migraine (usually once or twice a month) it will last for 2 days. There's nothing I can take or do once it's there except ride it out. Needless to say, I was pissed. I really wanted my awesome last week to serve as a springboard into my training plan. I think the migraine was at least partially responsible for my 5-hour sofa-rafting on Monday.

I was able to somehow rally that evening to go meet one of my climbing partners. It felt good to get off of the sofa and out of the house. I even ran into my oldest stepson at the gym! It was nice to see him...we don't see each other often enough. Anyway... my partner and I climbed for roughly 90 minutes after which I decided to muddle my way through a little bit on the elliptical. Those 30 minutes were probably the clearest I felt that whole day. Take-away from the experience: working out almost always makes you feel better.

When yesterday started off with Day 2 that same nausea-exhaustion-migraine and no hope of holing up in the house all day (I had volunteered to serve as a driver/chaperone for Miss C's preschool trip to the Little Farm), I actually cried. Then I did what I do... I soldiered on. Once home after the field trip, I passed out on the sofa for two hours before I needed to go fetch kids from their schools. I started fretting about my workout while on this drive. "Hills" were what the schedule called for... "6 x hills". For the next couple of hours, I worked out a rationale for bailing on any sort of workout. Then I convinced myself that some StairMaster work could sub in. (Recalling yesterday's take-away). Then I realized that I really wanted to just be outside in the fresh air...but I knew that I didn't have the mental capacity to go up and down any hill "6 x" last night.

Instead I opted to run a hill twice. It's a hill near my home. Quick and easy to get to; long and hard to run. In the past I've  referred to it as 'Honey Badger Hill'? That's because you need to just not give a s*it that it is really f*cking hard and just do it anyway.

Granted it was a run/walk...with walking a good bit less than half of the first trip up and a good bit less than a third of the second trip up. But I did mostly run it. Approximately 4 miles with a 700+ ft. climb over a mile each time up. (See images below). Even with some walking, I'm calling this workout "badass."

Two humps for me, please :)

because I don't know how to take a stretch of uphill on my Garmin read-out and make a mirror image, I must give this image credit to Patrick Mahoney.

one mile up, one mile down, one mile up, one mile down

 

I wish I had a cox...

Days like today, I wish I had a coxswain... the little person who sits in the stern of a boat and tells you what you need to do to make it all work. I was a really good coxswain...

That's me in the dark blue. Look at how hard I am making those guys work. We won that race. I wish I had me telling me what to do.

o...

right...

I do.

Vecchio Venerdì 
Head of the Schyulkill in 1990 or 1991... I can't remember.

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A huge favor... I know I ask a lot of these... but this one would be so awesome if you would do it :)

My friend Catey who writes Random Thoughts from the Zoo is a swimwear contest finalist! Please go to the Hapari Swimwear Facebook page and "LIKE" Catey's photos... she is in the zebra top in one photo and a white short-sleeved t-shirt in the other.

Thanks :)

Trying to believe in oneself...

I've written about shooting the moon... the "go big or go home"... going all in or not going at all... and set myself a lofty goal for my next race.

That's great.

I probably should get ready to run it :P  And maybe find a hotel for that overnight so's I don't need to sleep on a bench! I took my first step in the right direction in terms of training last Sunday with my solid 12-mile run. And today I bought my plane tickets so I can actually get there!

I had been dragging my feet on these preparations because I am having a hard time believing in myself.

Surprised?

Don't be.

When I am prepped, I am solid with myself. When my prep work has been even somewhat sketchy, I begin to falter. Or rather when I am not seeing evidence of prep work my confidence plummets.

Last night I was just going to try to run 5 or maybe 6, if I felt okay out there. The whole lead-up was beyond annoying. The kids were just on my very last nerve from about the middle of dinner on. My tension had skyrocketed and I was thoroughly pissed that they had ruined my night and now I couldn't run and so I wouldn't even be remotely ready for this stupid half-marathon that I didn't even have a way to get to or a place to stay which was totally fine because I wasn't really going to be able to run in it anyway since I just suck so bad.

Whew... that was quite the run-on sentence... and that is exactly how I felt. Out of control and going down.

I finally headed out to run at quarter to 9. Pissed off. Tense. Utterly defeated.

And I rocked my run.

When I started off, all the whiny voices in my head were messing with me... so I turned up the iPod. I somehow got into a nice, easy groove, and halfway through my first 0.75-mile lap, I decided it was Progression Run Night :) I wanted to try to hit the paces that I set up for my race plan. I had no Garmin on... so it had to be by feel and just the watch.

As close to the money as I think I can get....

Lap 1.....................9:43 pace........................  9:43 elapsed time.................0.75 mi
Lap 2.....................9:20 pace........................ 14:16  e.t...............................1.5   mi
Lap 3.....................9:20 pace........................ 21:15  e.t...............................2.25 mi
Lap 4.....................9:06 pace.........................28:05  e.t...............................3.0   mi
Lap 5.....................9:06 pace.........................34:53  e.t...............................3.75 mi
Lap 6.....................8:29 pace.........................41:15  e.t...............................4.5   mi
Lap 7.....................7:45 pace.........................47:04  e.t...............................5.25 mi
Last wanderings...~10:00 pace avg................1:00.20 e.t..............................6.5   mi

Average pace for 6.5 miles = 9:17

Belief-in-self Level..... big jump :)

What's hard for me to acknowledge is that it could have very easily gone the other way. And I am so glad it didn't.

What are some things that you do to keep believing in yourself? 


What are some of your 'go-to' techniques for pulling yourself up out of an abyss, if you find yourself in one?

How AM I going to make a sub-2?

How in the heck should I know?

I am still not entirely convinced it's in the cards for me... I'm not really sure I deserve it. Guess we'll see come October 9 :P

For my non-running readers, I am referring to running a half-marathon (13.1 miles) in under 2 hours. This works out to just about 9 minutes 9 seconds per mile for the whole thing.

Being unprepared makes me nervous. I haven't followed a training program. I had a good one that was a composite of Run Less, Run Faster and Galloway's... with some tweaks from both awesome Jill and Patrick from The Road thrown in. It was going great until all those blasted monkey-wrenches.

Then my summer became a quest to just make it to the Hood to Coast Relay (ha! there! I said it!) with Team Nuun, healthy and in a good mental place. While I accomplished that, I was not ready for the post-relay feelings of depression and listlessness that were strangely accompanied by intense euphoria and a 'can-do' motivated desire to dive back into serious training. Weird...but not entirely out of character.

As a result, my running has been haphazard since Hood to Coast. What am I saying? It was pretty haphazard in the weeks immediately prior to Hood to Coast! Anyway... moving on....

When I am in the Long Beach Half Marathon on October 9, I want to look and feel like this...

Instead of like this...

After my post the other day stating my 'stretch' goal as being a sub-2, I received this super cool, encouraging tweet from one of my new running buddies...

@xlmic I believe that w/ a good taper, hydration, and careful pacing that you'll go sub 1:59 for the half.....

I love it when people believe in me! So I looked at this carefully.

• "good taper" – I kind of am living in a tapering place; I think this will work in my favor :)
• "hydration" – I am so well-stocked with Nuun for before the race and there are TEN water stations on the course... one nearly every mile... and I am not opposed to carrying my Amphipod handheld (though I'd rather not... suggestions or advice?)
• "careful pacing" – ut-oh. This is where I am concerned. I have trust issues... even trusting-myself-issues. While my new racing mentor Kim, Nuun staff runner from our Nuun Platuun team, told me she had her best times when she did it all by feel... no watch, ignoring mile markers, etc...I am not sure I have that faith in my body or racing brain... yet. Sure, I have my Garmin (which looks like a VW Beetle parked on my super-skinny wrist), but picking the numbers I want it to be showing... that's another story.

So I made a race plan.

When I made a plan and followed it for Bay to Breakers back in May, it worked for me perfectly. It was set up to be realistic but a push. I ended up a little ahead of schedule... which can't help but feel good, right? 

Presenting my Long Beach Sub-2 Plan... I hope think am fairly certain it's realistic :P

Mile                Pace                                               Elapsed Time

1                      9:15   (adrenaline boost)                     9.25 minutes
2 & 3                9:40   (settling in and warming up)    28.59 minutes
4, 5, 6 & 7       9:24   (solid base)                              66.19 minutes
8, 9 & 10         9:10   (pick it up to prep for push)       93.69 minutes
11 & 12            8:40   (the push starts...)                  111.09 minutes
13 - 13.1          8:06   (the digging down deep part)  119.89 minutes
                   
                                                                               = 1:59:55 ... which is sub-2!

On Sunday, I participated in a Run 11 on 9/11/11 memorial run. I lengthened it out to 12... because I felt so good. It was somewhat hilly, and my average pace was 10:05. The last two miles were both sub-9 minutes. And I felt GREAT when it was over. Maybe it had something to do with running for a greater purpose? And I was not sore the next day.

I think I'm ready to take this sucker on.

Any other advice or words of encouragement? Throw them my way... please!!!!!

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And on the to-do list for today...

vote for Catey... awesome mom of 8 little kids who will be running in the St. George Marathon... her blog is entered in the Top 25 Big Family blog contest! Go to her personal voting page by clicking HERE.