December 2017 Running Challenge

Today's the first day of my 2 week vacation. Started it off by putting on a suit and going into the office for an interview. The new job would be with a different division within my company (I work for an ria subsidiary of a larger bank. The new job would be within the bank itself). It would be a huge step up for me in terms of job grade and career potential, so I'm excited! When my current superiors found out I had an interview, they were immediately on the phone with HR trying to come up with a counter offer to convince me to stay, so I may come out ahead even if this doesn't work out.

Came home from the interview with the intention of going out for a run, but no motivation whatsoever . I managed to drag myself out, along with my running buddy (Jayde, the gsd/husky mix). The first mile was super slow. Like 11 minutes or so. But I finally hit a groove after that and managed to finish the 5k in under 30 minutes (29:42, I think).

Now to get ready for the company Christmas party tonight. Should be interesting.

12/1 = 4 miles
12/2 = 4 miles
12/3 = 7 miles
12/4 = 4.5 miles
12/5 = yoga class
12/6 = 3.5 miles on the dreadmill and strength training
12/7 = rest
12/8 = 2.5 mile
12/9 = rest
12/10 = 26.7 BSC Marathon
12/11 = rest
12/12 = rest
12/13 = 3 miles

Someone asked me for a race report about 186 posts ago. I can’t remember who and I will never catch up on all the posts at this point. Now that I can walk downstairs without wincing, here is a short race post marathon report thingy.

After starting out too fast at my last half marathon, I decided to follow a pacer for the marathon. I had no idea what time I was going to be able to run the marathon in. Half my training was walk/run intervals and the other half was straight running. I decided that a 5 hour time was a reasonable goal for my first marathon. Thanks to a chronically late running friend who was racing with me, I arrived at the start line right as the gun went off. I had to sprint the first five minutes to catch up to the five hour pacing group. (My late friend is forgiven – she drove and signed up for the VIP package. The parking lot was right next to the finish line. That was so awesome because walking was next to impossible after the race).

The course was lovely and the weather was perfect. A morning low of 37 and a high of 62 degrees F. Some hills but they were all rolling. We ran through Texas A&M campus and the surrounding farms. There were lots of students volunteering and cheering the racers on. I even saw Santa at one of the hydration stations.

Plenty of Gatorade and water stations. I brought a handheld Nathan water bottle with me just in case. I ended up chucking it at mile 21. My shoulder started aching from the stupid weight of the thing. They even had stations with bananas and orange slices. I can’t use Gu or runner supplements because they tear up my stomach. The fruit stations were a very welcome surprise.

I am super grateful for the pacer group. The first half of the marathon I was very tempted to speed up. I realized how bad of an idea that was at mile 22 when everything hurt and I wanted to die. Plus, the group gave me people to talk to and pass the time.

Most of the pacer group fell off at mile 23. At that point, we figured out that the course was 0.5 mile too long (I guess this means I ran an "ultra" LOL). The pacer started freaking out that she would not finish in time. She told us we were going to have to speed up the last few miles. I said “Ugh, Okay” out loud and speed up (but what I really wanted to say was *kitten* the race measure-er person and *kitten* going faster -- I am going to lay down in the middle of this freakin road and never get up again).

The race funds were used to raise money for The Mercy Project (they rescue children in Ghana from slavery). The last mile of the race, there were posters lining the road with pictures of the children who have been rescued. Very cool to see.

I crossed the finish line slightly delusional and exhausted with a full lower body cramp at 5 hours. Oh, and minus a toenail (that just finished growing back last month).


Signed up for my next marathon today. Now I have to run one in 4 hours 45 minutes. ;p


December Goal = Run a freakin marathon and not die. Done! 5 hours: 0 minutes: 42 seconds

Upcoming 2018 Races
1/6 = River Road Run 1/2 marathon
3/3 = Woodlands Marathon

Non-running check in:

Skimming the posts. Too dang many injuries. Yay for @Elise4270 getting a diagnosis and treatment plan. Sad face for everyone who can't run and wants to.

Today I'm healthy enough to jog up and down my hallway for 2 minutes while the eggs cook in the morning. I'm not healthy enough for real running. I have an appointment on Friday with a sports doc (chiro, active release therapy) that a lot of club members use. I hope to learn just what the heck I injured and what I need to do in order to get better. Other than rest, which is taking an awful lot of time. Or perhaps I just go back and run too soon, delaying healing.

On the bus to and from Club Nationals, there were repeated announcements about going over goals for next year with Coach. He couldn't get to everyone on the bus, and I didn't have the goal chat with him yet. There will be other opportunities. But I got to thinking about goals, and what tops my list is to get and stay healthy. Thought some about injury, how it happens, and what I want out of running.

There are a lot of moving parts, but my injury history is mostly related to being too aggressive with training volume and intensity. The catch, of course, is that I don't know how much I need to back off. But I have a couple of clues. I've tended to get injured either after marathons, or (most recently) during marathon training. To stay healthy, I need to learn to *run* marathons instead of *race* marathons. Either that, or give up marathons entirely because I'm too stupid to back off enough in training.

Well, I'm committed to Boston 2018. That might be my last marathon. It *will* be my only marathon in 2018, whether it's the absolute last marathon I run or not. Two years in a row, I've crapped out of a fall marathon in a way that disrupted other things I'd like to do. 2016, DNF Rochester Marathon. 2017, DNS Rochester Marathon. 2018, don't attempt Rochester Marathon and focus on other things that time of year.

Tentative 2018 running goals, subject to revision:
1. GET AND STAY HEALTHY. Fail this one, and the rest don't matter.
2. Run Boston, and finish healthy. Time is not important Managing the race well is.
3. Support the GVH Supervet team running USATF Masters Grand Prix events
4. Support the GVH Supervet team running cross country events
5. To the extent it doesn't conflict with higher priority goals, compete in the GRTC Rochester Runner of the Year Series (try to win age group) and the USATF Niagara Runner of the Year Series (don't expect to win masters title; my chance at that this year is because no one was paying attention early.)
6. Other races only if they don't conflict with the higher priority goals. I expect to fit some half marathons into this category, and there may be a half marathon in #3.

In other news, I noticed that I've run more miles in 2017 than I did in 2016, even if I don't run another step in December. I expect I'll run fewer miles in 2018 than in 2017. And that's okay, if it enables me to stay healthy enough to run regularly.

December 5 — 4.11 miles
December 11 — 4.1 miles (although for some unknown reason my Garmin only recorded 2)
December 13 — 4.07 miles

December total 12.28 miles

I managed my regular run tonight in newly fallen 8 inches of snow. Decided to try out my Due North traction aids (similar to Yaktrax) rather than submit to the treadmill. Figured if it seemed too slippery after running two blocks I would go home and use the treadmill. Then I realized that even if I did fall I probably wouldn’t hurt myself because the snow was so deep.

It would have been a lot easier to run on the road since there were a least a few sets of tire tracks, but after watching cars fishtail and slide through intersections, I decided it was safer to run on the sidewalk, or at least where I thought the sidewalk was. Running in deep snow is hard! Every step was like a little hop.
It made me realize on a small scale the kind of conditions that runners like @MNLittleFinn @Jessica_McB @juliet3455 and @sarahthes run in every day in winter. I was exhausted at the end of my 4 miles. Oh well it still beats a treadmill.