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20 Miles – Take 3

March 12, 2011 by Kristy 5 Comments

3/12/11

20 miles

3:00

9:00 avg pace

The FIRST plan called for 20 miles at 9:16 pace today. My plan was to slow down and follow the 9:16 pace for 15 miles and, if I did, I could run the last 5 miles at GMP. I felt good, the weather was beautiful (windy but nice), and I’m glad I held back and was able to speed up during the last few miles.

Splits, shall we?
M1: 9:16
M2: 9:07
M3: 9:24
M4: 9:21 –> Shot Blok #1
M5: 9:10
M6: 9:08
M7: 8:58
M8: 9:02 –> Shot Blok #2
M9: 9:05
M10: 8:52
M11: 9:00
M12: 9:14 –> Shot Blok #3
M13: 9:11
M14: 8:57
M15: 8:54
M16: 8:47 –> Shot Blok #4
M17: 8:42
M18: 8:37
M19: 8:51
M20: 9:14 (suddenly got tired)

I saw a sea of green and beads while running past the train station; lots of 20somethings waiting to the train to Philly for the Erin Express. The EE is an Irish bar crawl in Philly that takes place on the first 2 Saturdays in March. I used to frequent the EE for many years and it was a blast, as long as you don’t mind super crowded bars, beer being spilled on you constantly, and long lines for the bathroom (with no toilet paper). I didn’t mind those things in my 20s but you couldn’t pay me to do it now! Funny how things change without you even realizing it. Today I plan on watching St. Joe’s (hopefully) beat Dayton and advance to the finals of the A-10 tournament (all from the comfort of my couch). Then I’ll take Hawk for a walk and check out our St. Patty’s Day parade (sans solo cup of beer). Very different from past St. Patty’s Day celebrations.

027 — I did love those beads. Wore them for many years.

These pictures were not even taken on St. Patty’s Day, they were taken at Irish Weekend in Wildwood, NJ (every September). Yeah, I used to celebrate my Irish-ness twice each year – in March and September. Ah, the good old days 🙂

Friday Favorites

March 11, 2011 by Kristy 5 Comments

Today is a rest day and a day off! I took a vacation day today just because and I’m so looking forward to relaxing, getting some stuff done, and getting a much needed haircut. I wasn’t too happy about waking up at 5am (naturally). WHY?!?! I was up from 5 to 6 and then fell back asleep but unfortunately slept through yoga. Oh well.

It’s time for Friday Favorites…clothing edition! This is funny since I’m not much of a clotheshorse. As with most things, I’m picky which can make shopping a nightmare sometimes. Shopping is a total hit or miss with me but unfortunately there are more misses than hits!

Banana Republic
When I walk into BR I want everything! There are so many things that I love. Not only do I like their style, but their clothes seem to fit me well. The only thing better than BR is the BR outlet! Oh, I can do some damage there.

Lululemon
I love buying running clothes more than anything so a store with running and yoga clothes? Yes, please! Everything is so nice and so high quality. It’s definitely pricey but worth the splurge. Two of their items are listed on my Favorite Things page. And you get an awesome bag when you leave with their manifesto. I think the manifesto is so thought-provoking that I leave the bag out in my closet so I can see it daily.

(source)

North Face Denali Jacket
I wear this jacket year-round and bring it with me everywhere. Reminds me of the Johnny Cash song, I’ve Been Everywhere. The proof is in the pictures…

Cruisin' around Europe

Australia

San Fran

Vermont

Boston

Key West

April Races

March 10, 2011 by Kristy 4 Comments

3/10/11

7 miles tempo

1:02

8:51 avg pace

1 mile warm-up, 5 miles at 8:41 (~ goal marathon pace), 1 mile cool-down. Done on the dreaded treadmill. Ugh. Each week I say no more treadmill and then the rain forces me inside.

Onto fun stuff…I have 2 races coming up in April! I haven’t raced since the Philly Half Marathon last November so I’m looking forward to it. And it’ll be good prep for the NJ Marathon on May 1.

Cherry Blossom 10-Miler – April 3
So excited about this race! This has been on my “races to do” list for a long time. I love 10-milers because you can run faster than half marathon pace but not all out (and I hate to run all out, hence no 5 or 10Ks for me). I usually do the Broad Street Run here in Philly (a very popular 10-miler – super flat and fast) but this year it’s the same day as my marathon. Bummer. So the Cherry Blossom is filling my need for a 10-mile race this Spring.

The race uses a lottery system for entry, so I was very lucky to get in on my first try. I love running DC races. Matt and I lived there for 3 years after college and it’s where I began running. I could run the Marine Corps Marathon every year and never get bored.

My PR for the 10-miler is 1:23. I think I can beat that on April 3 🙂 Fingers crossed!

Penn Relays Distance Classic 20K – April 17
I ran this race back in 2009. This race is pretty interesting. They don’t promote it so you don’t receive any reminder emails about next year’s race. Trying to find the active.com site to sign-up is difficult. Back in 2009, less than 200 people actually ran the race. It’s supposed to kick-off the Penn Relays but I wouldn’t call it much of a kick-off! Do I love it? Absolutely! The race starts and ends at Franklin Field, on the University of Pennsylvania’s campus. Since it’s such a small size, the race director literally yells for everyone to gather on the street (there are no seeds) and yells go! No fuss whatsoever.

Funny but true story…since there are so few runners, you can imagine that everyone gets pretty spread out by the end of the race. I was coming back through Penn’s campus (towards the finish at Franklin Field) and I was following a girl up ahead of me. She was pretty far ahead and turned so she was no longer in my view. When I eventually got to the turn she was no where to be found. Uh oh. I wasn’t sure which way the race went but I knew the general direction. I asked a Penn security guard if he saw any runners with bibs go by. He looked at me like I had 10 heads. Not so helpful. So I went in the general direction back to Franklin Field. I have no idea if I remained on the race course or not. Can you imagine being completely alone during a race?!?!

My friend Jimmy also ran the race that year. He almost got lost but was smart enough to pick up his pace so he had someone in front of him to follow. He is running the race this year too. We are both writing down the last few turns of the race just in case…

Two weeks after this race is my marathon so I decided to not race the Distance Classic. I’m going to use this race as a marathon-paced run. I don’t want to risk going all out 2 weeks before the marathon (especially since this race is only 2 weeks after the Cherry Blossom 10-miler). Call me conservative but I wouldn’t want to jeopardize the marathon that I worked so long and hard for.

Phew…long-winded race explanations, huh? I must be excited 🙂

Tiger Tail vs. Foam Roller

March 9, 2011 by Kristy 2 Comments

About a month ago I bought a Tiger Tail. It looks like this:

Why did I decide to buy a Tiger Tail over a foam roller? Not sure, but you can say I was definitely clueless. I had never used either before, nor had I ever held one (never had the need to). I thought the Tiger Tail would be more portable and would “hit the spot” more than a foam roller. I assumed the foam roller was soft (ever jump into a foam pit?). I bought a foam roller yesterday and the word foam is definitely a misnomer. There is nothing soft and comfy about this thing. The foam roller HITS the spot. Boy oh boy. What prompted me to buy one? I watched Jen’s video on foam rolling 101 and it looked pretty effective. I used it yesterday on my glute/hamstring. Let’s just say that my glute/hamstring felt fine pre-roll and hurt post-roll. Not painful, but similar to the hurts-so-good pigeon pose. I think my Tiger Tail may begin to gather dust…

Tomorrow begins the Monster Month before taper time. Apparently I’m supposed to run 3 more 20-milers?! We’ll see. I always do 4 20-milers; I’m not sure how much benefit I’ll gain by adding a 5th.

I have 2 races coming up in April that I’m really excited about. More on that in another post though!

PS – Check out Aron’s blog for a giveaway!

Morning Track + Week 9 Recap

March 8, 2011 by Kristy 2 Comments

3/8/11

7 miles speed

I was at the track by 5:50 this morning. I love having the track all to myself. Four women showed up to run a mile but thankfully they stayed in the outer lanes.

The workout: 1.5 mile warm-up, 3×1-mile repeats (7:25, 7:30, 7:37) with 800m rest interval in between, 1.5 mile cool-down. Not my fastest mile repeats but I was huffing and puffing like a dog. Another reason why I like being at the track alone; I sound like I’m dying during speed work.

Let’s recap week 9 of NJ Marathon training!
MON: rest
TUE: 8 miles speed + yoga
WED: 8 miles tempo
THU: rest
FRI: yoga
SAT: 18 miles
SUN: 5 miles easy

Total of 39 miles and 2 yoga classes! I was happy with this week of training, even though it began with some heavy, tired legs.

My plan for the rest of the week: yoga tonight, rest tomorrow, tempo on Thursday, yoga on Friday (I have the day off – YEAH!), long run on Saturday (20-miler — take 3), and easy miles on Sunday.

Have a great day!

Jack Daniels Recap

March 7, 2011 by Kristy 6 Comments

Yesterday I went to a mini running conference where the keynote speaker was Jack Daniels. If you’re not familiar with Jack Daniels (the coach, not the whiskey), I’ll provide a brief background. Other than being a renowned running coach, he went to the Olympics twice for the modern pentathlon, has a PhD in exercise physiology, and pioneered the VDOT value.

It was really cool to see him talk. He’s almost 78 years old but is sharp as a tack. He doesn’t look too shabby either (reason #274,851 to run: it keeps you looking young). He had lots of great stories. He ended up talking until 4:00 (conference was supposed to be over at 3:30). The moderator kept trying to interject but he kept blowing him off. Gotta love older folks; they just do what they want.

I took a ton of notes and plan on reading his book too. Below are some of the highlights of his talk without going into too much math and science detail (you’re welcome).

Basic Rules of Coaching

1. Treat everyone as an individual.

2. Always find positive things to say.

3. Everyone is different and responds to training differently.

4. Everyone has good days and bad days. Optimists blame good runs/races on their hard work and brush off bad runs/races. Pessimists think good runs/races are a fluke and they blame themselves for bad runs/races (more on this below).

5. Don’t train when sick or hurt (he kept stressing this one…I completely agree).

6. Stride and breath are important (learned so much about this one…need to read more and I’ll do another post about it).

7. Encourage good sleeping and eating habits.

8. Training should be rewarding.

9. You shouldn’t feel bad consistently in training. If you do, there is a problem.

10. Most mistakes are made in the first few minutes of a race (SO TRUE!). Run the first 2/3 of a race with your head and the last 1/3 with your heart (I think I may write this on my bib for the marathon).

11. Focus on the task at hand, whether in training or racing. Sometimes that means focusing on one step at a time.

Ingredients of Success

1. Ability – we are all born with different abilities.

2. Motivation – talking about intrinsic motivation here, not extrinsic. Jack wrote this on the board:

↑ability, ↑motivation = champions

↑ability, ↓motivation = a coach’s nightmare!

↓ability, ↑motivation = self-frustraters

3. Opportunity

4. Direction – having a solid training plan to follow.

He then started talking about training, VO₂max, and VDOT values. I’ll spare you the diagrams and math but it was interesting. He also kept stressing over and over about doing the least amount of work possible to achieve the maximum benefit. Why run faster than you need to when running slightly slower will be enough of a stimulus for improvement? This ties into his VDOT values (again another post). I kept thinking about the FIRST program I’m using for this training cycle. Overall it’s good but I think it can be a “one size fits all” plan. Case and point, last week’s tempo run was 3 miles just under 8:00 pace. Why in the world would I run tempo miles faster than my half marathon PR pace (which is 8:22). The purpose of tempo runs are to raise your lactate threshold (more on this here). If you do them too fast, you miss the whole point of the workout and end up with some heavy, acidic legs and no stimulus for improvement (hello, last week’s brick legs). So I’ll definitely be modifying my tempo runs from now on and maybe speed work too.

I’m also going to give myself a break on weekly mileage. The FIRST program follows the less is more philosophy. This is different from my previous plans which stressed higher mileage. Why do I feel like I need to hit 45+ miles a week during training? Why is that number so important to me? Isn’t improving important? If you are improving at 39 miles a week, then why run 45+?

Another thing Jack said that made me think was the optimist/pessimist view. Since my long run on Saturday, this has been the nonsense going through my head:

You ran that too fast. You know you should run your long runs slower. What a mistake!

That run was a total fluke. You ran well because the weather was so nice.

STOP! Why am I doing this to myself?! I ran well because of hard work, not the weather! And I ran based on feel, so I wasn’t purposely “racing” my long run. I can be so critical of myself. I work so hard physically and then mentally send myself 10 steps back. This must stop.

If you’re still awake after reading this, here are some pics of Jack. Yes, I totally whipped out my camera while he was speaking (I wasn’t the only one!). At least I turned the flash off so I didn’t blind him.