10 Miles of Repeats

This marks the first official week of marathon training for me. In the middle of August I started adding in a longer run of about 10 miles each week and was generally running a bit more but I was still in triathlon season. Between traveling for two weeks, starting school and moving back to Baltimore, and doing my last two triathlons of the year it was hard to really focus on training for a marathon. When September rolled around and I saw everyone already doing 16-20 mile long runs I started to get nervous about my own training.

I am happy to say that I am no longer freaking out about whether or not I will be ready to run 26.2 miles come November 3rd. I know that I have a lot of work to do but I am 100 times farther than I was last year at this point and that comforts me.

Wednesday morning I had a bit of a redemption run for Sunday's long run. Sunday I struggled to run 11 miles the day after racing a triathlon. Wednesday morning I ran 10 miles like it was no big deal. Funny how the same distance can be so much easier or harder depending on the day.

10 miles at 8:18 average

I am still in awe of this run. This was actually a track workout featuring 6 x 1 mile repeats. The last time I did mile repeats I averaged 7:41 over the 5 repeats with an overall average for the run of 8:36. My warm up miles were around 9 minute miles and my warm down miles were over 10 minute miles. While I felt pretty good during the repeats I did not feel so hot during the warm up and felt dead during the warm down.

On Wednesday I averaged 7:44 for the mile repeats, which is three whole second slower than last time. It's how much faster my warm up and cool down were that makes this run impressive to me because I wasn't pushing the pace then at all and went considerably faster than last time. I also had more energy to complete the distance. When warming down I felt like I could have kept running for awhile, instead of counting down the tenths until I could stop.

7:50, 7:47, 7:39, 7:48, 7:49, 7:31

As you can see in my splits, right under a 7:50 was what my body wanted to run on Wednesday. When I would try to speed up it was always way too much, and that's how that last mile became so much faster than the others. It was more that I couldn't lock into the 7:45 pace that I was supposed to.

This run was also a mental battle. The first time I did mile repeats the workout portion seemed to fly by. This time I felt like I was out there the entire day. After the first one I was having a hard time wrapping my head around still having to by 5 more. By the end I was so happy I stuck it out though. I got to the track before the cross country team and left after them. I worked my butt off and finished 10 miles by just after 9 in the morning.

Sometimes Things Don't Go According to Plan

For the past two weeks my track workouts have been halted due to scheduling conflicts with the sports teams at my school. Last week I checked the schedule for the track and field teams and when I saw there wasn't a meet I assumed I was good to go. So I laced up my sneakers and ran the mile and a half from my apartment to campus. When I arrived at the track I found out there was a lacrosse game, meaning I couldn't run. Not sure what to do, I tried to get an answer about when the track is open for use by students. No such luck. I felt so great during my warm up that I decided to run around campus (UMBC's campus is a loop) and then go back to my apartment. I wanted to run fast and so that's what I did.

The loop around campus is half uphill and half downhill with the track at the bottom of the hill. So up I went. It's not the longest climb but it's long enough to make it challenge you mentally and physically. At the top of campus I ran over to a little gated community that also has some hills and then finished running the loop before heading home. The way back from campus to my apartment is also a little hilly. There aren't really hills but it is a very gradual uphill with a nice little climb at the end.

Mile 1: 8:42
Mile 2: 9:04
Mile 3: 9:20 <- hill!
Mile 4: 8:12
Mile 5: 8:21
Mile 5.9: 8:23

I didn't have any time goal for this run since it was supposed to be my track workout. Instead I just ran on feel, not even thinking about running fast or hard. I ran because I wanted to and I enjoyed every minute of it. When I got back to my apartment I was pleasantly surprised to see my pace over such a hilly run, especially since I wasn't intentionally pushing it.

This Wednesday for my track run I knew better. I checked all of the schedules and saw there was a lacrosse game at 4:00 pm. I'll move my workout to Thursday. Problem solved. Except I got out of work much earlier than expected and suddenly had enough time to do my workout before the game. Around 1:30 I headed over to the track, same routine as last week. When I got to the track I was happy to see there was nobody there except for two T&F runners doing some drills.

I did some stretching and started my first repeat, only to be stopped part way through by an athletic director telling me I needed to leave so they could set up for the game. I questioned him and he told me it was too dangerous for me to be there before the game, even though they were only carrying coolers. I started getting upset and asked when I could use the track since every time I tried to I was not allowed. He so kindly informed me that before, during, and after both games and practices the track was closed. Just to clarify, I asked 

"so the track is pretty much closed the entire day every day?"
"yes, you can run around the loop if you want to run"
"that's really not an acceptable answer"

The conversation went on for a bit longer, him telling me that the athletic facilities at Division I schools are only for student-athletes and me protesting and calling bullshit. After realizing I was getting nowhere and not wanting to waste my time arguing with him I left. I debated whether to run back to my apartment and call it quits or get in a hard run anyway.

In the end I decided I wasn't going to let him stop me from getting in some good training. So up the hill on the loop I went. And then came the wind. 20-25 mph winds while running uphill can make a person cranky. I pushed harder and harder but felt like I was going backwards. I tried to convince myself that not giving up on the uphills would make the downhills that much sweeter.

7.75 miles
8:36 average
7:25 last mile (before cool down)

And it did. I finished strong and happy, despite how challenging that was. It was the kind of run that makes you proud of yourself for pushing through even when you don't feel great and the conditions suck. I was hurting during that last mile, but I needed that. I needed to push myself to that place where I'm begging to stop running because it hurts so badly. Runs like these are what makes us stronger, mentally and physically.