Speed Work(s!)

Okay I just had to share! I went running today at the indoor track on campus and after doing three miles of warm up on the tredmill I went down to the track to complete 3 X 1 miles. I felt really good and had my trusty new blue ipod with me and also did something I usually don't do - I stepped to the outside runner lane. I think the sheer act of doing so forced me to be faster. I felt like I had to prove my worthiness of taking up space in that lane by really running fast. I pushed and I pushed and I kept telling myself that I shouldn't be holding back just because I had two more miles to go after this, but I could tell I could've gone faster if I hadn't had two more on the schedule, but to my sweet surprise I managed an 8:17 minute mile! Man that was huge for me. It felt so good. Especially after my really really slow miles that I ran in the half marathon on Saturday. After a slow lap I prepped myself for another fast mile. I ran, but not as hard as I had before and I'm not sure how much of it was or wasn't physcological. I think it was probably a pretty even 50/50, becuase mentally I was still impressed with my first mile and secondly my legs were yelling at me and I could feel the fatigue setting in as I finshed that last lap for: 8:50, slower than I would've wanted, but I was happy that it was a sub 9 minute mile. I was also intrigued that this was my all out fast mile at the begining of my speed work last week so I know that there must be something to this speed work thing and to really allowing myself to warm up at a compfortable pace for at least thirty minutes. I fininshed the workout with 800 meters that rang in at 4:08 which again helped me mentally because I was pretty sure that it would've been a much slower mile, but I knew that I could push ( or trick!) those fast twitch muscle fibers into hanging on for just half a mile. It was an awesome workout today although I can feel my trusty or rusty old left foot starting to give me attitude again as usual, but I think that I will make real progress in the speed area this year.

My ultimate goal that I added to my full life list last week is to run a mile in 6:40 which sounds huge, but it is only 37 seconds faster than my fastest recorded mile. (five years ago) I think I may have run a 7:0X once, but I can't find it written so unfortuneatly its like it never happened then. I think also one of the things I seem to have forgotten is that I started with one milers and built up to longer runs after I had gotten faster. I have pages and pages of a running journal that is just one milers that are all sub 8:30, but then I didn't start adding miles for a while (I did find a 5 miler that I had done that I finished in 41 minutes flat that is going to be my new unoffical goal for a tempo run this year .) I hope you all had a great week and that your runs help you feel like you are moving more forward than backward. I know for me that I am now on the right track to faster and faster miles.
Happy speedy running,
Meagan

2,490 Feet of butt kicking elevation, baby!

Thats right, I climbed over 2,490 feet in elevation in the most beautiful half marathon I have ever done- Rodeo Beach. The race was held in California and wow I've seen some pretty beaches, but this one takes the cake. Mom and I flew out on Friday morning and landed in Oakland, from there we went to the hotel. ( Hotel was nice enough, but the area was a little iffy). We went out to Alcatraz that day and had so much fun. I love history and seeing as how Shawshank Redemption is one of my favorite movies I was excited to see an actual prison. The prision itself was a lot bigger than I imagined, but I was totally surprised to learn that the warden and staff all lived there on the rock with their families! There was once a school, grocery store etc. It was a real town, but everything has long since closed down. After Alcatraz we went to the Ghirardelli factory mmmm. Definetly worth the walk. It is amazing what that company has done by including one ingredient in everything they sell.

We got back to our hotel pretty early and I got all my running gear ready for the race in the morning. I had my mint chocolate gu ( four of them one for before the race, one for during the race, and a couple extras just in case I lost the first two lol) then my fully charged ipod, my trail running shoes, and the most important item: my brand new par of merino/silk scout wigwams! They are the most comfortable pair of socks I have ever worn or run in.

Race morning everything seemed to be going okay. We got up in plenty of time, but were worried that we wouldn't find the race start. We went down to breakfast-sigh... it really was just a continental breakfast: danishes, coffe and juice, but I wasn't really thinking about fuel though because I was way nervous. ( On a side note I will never again let anyone at the hotel I work at complain about anything in our continental breakfast we have everything!) Well we got our cab and after giving him our directions from the website - and then correcting the poor guy when he missed the turn off we got to the race way freaking early. I stretched and got my number and gulped down a ton of water as I had forgotten a water bottle ( stupid move!)I ate two of my gu's before the race, becuase we didn't realize how remote this place was (no restaurants, stores or even vending machines nearby) and all the food had been taken to the aid stations.

Hightlights of the race:
The start went off and I forgot to set my watch for about the first 200 meters! I tried to listen to music, but and this was the weird part - I couldn't find that rhythm/run beat so I bagged the ipod early. I was really surprised how well the birds, wind and other runners kept me entertained! I also got separated to the back of the pack quickly and ran alone for a about fifteen minutes until I caught up with another couple and she graciously let me stay on her tail as we cut through a ranch ( part of the course- not a short cut) and waved to the rancher. A few hundred meters later we saw the first wonderfully stocked aid station! I drank like three cups of water and ate a handful of red gummy bears and kept plugging along. I kind of caught up to the the group and we were going down a hill, when I tripped on a stick and got dirty and then basically jumped in a mud puddle. :) About two miles later I am completely behind everyone and running along and following the pink 200 meter markers when I missed a turn went left not right and went a quarter of mile out of my way until a woman and her dog said they hadn't seen any runners and said to go back the way I came, so I retraced my steps and found the trail again. I then took a phone call from Daddy (who was still in Salt Lake) and chatted on the trail while running. He asked when I had last seen someone and I said "Oh I saw people about a mile and half ago" he said I must be going the wrong way because he thought I said an hour and a half ago :). I made it to the second rest stop for more water and kept at it, but man it was hard. By about mile ten I saw Mom who had gotten worried about me (aww...) and was walking up to meet me and we ran the next three miles together and I finished! Whoo hoo! One of the best parts of the race was when I was going up a hill ( after this hill I tripped over a stick going down and laid there in the middle of the road for a while until I said "Okay Meagan get up- the full marathoners will be here soon" he he he) and off to my left was the beach and water and off to my right going up I could see the tips of the golden gate bridge. That was awesome! After the race I gobbled up oranges and water and a wonderful lady who also ran the race offered to give me and Mom a ride Sauslito (she was training for the Boston Marathon and ran this race with a broken toe! Yowza!) where we had an awesome lunch and shopped before taking the ferry to Fishermans Warf, then back to the hotel and then yummy pizza dinner.

On Sunday I could walk better than I expected and we went to China town and hung out there before getting on the subway and then on to the Bart system where we ran into neighbors of ours who had just come for the weekend to goof off too. ( Small world!) All in all it was a great weekend, trip and challenge and while I was so much freaking slower than I thought I was gonna be at least I finished and now I have a new bench mark of "level of toughness" with which to compare "hard" workouts to! Awesome race and I can't wait for Canyonlands in a month!
Love and blister free/broken toe free races,
Meagan

P.S. Thanks for the "Christmas" trip Mom and Dad!

My Untimely Need for Speed

I am not a fast runner. I am a distance runner and distance will probably always be my forte. I remember the week before my first half marathon, how nervous I was that I wouldn't be able to complete the distance. My longest "long run" for training up to that point had been eight miles and it was a slow eight miles. I had run only slighly longer than that a handful of other times (once at SUU years earlier I had run ten miles on a whim one day just to see if I could do it.)so I was really loosing it prior to my race wondering why I had signed up for this race. Also I had read in runnersworld that a usual training plan should be about sixteen weeks. I had given myself fourteen and had just come back from breaking my left foot.( for the second time.)
But something happened that day. As hard as that race was, most of it was magical. I was pumped with awesome music and the electric atmosphere of the start and loved running through the different neighborhoods. When the race got hard I thought of three things: My neighbor who had been diagnosed with cancer. I thought about how I wanted to finish so I could donate my medal to Medals4Mettle in his name. I thought about Christopher Reeve and all those who are paralyzed and how when the pain was awful how they would have loved to be able to feel this kind of pain, and I thought about my first running partner- Kenai, my Siberian Husky who loved nothing more that to run and had he been there he would have been pulled me the whole way. Towards the end I also kept replaying the song "Hurts so Good" by John Mellencamp and I pushed as hard as I could to the end. I did finish 13.1 miles. It was awesome. It was one of the most powerful feelings that I have ever had. The interesting thing was this though: I finished in 2:21:58.
An average of 10:50 per mile. Not only was it not fast, but it was mysteriously close to my all out pace when I ran tempo runs ( within about eighty seconds.) After my race about a month later when I decided to really push my tempo pace runs. I ran 3 miles full out for 27:22. Hard stuff. I thought I would be able to run faster now, but I have not always made speedwork a priority. I have tried to find a place for it these last couple months. I did speedwork two days ago and after warming up for almost half an hour I ran a 8:50 mile. It felt so hard, but the thing that makes me mad is that I know I was holding back. I was like "Meagan you sill have two more mile repeats to go, don't push that hard." As I was wheezing and doing my easy lap I talked my self out of more mile repeats and broke it up and did two 400's and one 800. At least I got in the milage that I wanted, but of course that wasn't the point of Wednesdays workout.

I went back yesterday just to do a maintenace run and then today for a tempo. I bonked today at two miles after realizing that I wasn't on pace not even close and quickly loosing steam. ( I wanted 9:50 min miles for six miles and ended at 20:15 for two!) I then talked myself into seeing if I could finsh on the treadmil- was gonna do four then said three and then I just quit at 1 and half. The point of all this is, if I hadn't been trying for speed I would have had no problem getting the miles in. I maybe would have finished somewhere around an hour. All I wanted was to shave an average of ten seconds off my usual mile pace and it psyched me out. Im going to try to really focus on my running objectives of the day. Yes a tempo run is trying to train your body to run at the pace you want, but sometimes it is not going to happen and I am just going to have to adjust especially if I want to get in the miles and stay focused on the fact that I have two half's coming up in the next six weeks! That what makes it so untimely, I know that speedwork is a part of training and that I shouldn't feel guilty about workouts that have me doing 6 X 800's especially when I know that the distance part is going to be on my side, but I always want to have run longer.

The good thing is though that regardless of the physcial characteristics of the race I know that I can do it. Distance is really all about two things: pacing and acting on what you believe. And I know I can do the distance. And I do know that one day the speed will come to me- it just might not come as soon as I would like it to!
Love and forward motion,
Meagan