22 miles

Boston Week 12 Recap

March 28, 2012 by Kristy 29 Comments

Taper time! Well, taper time mileage-wise that is. I still have 22 miles to bang out on Saturday (the final dress rehearsal) and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a wee bit nervous.

The Boston welcome package came in the mail this weekend and confirmed what I already knew: I’m representin’ the rear of Wave 2!

I can’t be surprised. Remember, I just made the cut-off for Boston.

If a bug flew in my eye or I sneezed violently, I wouldn’t be running Boston.

I’m just so happy to be in Wave 2 Smile

Boston Week 12 Recap
MON: 7 easy – my legs were so tired at the beginning of the week. I kept Monday and Tuesday’s runs easy.
TUE: 8 easy
WED: 11 tempo with 9 at MP – during this run I realized that this was my 5th consecutive day of running, or 52 miles. No wonder I felt like crap.
THU: rest!!!
FRI: 4 easy
SAT: 15 hilly miles (8:32 average pace)
SUN: 5 easy – up bright and early at 6AM to get this in!

So my peak week that wasn’t turned out pretty good! 50 miles total, which I was happy about considering how tired my legs were in the beginning of the week.

Less than 3 weeks to go…

22 Miles, Take 5 (aka Dress Rehearsal)

August 26, 2011 by Kristy 22 Comments

8/26/11
22 miles / 3:07 / 8:30 avg pace
*Since I like to be exact and precise, I need to point out that my average pace is 4 seconds below goal marathon pace! 4 seconds isn’t much but I’ll take it!

And with that I’m DONE! It’s taper time!

every time i say taper time, i think of MC hammer

Since I’m on an endorphin-high and thoughts are still going through my head a mile a minute, let’s stick with bullet points for today.

My goal was to keep my splits even from the get-go. Instead of taking a few miles to warm-up and then picking it up during the middle of the run to make up time, I aimed for 8:30 splits. This helped tremendously. My energy level was consistent throughout the entire run. In fact, from mile 15 on all my splits were 8:30 or under, with the exception of my last mile (8:45 – huge hill).
It was humid. Not crazy humid but 93% at the start.
I ignored my (negative) thoughts during this run. Let me explain. I know at a certain point my brain is going to say “you cannot maintain this pace, you are nuts, you need to slow down, you are tired”. And most of the time I listen and obey when I still have gas in the tank. Today I only listened to my body and my Garmin and I was fine. I didn’t slow down and I wasn’t tired. I definitely had gas left for 4 more miles. Don’t get me wrong, BQing is going to be hard but I think I can do it.
I passed a guy wearing a CamelBak on a hill. Even though it was a guy and I passed him on a hill, I didn’t feel very bad ass AT ALL. To me, the CamelBak wearers are ultramarathoners and he probably thinks my 22 miler is a walk in the park. Us marathoners only carry handheld water bottles 😉
A guy on a bike asked me what time it was. I’m sure he saw the Garmin on my wrist a mile away and he stupidly thought that the watch could tell time. It displays 4 things at a time but time isn’t one of them. I told him my watch “doesn’t do time” and he probably thought I was nuts…or extremely lazy (sidenote: I do know where the time is on my Garmin but that would involve slowing down and switching screens which I didn’t have time for today).

Almost forgot…here are some post-LR pics!

DSCN1623 — too tired to hold my head up straight

Have a great weekend everyone!

Question: Is Hurricane Irene ruining your long run or race plans this weekend? I was supposed to do a tempo run on Sunday but may have to switch it to Saturday or brave the TM on Sunday (oh the horror)!

Please keep voting throughout the weekend for RTLR for CBS Philly’s Most Valuable Blogger(click here to vote)!

The Last 22

April 9, 2011 by Kristy 11 Comments

4/9/11

22 miles

3:10:44

8:40 avg pace <– that’s 5 sec/mile BELOW my goal marathon pace!

Heeeellllloooo, taper! I welcome you with open arms! If you’re thinking why the hell would I run below GMP, see here. I hadn’t planned on it actually, just wanted to run close to GMP and end on a good note.

Instead of boring you with 22 split times, I’ll include some random thoughts about today’s run. Please note I’m on a crazy endorphin high right now so I hope this makes sense.

I definitely think a 3:50 is within my reach.
I treated this run like race day. I started out running 9:00 pace and gradually decreased the pace from there.
I felt really good at Mile 13 so I picked up the pace and wondered how long I could hold it for. I made it to Mile 22 🙂
I was tired at the end but still had gas in the tank.
I definitely improved my mental game this training cycle….mind over matter means more to me than you can even imagine!
I thought about Boston a lot during this run. For Boston 2012, I will be 35 years old…meaning (for 2012 ONLY) I could qualify with a 3:45. Could it be a possibility? What if…? I didn’t train to BQ in May but it’s very tempting to have it so close within my reach. At least temporarily. Once 2013 comes, it’s back to 3:40.
I loved every second of this run. I hope after 3 weeks of taper I can repeat this come May 1.

I came home and immediately devoured chocolate milk and foam rolled.

DSCN0217 — Woo hoo! Sorry for the gross close-up of my arm.

DSCN0221 — Hawk helps me foam roll. I'm only 5'5", not the giant this picture makes me out to be.

I want to give a huge shout out to my sister-in-law, Desiree, who ran her first 5K today!!! She totally rocked it, like I knew she would, and I think she’s been bitten by the running bug!