Re-Discovering Things

This morning, mid-way through an incredibly fast run for my recent paces, I smacked my forehead (metaphorically, anyway). It’s breakfast, stupid!

I’d forgotten during my long running sleep that I can’t eat before I run, if I want to run fast. If I’m going out for a longer run (say, 6+), I do need to put something in that’s light and easy to digest…yogurt is the usual choice. But for anything less than that, eating seems to slow my paces by quite a bit. About 30 secs per mile, at the current (reeeeeeeally slow) paces. This morning I’d postponed my old lady breakfast of oatmeal and applesauce because the kitchen was a flurry of Monday morning chaos. Lucky break.

I also re-discovered why, exactly, I love and am willing to put up with the idiosyncrasies of my Garmin Forerunner 305. This morning it (by way of SportTracks) told me that I’m running considerably faster this month than last, although it doesn’t really feel like it, and last was faster than the month before. How we measured progress before gadgets, I don’t know.

Sunny and 50

Yesterday I described “sunny and 50″ as the conditions everybody seems to want for a nice run (it could, on a good day, also describe me in about a year and a half). Magically, those were the conditions at 10:00am today. First time in weeks that we’ve had lovely weekend weather. Running was a true joy. Only three miles today, and just through the ‘hood, but no complaints.

Virtue

I have no right, no right at all, to feel virtuous when half the country is experiencing what’s being call Snowpocalypse and/or Snowmaggedon and many runners are just running behind snow plows through piles of snow in sub-zero temps, I realize this. But so many West Coast runners I know (and granted, I know a lot of wusses) will not run in the rain. It’s as if there’s a switch that’s flipped as soon as some drizzle appears – nope, can’t run now, have to wait.

People: It’s. Just. Water. Sure, it’s not sunny and 50. But it’s not a hurricane, either. (And I’ll happily take rain over the crazy offshore “breezes” that buffet our region from late March through late May.)

So I felt a tiny bit smug this morning, setting off in a full scale downpour. And the best part was the two other runners I crossed paths with – we were in the club, man, and we knew it. Nice to get a goofy grin from a fellow street shuffler.

Goal One

The first race I ran as a grown-up runner (I ran track in high school and then off and on in the 1980’s, with a very long hiatus – all the way to late 2007) was The Greek Independence Day Run, around Lake Merritt, in Oakland. That was almost two years ago, and although I’ve run a few races since then and seen even more, it continues to be the sweetest little running event I’ve seen.

Great things about it:

• Lake Merritt is a flat, fun course. Once around is almost exactly 5K, and twice around? Good job. That’s the 10K. Although there are pedestrians, people are pretty used to races around the lake every weekend, and stay to the side.
• Parking: free.
• It’s well-organized. They start handing out 5K prizes not long after the first finishers cross the 10K finish. They start on time. The course is marked. They have a lot of volunteers for the size of the race. Lotta bathrooms.
• The size of the race? Miniscule. Maybe 200 for the 5 and 10K combined. Which leads to the next bullet.
• In 2008 it was my first real race, and I could barely run 3.1 miles. I placed 4th in my AG. Hard not to like. Last year, if I’d run it, I would have placed 2nd for sure, 1st if I’d leaned on it a little. Cheap plastic medal possibilities.
• But the REAL reason: tables and tables of free, homemade spanikopita at the finish. Not just for the runners, but for whomever wanders by to watch the race. Oh, and amazing olives. Yeah, yeah, they have fruit and water and all that blah blah blah crap. But seriously. Span. I. Kopita. All you can eat. Served by sweet little Greek ladies.

So, yeah. It’s mid-March, and I’m in for the 5K for sure, maybe the 10K. Those local fast 40+ women better stay away. I’m even not telling a few of my running friends about it.

‘k. Let’s go.

The last few weeks were spent adjusting to my new schedule. A new semester brought a new class schedule, an additional job, and a ramp up in out-of-class stuff, like, you know, homework. I’m also constantly applying for full-time, permanent jobs to start in May, something I’ll probably be going on about over the coming weeks. Selling yourself is tough.

But I got motivated after a couple of weeks off to structure every day, like I did the first year of my master’s program. I learned during that winter that running in the dark around here sucks enough that I just didn’t do it. Especially if the weather is anything less than perfect, and it’s been considerably less than perfect for most of this winter. So I’ve now got life structured so that I can get at least 4 three- to five-mile runs during daylight hours in a week for now, increasing mileage as daylight increase, and hopefully a fifth short run or gym workout most weeks. That’ll be the best I can do, this semester, but it beats last semester, when I didn’t run at all.

My paces, despite two weeks off, shocked me the last few days, in a good way. I expected to be zippy the first day out, but by the third I figured I’d be poky. Instead, today’s effort was about 30 seconds per mile faster than I was at the start of the month, a testament most likely to my no longer being in recovery from a massive sinus infection. It makes me happy that I’m not as far behind the curve as I thought.. .

Why I blog

I blog for three reasons: 1) because if I write it down, I’m much more likely to do it; 2) because I’m incredibly self-absorbed; and mostly 3) because running bloggers are the best, and I like to pretend I’m cool, too.

On No. 3, a number of posters have made me smile the last week or so, but none more than Vanilla. If he’s not on your reader list, he should be. No. 1 isn’t working – I started back into the real-life grind this week (working a 40 hour week, apps for several fellowships/perm jobs, travel over the weekend, and sick kiddies), and as predicted, running keeps getting bumped. Two days off: bad, bad girl. Will do 3 tomorrow, I swear. And No. 2? Nothing for it. I have always been and will always be a mirror-kissing ego maniac.

Speaking of, my new doctor (we switched to Kaiser) was thrilled, THRILLED with my bp and hr at my first visit on Tuesday. As she should be: 104/67 and 50bpm, respectively. When she got to the “Do you exercise?” question she stopped and said, “oh, well, you MUST.” So I can’t be THAT out of shape.

Santa Barbara Run and One Goal

Upon reflection, and given that I know I have one more semester in which running will be about the fifth priority on life’s list, I think a reasonable goal for the year is to just try to take things one week at a time. This last week I hoped for 12 miles, and got 11.84, which makes me happy. I did do the planned 4 miler in Santa Barbara (Goleta, actually), but it turned into something of a heat stroke prevention exercise. Because of my chaperoning duties, I couldn’t get out to the beach until 11:00am, and by then the temps were in the mid 70’s and no shade. Coming off two nights with little sleep and unaccustomed to temps that high this time of year (I’ve been running in 40’s and low 50’s), I started to feel myself going over the brink at about 2 miles, and had to take some walking and water breaks to keep things sane.

Still, beautiful scenery and I did get the full distance in. Oh, and even a few hills, a rarity for me. SportTracks doesn’t want to give me the Google Earth map, for some reason, but picture a spectacular bright blue shore and a path around the stunning UCSB campus, and imagine me huffing and puffing, and you’ve got the idea.

This week: 14 miles, with one “speed” work out and a long run of 5 miles on Sunday.

Defining “speed”

On good days, I get to drop my kids off and then run from a park near their school, down the shoreline path. It’s got a stunning view of San Francisco, but it’s also about the windiest spot in the southern East Bay most of the day, so I tend to avoid it. Winter mornings usually lack the breezes.

Today I thought I’d take a shot at increasing speed, and it was an exercise in humility. What once passed for a recovery pace (10:00 mi) now is a quarter mile interval pace. But it felt good to up-tempo the music on the iPod and push a little.

I’m hoping to find time to get a 4 mile run in somewhere pretty in Santa Barbara this weekend, while chaperoning a sports team to a tournament. If the rest of the country is jealous of Californians’ weather in the winter, Californians are jealous of Santa Barbarans’ weather. Low 70’s and sunny, today, tomorrow and until May.

A wall

Finally feeling better from the sinuses, cold, travel, tiredness from life, and whoops! I found the point at which I couldn’t just keep pushing back into fitness territory. For the last three weeks, each run has been a little easier than the one before, a little tightness here and there, but no pain, etc. Today I started off with shin splint twinges, a soaring heart rate and a pain in my right foot, and that was just the first mile. Dismal pacing and some walking followed, but I finished the distance, and tomorrow is a scheduled day off.

These reminders that a nearly 50 year old body cannot just do whatever it feels like are annoying.

Firsts

While I’ve enjoyed two glorious new year hikes in the Trinity Alps, this morning (back home again) was my first run of 2010. I’m post-recovery from a wildly unpleasant and exhausting sinus infection that followed the Christmas head cold, so I wasn’t expecting much. Still, I wanted to push for the three mile distance again. I assumed there would be a walk in there, but suggested to myself that I could certainly pull off two miles straight. At two, I mentally pushed that to 2.5, and well, you know the story. I was happy to cross the finish line with no walks and and average pace no slower than I was running two weeks ago, and a significantly lower average heart rate (3 days at 3000 feet may have helped that last part).

It was also the first weigh-in of 2010, and the results there were a little less blog-worthy. Weight Watchers On-Line heard from me, just now. I have about 8 pounds to shed to get back down to “ain’t I something?” weight, but I’m more aiming for not wincing when I put on job interview pants. If I can make it through the end of February, just 8 little weeks, continuing to run and eating well, I will feel a little more in control for the long haul, I think. That’s a reasonable goal, yes?

This week’s running goal is 12 miles, with another 5 to 7 in fast dog walks. This month’s running highlight: I plan to run my first LMJS monthly race, a 5K around Lake Merritt, on January 24. No pressure, just meet people, have fun, and notice my finish time.