MCM Week 5: Tripping Hazards

With one month down, my body has adjusted to the early mornings and different eating patterns that go along with marathon training. I’m still not a fan of the extreme heat, but I now expect it and come fully prepared to replenish the 5+ pounds of water weight I lose every time I run for an hour or more. Training is all about doing the difficult and uncomfortable work now so that I feel great on marathon day, and I can’t wait to prove myself in the 26.2 distance once again at the Marine Corps Marathon in October. I may stumble a few more times, but I will get back up again and crawl across that finish line if I have to.

Here's the plan breakout for Week 5:

·       Sunday – 8 miles Long

·       Monday – 6 miles Easy

·       Tuesday – 7.5 miles Speed: 1.5 mile WU, 6 x 800m @ 10k pace w/ 400m jog, 1.5 mile CD

·       Wednesday – Cross-train

·       Thursday – 7 miles Tempo: 1.5 mile WU, 2 x 2 miles @ MP w/ 0.5 mile jog, 1.5 mile CD

·       Friday – 6 miles Easy

·       Saturday – 6 miles Easy

What actually happened:

·       Sunday – 10 miles Long

·       Monday – 4 miles Easy

·       Tuesday – 9 miles Tempo: 1 mile WU, 2 x 3 miles @ MP w/ 0.5 jog, 1 mile CD

·       Wednesday – Heavy Lifting

·       Thursday – 7.5 miles Speed: 1.5 mile WU, 6 x 800m @ 10k pace w/ 400m jog, 1.5 mile CD

·       Friday – 2.5 miles Easy (Trail)

·       Saturday – 5.5 miles: 1.5 miles WU, 4 miles Tempo (Navesink 4 Race)

Unlike Forrest Gump, I just didn’t feel like running on Sunday. The plan only called for 8 miles, but I knew going farther would be better for me in the long run (no pun intended). The most productive runs or workouts are the ones you least want to do and feel like the greatest accomplishment once completed. I set out with my hydration vest full of frozen water bottles and ran the slowest 10 miles I ever recall recording on a GPS device. Everything felt tight, but I’ve had so much worse and even the times I was injured I remember running faster. My goal was to go nice and easy and my heart rate displayed that, but I just wasn’t feeling it. I was drenched in sweat once again from the humidity and didn’t bother picking a playlist again to build more mental toughness. I decided that if I ran a little farther on the Hook, then I would complete 10 miles right at the bagel shop in town. Gem’s Bagels was my finish line, and I delightedly handed over my sweaty dollar bills (plus a tip for the poor girl who had to touch wet money…gross) for an egg bagel smeared with sundried tomato cream cheese. I walked about a half mile home to recover, showered, and put my feet up on the chaise while eating my late breakfast. We got to relax for the rest of the day in a family pool and attended a live Red Bulls II game.

Monday’s easy run was even slower than the previous day’s 10-miler. I cared more about enjoying the beautiful sunrise than speed, and it was meant to be a recovery run anyway. Years ago, I didn’t understand the concept of “recovery run” since I was always taught to “give it 110%” all the time. We’re supposed to have easy days to help keep training the central nervous system to optimize our movement while giving other systems in the body a break (cardio etc.). As sluggish as I felt that morning, the sunrise gave me energy for a busy workday.

I told my client to meet me at the soccer field at his normal time on Tuesday. I started my run about an hour earlier and ran along some parts of the bike trail that I haven’t been on in months. I swapped Tuesday’s and Thursday’s workouts because I wanted the track near home for the shorter speed bouts and the longer intervals on the gravel around the soccer field by work. It is mentally easier to run 2-mile intervals on a trail than 8 laps around a track. It’s also easier to run 800m (2 laps) around a track and then 400m (1 lap) recovery vs longer intervals. The swap was a win-win for the week. After 7 miles of running, I was about to leave the soccer field and run back to the office building when my client made it. I still had energy, so I ran around the gravel a few more times and when I got back to the building it ended up being 9 miles total. I felt great and if I needed to run a half marathon that morning, I would rock it!

I wanted to run Wednesday to keep up the momentum, but I needed to strength train or else it wouldn’t happen this week. I felt lazy; long rest breaks between sets, lighter weight on the barbell, and barely breaking a sweat. I felt like I was going through the motions for my heavy lifts. Progress doesn’t happen when you’re motivated; it happens when you show up. I showed up and checked the box.

I woke up Thursday not quite ready to run, so I took a quick walk to capture the sunrise and fueled up with breakfast. I parked at the high school track and warmed up with 1.75 miles around the neighborhood to stay in the shade and have a few minutes away from the aloof high school football players at their practice. I needed to do 6 x 800m on the track with 400m jog between sets, so 3 miles at a 10k effort. My pace during the work portion ranged between 6:30-8:00/mile, but during the recovery lap I would walk for a bit so my lap average pace was still about marathon pace overall even though I put in more effort. I like track workouts because I can really open up my stride and go for an all-out effort, but I also don’t like that it makes me have to slow down significantly to recover. I also don’t like running in circles for a long time, so you’re probably not going to catch me signing up for a track marathon or ultra anytime soon. After I pushed myself on the track, I did my cooldown miles around the neighborhood again for the shade.

On Friday I debated going to a group ocean swim, but I wasn’t feeling up for bumping into sea creatures that morning, so I went to Hartshorne Woods to do an easy run on the hilly trails. I debated between 4-6 miles but aimed for just 4 miles since I had a hilly race the next morning and wanted to conserve my energy. The trail I planned to take in the woods was about 2 miles up a hill before it met with the paved parking lot for Battery Lewis. After the first incline and about 0.5 miles into my run, I’m greeted with a “Trail Closed” sign on the next segment. This particular hill already had a lot of damage clearly from flash flooding in the past, and it was always scary to see the mountain bikers try to maneuver riding on the thinnest bit of trail without falling off an edge at least 2 feet deep. I wondered when the rest of the trail would disappear from a storm, and I assume it must have been the recent downpours from last week. I followed the detour and now had no idea where I was going. I’ve run on all the trails in this park, but not enough to feel like a human compass. Each trail was a very manageable distance, so I went with the flow.

I was getting into a good groove and then all of a sudden, I ended up on the ground, my left side now powdered with clay dirt. The rocks play tricks on you in these woods by hiding in plain sight and camouflaged by the uneven coverage of sunlight. You could think you’re stepping on solid ground, but then it slides out from under you while going downhill. My stumble was painless and surprising, but I got back up on my feet right away and continued. I just hoped I didn’t mess up my other knee since this is the second fall of this year. Everything comes in threes, so if I fall again, I hope it’s now and not a week before the race. I could have run longer, but with my lack of luck with tripping objects, the heat wave of the day, and the next day’s race, I didn’t want to chance doing another loop, so I only ended up doing 2.5 miles on the trail.

I recently signed up for the Navesink 4 to have a short race to test out my track workouts. It’s a 4-mile hilly out-and-back course adjacent to horse farms and a golf course. The Facebook post described the route as having “rolling hills” and the comments written below it were marked with sarcasm, saying things like “You call those hills ‘rolling’?! LOL!”, so I expected it to be a nice challenge.

It was a hot evening, and I was tossing and turning all night, so I didn’t feel rested Saturday morning despite my Garmin saying I was starting the day at 100% body battery. I tend to sleep restlessly if I didn’t move enough throughout the day, so I blamed my short trail run. My nerves made me queasy, so I could only stomach 2 small homemade banana blueberry muffins dipped in my coffee and water in the morning. I drove to the race, parked on one of the side streets, and started a little warmup jog. I was already warm, so I was just trying to shake out my nerves and get my legs ready to go for speed. It was so hot out that I chugged a full water bottle during my 1.5 mile sloth-paced warmup that I decided to carry a frozen bottle for the race. Even though there would be plenty of water stops for this short distance, I wanted to hydrate on the go.

The start/finish line was on the grass at Bodman Park, just like a cross country meet (a sport I didn’t do since it was soccer season, and I hated running as a kid). The XC stars lined up in the very front, and I placed myself somewhere in the front-middle of the pack near runners that looked like they could match my pace. There aren’t corrals in small races, so I have to make my best guess every time. When the horn sounded, the pack slowly moved over the timing chip line and then we were off!

The first 0.5 mile started on dewy grass and passed some tennis courts. It funneled down to a single file lane that was laden with big, trippable tree roots, so the race organizers had spray painted them white for our convenience and volunteers pointed them out along the way. These obstacles forced me to take my time and not go out too fast, which I was fine with because the humidity was really rough. The grass and dirt changed to pavement once we entered Cooper Road and I was able to make up some time and pass a few people along the way. I wanted to take photos of the cute horses spectating us, but I didn’t want to lose momentum. I imagined they were placing bets on us humans and hoped the odds were in my favor to get an age group award.

The next mile had some tiny inclines, but I noticed that there were very large declines when heading east, which meant that those would be very large inclines on the way back. I came up with my strategy there: I would run at a sustainably fast pace on any declines and flat land and would conserve on the inclines. I would have to put my speed efforts in early since there was no way I would make up the time on miles 3-4. I steamrolled down the hills for miles 1 and 2. Eventually the pavement turned to gravel and I adjusted my footing once again.

The loudspeaker at the halfway turnaround point was blasting typical race music like “Living on a Prayer” and switched to “Eye of the Tiger” as I pivoted. I had Chappell Roan playing on my bone conducting Shokz, but they were somehow all the slower songs so I must have picked the wrong playlist. I wasn’t going to pull my phone out to swap music so that I wouldn’t slip on a rock. I booked it on the decline and slowly climbed the inevitable hills. At around the 2.75 mile, I walked for about 30 seconds at the top of the hill to drink water and reset before the next small decline. That quick break gave me the boost I needed for the last uphill section.

I finally got my groove and pushed, not caring about my very audible breathing pattern. Knowing the grass and dirt were up next, I made sure to get a little more speed on the last bit of the pavement. I reached the single-file area and basically played chicken with some guy. I wanted him to go ahead of me for the area with the roots so I could focus better on avoiding tripping, but I guess he was trying to do the same. I was glad to reach the grass where it opened up, which feels unnatural compared to when I used to run around in cleats.

My signature move is to sprint to the finish, so at the last 100m of baseball field I aimed my gaze at the finish line photographer and let him reel me in. I pumped my arms, let my legs flail behind me, and smiled at the camera, hoping he caught a good race photo. A very sweaty race photo, but with good form.

I grabbed a cold bottle of water from an ice bucket and took a cold towel that a volunteer handed to me and put it around my neck to cool down. I wouldn’t normally eat this at 9:00 in the morning, but the ice cream truck didn’t have a line so I got a scoop of mint chocolate chip to also aid in my cooldown while I checked my results on my phone.

I completed the Navesink 4 in 33:41.9 with an average pace of 8:25/mile (a little faster than my goal marathon pace this year). It wasn’t my best, especially when I used to conquer bigger hills than these, but I still got 7 out of 62 in F30-39 and 83 of 407 overall. I placed 26th in my gender. I’m still proud of my average runner stats for this one. It was hot, hilly, and it was a mental battle for a short time. I love the one-of-a-kind tie-dyed race shirt and sweat towel swag and I got a good workout in on a Saturday.

I thought it was a nice touch that every participant was given a different tie-dyed shirt! Mine was cute, but there were blue and purple designs I was eyeing. Don’t forget my Sprints ice cream hat!

Week 5 was an overall success logging about 38.5 miles, just 2.5 miles shy of the planned volume. I’m glad I went farther in my Sunday long run and Tuesday tempo run, didn’t seriously hurt myself when I fell on Friday, and found another hilly road I can run on to improve my hill skills.