taper

Things that go bump in the night and Boston week 11 recap

March 20, 2012 by Kristy 25 Comments

Thanks to Daylight Savings, my early morning runs begin in complete darkness. Luckily, my neighbor (Maximus, his blog alias) has been running weekdays with me. It’s really nice having a “bodyguard” so to speak. Without him, I would be running a well lit section of trail – a span of about 2 miles – back and forth until the sun came up and I could enter the “woods”.

I call it the “woods” although it’s anything but. Essentially the paved trail moves into a tree lined section. I never enter the “woods” without complete daylight. It’s scary when it’s dark. Even running with Maximus we are both on high alert. Like yesterday when I ran behind Maximus and over to the other side of the trail because I mistook a trash can as a person crouching down and ready to attack (told you it was dark)! I really need to lay off the I Survived the night before a run (sidenote: does anyone watch that show? It’s great!).

Anyways, this week is my last big push mileage-wise before Boston. Most people running Boston are doing their 22-miler this weekend. I’m running 15 this weekend and then 22 next weekend. I do a 3-week taper in terms of mileage but a 2-week taper in terms of my long run. It’s different but it works well for me.

Boston Week 11 Recap
MON: 8 easy
TUE: 10 tempo: 4 faster than MP and 3 at HMP (plus WU and CD miles) + barre class –> I definitely took the bus to crazy town this day. I was exhausted at the end of barre and my legs felt like jello. Never again!
WED: rest!
THU: 7 speed –> and a sub-7:00 min/mi appearance!
FRI: rest
SAT: 20 18 miles –> tough run; my legs were trashed!
SUN: 8 easy

51 miles for the week!

Ever run in the dark and think things like stop signs are out to get you? Or is that just me? We also see bikers with headlights riding 2 across and it looks like a car on the trail coming at us <– that is scary!

Anyone running Boston doing a 2-week taper? Anyone a fan of the 2-week taper?

Boston Week 11 Recap

Lehigh Valley Marathon: Week 14 Recap

September 6, 2011 by Kristy 8 Comments

9/5/11 (Monday)
5 miles tempo
*2 miles at marathon pace: 8:13 and 8:10. Way too fast…I blame it on the taper crazies!

Labor Day weekend was wonderful. I rested, got some stuff knocked off the ol’ to-do list, BBQ’d, and slept. I slept like a champ…9+ hours each night. More time spent sleeping = less time for the taper crazies to strike.

And the taper crazies made me order this for Hawk’s Halloween costume. Sorry, buddy.

MON: rest
TUE: 6 miles speed (my last speed work of this training cycle!)
WED: 5 miles easy
THU: 6 miles easy
FRI: 10 miles long
SAT: rest
SUN: 6 miles tempo (4 miles at MP)

A total of 33 miles for the week and 229 miles for the month of August! That’s a new mileage PR for me! Damn, I should have ran an extra mile to make it an even 230.

So what’s left? Two more easy runs…probably 4 miles on Thursday and 3 miles on Friday and lots of marathon prep. You know…lists, weather checking, and repeating of positive mantras!

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Taper Makes Me Lazy

September 2, 2011 by Kristy 10 Comments

9/2/11
10 miles / 1:31 / 9:06 avg pace

Last week I practically jumped out of bed to run my 22-miler. Today I re-set my phone for an additional 15 minutes of sleep (something I never do) and could barely muster any enthusiasm to run my last long run. “Taper time” makes me lazy. I hate holding back, watching my pace, and cutting out miles. It seems that all that holding back demotivates me in the process. Thankfully, I only have 1 more week to go.

Of course today I decide to carry my camera with me and it’s cloudy. Right at this exact spot you can usually see the most amazing sunrise.

And what would a long run be without post-run pictures? Thumbs up for a successful training cycle!

And then a normal picture.

I hope everyone enjoys their long weekend!

Any good long runs or races this weekend?

Do you get lazy during “taper time”?

Lehigh Valley Marathon: Week 13 Recap

August 31, 2011 by Kristy 8 Comments

8/31/11
5 miles easy / 47:25 / 9:29 avg pace
*Done at the crack of dawn (5:15AM), thankfully with my neighbor. If I were alone, I would have waited for some sunlight (no worries Mom and Dad).

Week 13 can be dubbed the “lazy” week. I began my taper with respect to overall mileage but I still had a 22-miler to do. I only planned to run 44 miles with 22 of them being a long run. So I only ran 4 days and took almost as many rest days. But it’s taper time, right?

MON: rest
TUE: 7 speed
WED: 7 easy
THU: rest
FRI: 22 awesome miles!
SAT: 8 ~~tempo~~ easy (had to fit this in pre-Irene and my legs were in no shape for tempo miles)
SUN: rest (although I had fully intended to go to yoga but the studio was closed for the hurricane)

I have an unrelated question that I’d love feedback on: when you read blogs, do you prefer quality over quantity? Say a blogger were to only post 3 days per week but they were more high quality posts…would you prefer that over more “simple” posts every day? Do you like when bloggers are on a schedule (i.e., post every Mon/Wed/Fri) or it doesn’t matter?

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

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)!

A long run, HLS, and a delayed hangover

August 22, 2011 by Kristy 12 Comments

8/21/11 (Sunday)
15 miles / 2:13 / 8:52 avg pace

Let’s recap this weekend in reverse…

Long Run
My long run was supposed to be done on Friday but with all the thunderstorms we’ve been having I was terrified of getting caught in one (especially after Meggie commented that she knew 2 people that have been struck by lightning). So I stuck close to home and did 9 easy miles. I rested on Saturday and did the LR on Sunday. I am so happy to begin my pseudo-taper this week (decreasing my overall mileage). All I have is 22 miles on Friday and then I’ll be in full blown taper mode!

HLS
So this weekend I attend the Healthy Living Summit (HLS). Don’t worry, I’m not going into a detailed description of the entire weekend. I decided to attend since it was in Philly and I thought it would be a great opportunity to meet other bloggers, although my blog is a running blog rather than a food blog. I do think I promote a healthy (balanced) lifestyle and I hope my blog inspires people to run but I’m definitely not a foodie. I don’t really get excited about food and I could easily live off pizza, cereal, peanut butter, and green beans (such an odd combo, I know). My diet is more carb heavy than most (good carbs, of course) but I’m also running a lot. I left HLS feeling like all I eat is crap! Ha! I admit I could add more veggies and fruit to my diet but I just don’t think I could get on the tempeh band wagon. It’s just not for me…and that’s OK 🙂

The sessions were very informative and I had a great time hanging out with Holly and Alli. Am I happy that I went? Absolutely!

Friday night was the HLS cocktail party at Reading Terminal Market. It was so awesome to be at RTM when it’s empty and have the entire place to ourselves (it’s generally packed with people). We were provided with 2 drink coupons which I promptly exchanged for beer. We had 2 choices for beer (sadly no Miller Lite) and we made a wise choice and went with Kenzinger. It was yummy. So yummy that me, Holly, and Alli went back for many more. Followed by a round of beers at the hotel bar. Followed by late night pizza delivered to the lobby. We laughed at how we made HLS unhealthy.

On Saturday I woke up surprisingly not hungover and was pretty pleased with myself (remember, I drink Miller Lite, which is like drinking water). And then around 2pm it hit me…the delayed hangover. Ugh, I HATE the delayed hangover. You get this false sense of phew I made it only to get slapped in the face with a hangover 10x worse.

(via)

I came home Saturday night and went to bed at 8:30. I was amazed I was able to get up and run 15 on Sunday morning.

Ever experience the delayed hangover?

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