LOVE Half Marathon

and so it goes…

March 24, 2015 by Kristy 7 Comments

I’m out for the LOVE Run this coming Sunday. While this pissed me off last week – mostly because I ran the inaugural race last year and wanted to do it each year – I’m OK with it now.

The past 10 weeks have been rough. I won’t bore you with details but I’ve been sick. A lot. An URI in January, food poisoning/stomach bug (can’t say for sure) a few weeks later, another stomach bug 3 weeks later, and now currently bronchitis. If I told you I was a person that rarely got sick, would you believe me?!

My running has been up and down. I would hit 35-40 miles on a good week when I was feeling better, then tank the next week with 20-25 miles when I was sick again. I’m still amazed at how well MAF training was going through all these up and downs. I was still making some progress (and very grateful for slow, easy runs when I wasn’t 100%).

But bronchitis was the final straw. Bronchitis sucks in general. But bronchitis + asthma really sucks. It has taken up residence in my lungs for the past 2+ weeks. Two rounds of antibiotics and 2 rounds of steroids and I’m finally feeling better. Although the steroids make me feel all Jessie-Spano-I’m-S0-Excited (I’m seriously jumping out of my own skin), today is my last day of them.

So I didn’t run for 2 weeks. Two weeks!!! Doesn’t mean that I didn’t try…twice. I made it a 1/2 mile and coughed my head off.

reunited this past weekend

I did begin running again this past weekend and it feels amazing. Nothing like 2 weeks off to revive the legs and mind! But it’s slow going. I’m still MAF training, but with the Jessie Spano ‘roids, it’s tough to keep my heart rate down. I know this is temporary though and each day will get a lot easier.

I did contemplate doing the LOVE Run as a MAF training run but I just can’t put myself through that. It would be such a stupid move. I need to get healthy and ease back into running – 2 weeks off, 2 weeks (at least) back on.

I hate whiny posts (and I hope this doesn’t come across as whiny…it was meant to be an update) so I’ll end on some positive notes ~

I’m not injured. I’m back running. I’ll get my fitness back and I’ll be fine for the Fall (at least 1 marathon on tap, if not 2!).
With the exception of a low-grade fever and minor cold, Fiona escaped all of these illnesses. Even the stomach bug. It was impressive.

my immune system rocks

Good luck to everyone running LOVE this weekend! It looks like awesome weather (better than last year!). Enjoy.

MAF Training Update

February 20, 2015 by Kristy 6 Comments

I’ve started this post a million times in my head and I’m finally sitting down and putting pen to paper. I’ve been training via the MAF method for the past 11 weeks….meaning all my runs have been at my MAF heart rate (i.e., easy). I’ve been a diligent student too – no cheating – except for strides.

So how do I really feel about MAF training? The first 6 weeks? I hated it. The past 5 weeks? Amazing. I’ll elaborate.

The first 6 weeks
I ran slow. Very slow. On some runs my heart rate monitor would beep incessantly (meaning I was above my MAF heart rate and needed to slow down). This, in turn, would make me pissed and then my heart rate would spike even more…a vicious cycle. I had (and still have to on occasion) walk up hills. Sometimes I had to walk up inclines. Frustrating, to say the least.

I generally run by myself but I do coach a track night on Tuesdays. It’s awkward to explain a workout and send everyone off while you mosey behind at a comfortable pace and explain how you are doing low heart rate training blah, blah, blah.

I love hill workouts. I haven’t done any hill workouts since MAF training. I miss them. It’s eye-opening to notice how quickly your heart rate skyrockets when running uphill. I could do hill workouts, I would just have to walk them.

I wasn’t seeing that much progress. You are supposed to “test” every 4 weeks. Four weeks into MAF training, I was about 10 seconds faster per mile. I also take testing days with a grain of salt – it’s a snapshot of your progress on that day. There are good days and bad days and good weather and bad weather.

The past 5 weeks
Right after I wrote my last post I got a nasty upper respiratory infection requiring antibiotics. Then the antibiotics caused side effects. I started to feel better and then got sidelined with food poisoning. I spent a solid month being sick. I ran but not a lot. I was so worried that all my MAF progress would be reversed.

Then it was like a miracle. I had a week where my average pace on all runs was around 9:30. (For reference, when I started MAF training, my average pace was 10:20.) I still wasn’t feeling 100% so I was pretty shocked by the numbers. I wrote it off as a fluke (maybe I was well rested after a few weeks of low mileage?).

That 9:30 average pace stuck around consistently for the next 3 weeks. Now I’m seeing 9:15s and the occasional 8:50 pop up. All at my MAF training heart rate. It’s pretty unbelievable. (Side note: I feel the need to clarify that I’m not obsessing about pace – you can’t when MAF training – or you’ll drive yourself nuts. Pace isn’t even a field that I can see on my Garmin right now. But I could not help but notice my average pace drop in my training log…consistently.)

So now I’m really drinking the Maffetone Kool-Aid and plan to do so until I plateau. I hope I can make it a full 6 months training this way. The only race I have planned for the Spring is the Philly LOVE Run. That’ll be with 4 months of MAF training under my belt. I’m excited to see what I can do!

ODDyssey Half Marathon Recap

June 13, 2014 by Kristy 6 Comments

I ran the ODDyssey Half Marathon for the second time on Sunday. Last year I was 10 weeks pregnant. This year I’m 5 months postpartum. Same race but 2 very different experiences.

I love Fiona’s arm rolls

I’ll cut right to the chase – it sucked. I ran a 1:57:42 – a far cry from my 1:53:08 in March. And I try not to think too much about how far off it is from my PR.

I have only 1 excuse for my poor performance – utter exhaustion. In hindsight I should have never attempted to “race” this race. I should have kept the pace nice and slow – inline with my 50K training. Matt was away for 2 weeks and came home the day before the race. I had some babysitting help from my parents and niece but I was still exhausted. Fiona is a good sleeper but likes an early start to her day (between 4:00 and 5:00AM in the days leading up to the race). By the time Matt got home I was hurting.

My goal, as with the LOVE Run and Broad Street, was to hide the pace field on my Garmin and run HM effort. I was struggling right from the start. I thought it was the heat so I plugged forward. By mile 5 I wanted to DNF or take a nap under a tree (preferably both). I couldn’t get over how tired and worn out I felt. I knew I had to slow my pace in order to finish. I’d like to say I consciously slowed my pace down but, let’s not kid ourselves, my body shut down at mile 5 and my pace came to a halt.

Splits: 8:18 / 8:12 / 8:09 / 8:13 / 8:52 / 9:23 / 9:00 / 9:05 / 9:18 / 9:18 / 9:16 / 9:01 / 9:23 (hill climb to the finish)

Lesson learned? I’ll never make it through 50K training (or the 50K) if I don’t make sleep a priority. I felt like 5 months of not-so-sound sleep finally caught up to me. Totally caught me off guard too. If Fiona gets up at 5AM (her wake-up time this week), I need to be in bed (asleep) no later than 9PM. (And if you’re wondering, that’s her wake-up time regardless of when she goes to bed…6PM or 8PM.)

On the plus side: my pacing was pretty consistent, I kicked off 50K training, and was able to run a fun race which included a tasty beer at the finish (missed out on that one last year!).

Broad Street Run (Race Recap)

May 15, 2014 by Kristy 5 Comments

It’s been nearly 2 weeks since the Broad Street Run and I’m glad I wasn’t able to recap this race sooner. A little perspective changes everything.

This race is a clusterfuck each year. A nightmare of crowds and congestion to get there and get home. Forty thousand runners packed into a small space. But the course is flat and straight and perfect for a PR. And the crowds are pretty amazing too. That’s why I keep running it each year.

Last year I was 5 weeks pregnant and in PR shape. Common sense prevailed (or rather Matt prevailed) and I ended up not running the race. Of course I could have run it for fun but I’m too stubborn and race results live on the internet forever.

So this year I was excited to get back to Broad despite being nowhere near PR shape. I feel like I’m in this frustrating transition space. I’m no longer pregnant and running races for fun but I’m not 100% yet so PRing is not likely. Lining up for a race is a total guessing game with regard to pace. Hence the reason why I hide the pace field on my Garmin during races and just run based on effort. Effort is the only thing I do know right now.

So many runners. A view of the front and back of my corral.

I can’t say Broad didn’t go as planned because there was no plan. I definitely wasn’t anticipating feeling crappy at mile 1. I tried to turn it around – maybe I needed to warm up – but it still felt hard at mile 5. My lungs burned a bit (I just got over a cold the week before…apparently it was still lingering) and it just wasn’t my day. It sucks when bad runs happen to fall on race day.

I tried to keep my effort consistent and have fun. I wouldn’t say it was a death march but it definitely felt like that at times. I finished in 1:23:41 (8:22 average pace). Splits: 7:52 / 7:57 / 8:16 / 8:21 / 8:21 / 8:27 / 8:33 / 8:42 / 8:39 / 8:24. Maybe I should unhide the pace field…I’m clearly all over the place.

I was initially disappointed with myself until the next day. I woke up with no soreness. This is a far cry from how I felt after the LOVE Run in March. I was sore for 3 days. Like post-marathon sore. The day after Broad I was able to run. Hooray for progress with structural fitness! And I checked out what my “predicted” finish time for a 10-miler would have been based on my 1:53 finish at the LOVE Run – a 1:25. So despite not feeling it at Broad, I still did pretty well. (I do take race predictor charts with a grain of salt…unless I’m faster than the predicted time. Don’t we all?!)

I’m getting there. I just need to keep plugging along.

Unrelated but what’s with the new mamalete hashtag? #motherrunner isn’t enough (or obnoxious enough)?!

The LOVE Run Philly {Race Recap}

April 6, 2014 by Kristy 5 Comments

Last Sunday I ran Philly’s first ever LOVE Half Marathon. CGI Racing put together a fantastic half – super organized with wonderful volunteers (who stood outside for hours in a freezing downpour). If you like the Philly Half in November (my favorite race), then you’ll like the LOVE Run. I’m so happy that Philly has another distance race in the Spring…something other than Broad Street.

This race was a lot of firsts for me: first race postpartum, first race in a total downpour, and first race where I didn’t look at my Garmin (not one single time). The weather was awful – freezing, windy, and nonstop rain.

My original plan was to make this a fun run, especially since postpartum running has been very blah lately. Standing at the start, freezing and wet, all I kept thinking was the faster you run, the faster you get done. Screw the fun run, I didn’t want to spend another minute in these conditions if I didn’t have to.

That’s when the strategy changed to let’s run HM effort and not look at the Garmin. I love running by effort (although I rarely do it) – there’s no magic pace to hit, no pace charts to follow, just you and your breath. And not looking at my Garmin was WAY easier than I thought…partially because it was under my windbreaker and I couldn’t see it anyway.

M1 – 8:51
M2 – 8:19
M3 – 8:51
M4 – 8:14
M5 – 8:20
M6 – 8:43
M7 – 8:19
M8 – 8:08
M9 – 8:52
M10 – 8:48
M11 – 8:41
M12 – 8:45
M13 – 8:36

Official time: 1:53:07 (8:38 pace)

Not the most consistent pacing and the wheels came off a bit towards the end but that’s to be expected after a year plus of not racing. I was in total shock when I crossed the finish line and looked at my watch. I was hoping for a (barely) sub-2:00 finish time. If I were eyeing my Garmin I would have freaked out about my pace during the middle miles (what are you doing? You have no business running that fast!). Not looking at my Garmin was the best thing I did that day. And also having absolutely no expectations helps tremendously.

Thanks to Oiselle teammate Danielle for keeping me company for a few miles. It definitely took my mind off the misery of the weather.

Race photos: me, my sister, and sister-in-law pre-race (and rain) and post-race awkward selfie.

how running has changed

February 18, 2014 by Kristy 10 Comments

Last week was the first time where I feel like I returned to real training. Some substantial weekly mileage (22 – yes, that is substantial right now) and a 6 mile “long” run. I feel confident about the Philly LOVE Run (half marathon) at the end of March. Confident I can finish without keeling over, that is.

Fitting in runs and how I go about them has certainly changed since Fiona was born. Honestly, it hasn’t been too bad. Of course, she’s not mobile and sleeps all day. I imagine that I’ll have to get a bit more creative when she’s older (4AM runs?!). Back in the day, I was very creative about fitting in my long runs around my social schedule (and by social I mean drinking). Guess I’ll have to tap into that creativity again.

You run when you can
The luxury of running in the early morning no longer exists (for now, at least)! Instead, I hop on the treadmill whenever I can predict that Fiona will sleep for a decent amount of time (+1 for the white noise of the treadmill). Pre-baby, the thought of running in the afternoon – or worse, at night – was unthinkable. Now I relish any run…no matter what time of day it is.

what fiona does while I’m on the treadmill

Running clothes are my wardrobe
Since I never know when I can run I must be prepared at all times! I change into running clothes shortly after I get up (and brush my teeth, if it’s my lucky day). Thankfully my running wardrobe is far superior to all my other clothes (err, sweatpants).

Being proactive
Since I have big running plans this year and I know my body has changed with pregnancy I have myself on a strict “pre-hab” regimen of hip, glute, and core strengthening. These are all areas that have weakened for me during pregnancy. I don’t want pre-hab to turn into re-hab and derail any of my plans.

All runs are fast finish
Keep in mind fast is a relative term these days. Fiona will generally sleep for a good amount of time but I’m constantly checking for signs of her waking up. Once I see her stirring, up goes the speed on the treadmill. Might as well end the run on a good note!

Completely unrelated but Matt took this picture a few days ago of Hawk and Fiona. It’s too cute not to share!

*****

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