They won't all be good...

Just as the U.S. Postal Service delivers in rain, sleet, snow, we runners are supposed to be able to run through anything: including sluggishness. Blech.

Today was one of those days. It's been a slack week for sure, with Christmas and eating and not a lot of sleep and eating and relaxing and... did I mention eating? Fortunately I've managed to keep up with my workouts, but without the proper sleep and nutrition, my body definitely feels when I'm not treating myself well.

This weekend was an on your own weekend, when we were supposed to run 6 miles--you guessed it, on our own. Janine, Dianne, and I had volunteered to lead a run at Campbell Park and we set off for our 6 miles. Within a few minutes, Janine and I noticed we were breathing heavily and not really feeling all that great. By mile 2, we decided to adjust our 4:1 interval to a 2:1 interval so we could take it easier and still get our 6 miles in. Turned out to be a fantastic thing, as we managed to finish our run and feel marginally better.

In the end, we finished in 1 hour and 14 minutes (that includes 2 separate stretch breaks), which is roughly our 10K race time from the Turkey Trot. Not bad for feeling sluggish, eh? But I can't overemphasize the importance of running with someone. Had I been running by myself, I would have turned around before I hit the first mile marker ;).

Here's hoping next week's run will be much more pleasant!

Christmas caroling takes on a new meaning

Last night's track workout was definitely the most unusual yet--and yes, it was even fun, dare I say (shh, no one tell Coach Kris, or she'll make us do it again ;)). We've done circuit workouts at track before, but never like this: we did twelve rounds of circuits, all done to the tune of 12 Days of Christmas.

Think for a second about what this means... This means that each round, we add a new exercise, perform it at the # of reps that that particular round calls for ON TOP OF the previous exercises we'd picked up at each round. Yup. How does 12 blazin' burpees, 11 toes a prancin', 10 crabs a walking, 9 seconds of side planks (on each side), 8 butt kicks, 7 speed skaters, 6 runners running, 5 push-ups, 4 walking lunges, 3 jumpking jacks, 2 squats, and a 15-second front plank sound? Well, when you do this 12 times, with a lap on the track in between each round, I can tell you it gets exhausting ;).

But it was fun and boy did we get a workout :). And hey, we even got to "skip" core this week (ok, not really--it was already built into the circuit workout itself).

What will the coaches have in store for us next track, I wonder?

Ice, ice baby

I guess I should start off by saying that in almost 4 years of TnT, I had NEVER done an ice bath after a run. Why would any sane person do that, you ask? The theory is that ice baths help flush things out of your system, thereby making you less sore the next day, particularly after a double-mileage (10+ miles) run. I have teammates that swear by this and tell me they are never sore because of it; I always pshawed them and said, "No thank you."

Well in a year of firsts (first marathon, first winter season), I figured I'd at least try it once just to say I did it. Yeah. We'll get back to this in a second, after I recap the run...

The run itself was at Sawyer Camp, and we were on tap for 12 miles. Having run one extra mile two weeks before (i.e. our 10 mile run was actually an 11.03 mile run ;)), I figured this wouldn't feel like such a jump, so I wasn't too worried about it. Besides, it was at one of my most favorite trails!

A group of us met at Pruneyard for a carpool, with the very kind Margot offering to drive. Up we went to the Peninsula, happily chatting away, when we saw something that instilled fear in all of us: fog. Lots of it. Perhaps this wasn't going to be such a run of the mill run after all, hmm...

But not to worry, by the time we got there, it was clear that the trail itself was fog-free (though it was a nice effect to see the fog hovering over Crystal Springs), and, despite the chill in the air (and I do mean CHILL), we managed to suck it up and finally start the run.

All in all, I had an great run. I got to run with some awesome runners (shout out to Janine, Toni, and Andria), who kept the conversations lively and entertaining (snot rockets notwithstanding--ewww, ladies). I did have some issues with my bruised foot--towards the end, especially, I was thisclose to limping--but I made it! Which brings me back to the ice bath...



Ok, I admit: it wasn't AS BAD as I thought it would be. But it was still pretty bad, yo. Especially when I finally submerged my legs into the icy water (in the pic above, you can see I'm still hovering above the water, trying to psych myself up for the eventual torture). I did follow numerous pieces of advice that helped: have a space heater going, bundle up in a sweatshirt, have a timer running, get in the cold water first, then pour the ice in... They all helped, but people, there is NOTHING that can change the fact that you're getting into water with LOTS OF ICE.

That said, I'll probably give this one more chance after the 14-miler. I'm still a bit sore in my joints, but I suppose considering the mileage I ran, I could be way more sore. So I guess that means it worked?

Brrr.

I feel the need... for speed...

This week was a momentous one, with new waves (groups based on your pace) being set and the first double-digit mileage of the season.

It all started at track on Tuesday night, a day I'd been waiting for ever since finishing Nike--knowing that my goal was to move up into the next fastest wave so I could have hope of shaving the necessary time off my pace to make the 6-hour time limit at Napa.

I was a bit nervous--I was recovering from a cold and had NOT felt well after the Turkey Trot on Thanksgiving day (ironically, I actually set a PR for a 10K, finishing it in 1:14--though I paid the price later with my cold getting worse). To add to things, I had been having trouble adjusting to my new reading glasses and was feeling nauseous and fighting a headbanger of a headache that day--I wasn't even sure whether I'd be able to show up to track that night.

But I was determined to run in my time trial and ended up surprising myself. I finished the 5K in 31 minutes and 57 seconds--a full 5 minutes and 30 seconds from my time trial in June! Woohoo! It was enough to get me into the next wave up, a mind-boggling achievement for me, since I had been in wave 1 my first 4 seasons and didn't move up to wave 2 until last season.

But once elation set in, fear and panic took over. Now I was going to have to hustle ;).

This weekend's run would be the first test; we were to run 10 miles with our new waves, and wave 3 was expected to average a 10-11 min mile pace. Gulp. I'd never done less than a 13 min mile pace on a long run, so this was going to be a challenge.

We were running on a relatively new trail; I'd been on the trail before, in my first season with TnT's walk team, but I hadn't been there in almost 4 years and I had never been there as a runner. It was a challenge in more ways than one.

Fortunately it was a gorgeous run, so it was pretty easy to take in the scenery and not think about the fact that we were running 10 miles--our longest distance since the marathon. I had been experimenting with my new run/walk interval of 4:1, which I first tried it at the Turkey Trot, but this would be my longest with it. I was nervous about how it would feel, but much to my surprise, it felt great! In fact, the run felt really good, up until the end when I started to feel weird things with my Achilles and my ankle. I iced both of these areas vigilantly after the run, but then started to feel some twinges in my knee.

Methinks my body is trying to tell me to relax.

I'm hoping that a few days of rest will get everything back to 100% again, but in the meantime, the run itself did wonders for my confidence. Sure, Julie (who was kind enough to run with me) and I were the last runners to come in, but we finished in 2 hours and 23 min--a pretty respectable time (especially since, according to my Garmin watch, we actually ran 11 miles, not 10 ;)). I didn't quite get to the 11 min mile pace that we were supposed to be shooting for, but 12:30 is not too bad, and there will be plenty of chances to get there.

This season is going to be great :)

Week #3 and I've made a welcome realization: I am feeling better and stronger at this point in the season than I have in any of my previous seasons. I am loving this! :)

As anyone who trains with me knows, I typically take the winters off and join TnT only during the summer months. It's not that I go idle during those 7 months out of the year; on the contrary, I do lots of other activities that I often have to set aside during my running, such as kickboxing, step, heavy weights, circuit training, etc. It's great to get the physical and mental break, but it does come at a price: when I come back to training, I often feel as though I have to start from square one and re-train myself all over again to get back the running-specific endurance I've lost. The ugly truth is, no matter how fit you are in general, if you don't run regularly for more than a few months, you will definitely lose a lot of those gains--at least this is what I've discovered for myself.

So the first 3 weeks of any season I am usually miserable, trying to keep up with my much stronger/fitter running buddies and wishing I had been more diligent about running in the off-season (instead of cursing the cold, the rain, and the dark). But this time around? I feel super strong and have even started to experiment with longer intervals again. A few seasons ago, I had gotten up to a 6:2 (6 minutes running, 2 minutes walking) interval, but due to not running in the off-season, I couldn't get back to that the following season, and have since stuck with a 3:2. I'm now trying to shake myself out of that rut and much to my surprise, it's actually WORKING. I think the difference really is that aside from the 2 weeks following my marathon (when I was sick as a dog), I went back into running and didn't miss a beat.

In the last 3 weeks, I've run 6-8 miles for my long runs and have felt great--I know this because I end each run thinking, "I can't wait to get back out there and try to run longer or faster or both."

Things bode well for the rest of the season, I hope!!

Season #6, officially underway

Back in the day, when I was a TnT newbie, I swore up and down I'd never do Winter season. Training in the cold, the dark, the rain? Yeah, no thank you.

And yet, it seemed fitting that in a year when I did something else I swore I'd never do (26.2 miles, natch) I'd follow that up with another challenge. If I learned anything from the marathon experience, it's that no challenge is too big now.

I hope I don't end up eating my words in a few months ;).

One week into the season, and we've already had run # 2 today, at good ol' Campbell Park, aka my regular 'hood for the weekly buddy runs. Because it is early in the season and participants are still getting their feet wet with the training, it's more important than ever for us mentors to step in and make sure they are well supported and have folks to show them the ropes. Janine, Robin, Julie, and Dianne and I have been running with the newbies this past week to get them comfortable (and hopefully enjoying it all :)), so to make sure we could also get our training in (Napa in less than 4 months--we've gotta kick our butts into gear to get our pace up to snuff!), we met for a "pre-run" run: a 4-miler as a prelude to the mileage we would run with the participants.

I ended up doing 7 miles in total--an extra 3 added on for good measure. Right on track with where we're supposed to be in the training AND we got to help out the peeps!

Upping our pace is going to require lots of trial and error over the next few weeks and months. I'm sure we'll have some set-backs along the way, but I hope they're overshadowed by many, many more triumphs, ala the now legendary Natural Bridges 20-miler.

Here's to what's ahead!!

I'm officially a runner

Yes, it's taken me 3 1/2 years to come to this conclusion, but I am officially a runner now, and therefore, "Jen runs again" doesn't seem as apropos a name for a blog as "Jen keeps running," so I've gone and gotten myself a new blog name :).

I'll be sharing my running adventures from here on out on this blog--please update your bookmarks!! That is, if you had me bookmarked in the first place ;).

To read about my best running day ever--aka the day I ran my FIRST MARATHON--simply click here!

More soon, as the new (Winter) running season gets started next week!