Ode To My Running Routes

We're moving. And perhaps the biggest change with moving won't be the house itself, the mortgage payment or the commute. But the running options.

When searching for our new home, we found plenty of houses that we loved but that were, as I called them, "land locked." My definition of "land locked" means the only way out of your neighborhood is a narrow two-lane road that is not safe to run on. These houses were automatic deal breakers. Our new home will be run-able, but as I stated above, the running options will be entirely new and different. 

But in this post I don't want to talk about our future neighborhood. I want to wish a proper farewell to our home of 15 years, the home that got me outside every day instead of on a gym treadmill Monday through Friday. 

Here are the top 10 things that I LOVE about my running routes today, that have been part of my daily routine for 15 years. 

10. Variety. From my house I can run in multiple directions and through multiple neighborhoods. Even though I do tend to get bored of my same routes, there are places I can go if I really want a change.

9. Fresh Pavement. Within the past year, they paved my neighborhood with smooth asphalt and they did the same to almost all the roads I run on. There is nothing like fresh, smooth asphalt!

8. Safety. I run mostly on neighborhood roads and I have never once feared for my safety. I often encounter other runners and walkers. The roads are generally well lit. I typically don't run on thru-streets so the only cars on the road are those people leaving their homes in the morning.

7. Flat, Hilly, or Mixed. I can make my runs as hilly or as flat as I want them. There are some routes that are mostly flat, and some routes that are quite hilly. I usually choose the flat routes for easy runs. Those routes are not entirely flat, but the hills aren't very long or steep.

6. Wide Roads.
If you've ever watched one of my Instagram videos, you know that I run mostly on neighborhood roads. And there aren't many cars. This is thanks to the roads being wide. There is enough room for cars to be parked on both sides of the street AND for two cars to be driving on the street passing each other, AND for me. So imagine a scenario where you have cars parked on both sides of the road, and there are cars coming from both directions. Well, there's still plenty of room for me to run. The roads are that wide.

5. Perfectly Placed Hills. One of these wide roads is a hill that's about a quarter of a mile long. It's perfect for hill repeats. My hill repeats usually last 60-90 seconds and this hill is the perfect grade and distance. It's not too steep but it's definitely a hill. This hill is located about a mile and a half from my house so it's perfect to run the warm up and cool down there and back. There is another hill that's about twice the distance that I use for my 2-minute hill repeats. It's similar to heartbreak hill. It's not incredibly steep but it is long. Finally, there is an area that's almost completely flat but has one hill in it. A common workout of mine is tempo/hills/tempo so I can run the tempo on the flat portion and have the hill for the hill repeats in the middle.

4. Plowing in the Winter. They are very good about plowing my neighborhood and the surrounding neighborhoods. If it snows overnight or in the morning, I know that road will be plowed by the middle of the day. Last winter we had a few periods of heavy snow and I only had to use the treadmill a few times. There was one winter when Greg and I needed to do a long run before leaving on vacation. Our neighborhood was not plowed but we found one about a mile away that was plowed and it was a big loop we ran 14 times around.

3. A Track. I can run to my local track in 2.3 miles. Sometimes I drive there and sometimes I drive halfway there, depending on how long I want my warmup and cool down to be. But it's nice to have a track that's open to the public that is within running distance. I also have a group of friends who runs on this track most Tuesdays, which is nice. 

2. Ending at Coffee. I live less than a mile away from a plaza with a coffee shop, a smoothie place, and a grocery store. I like to finish my runs there and walk home with my coffee or my smoothie. Or even pick up some groceries afterwards!

1. The Perfect Tempo Neighborhood. About 2.5 miles away from me is a neighborhood that's mostly flat (just a few inclines and declines) and it goes on, and on, and on, forever. It's perfect for tempo runs and marathon pace runs. Sometimes I run to it, and other times I drive there so I can use my car as a water station. The roads are wide, there is no through traffic on most of them, and it's well shaded. I think this is what I will miss most of all. 

Many of these things will also apply to my new neighborhood, but in a different way. I think the biggest difference will be narrow roads and a generally hillier topography. Narrow, hilly roads instead of wide, flat roads. I am sure I will get used to it! There will also be things about the new area that will be better than my current area. 

We still have a bit more time left to enjoy our current house which we will miss dearly! Every time I run I take a moment to appreciate how "lucky" I got with this particular area in terms of running route options.

If you are looking to move to a different area and you are an avid runner, it's worth thinking about these things and really sizing up the running landscape before choosing a new home. 

Heart rate, hills, and other stuff

I'm officially done with my 5K racing season and have moved into base building for my fall marathon. I ran four 5Ks this spring/summer and their purpose was mainly to get my running heart rate back to "normal" after Covid had made it abnormally high for months.

Heart Rate
My resting heart rate was elevated for about 2-3 months post Covid, and my running heart rate was elevated for about 5 months. I got sick in the middle of January and recovered at the end of January. From January-May, my running heart rate was consistently 10-15 BPM higher than it was before the illness. 

I started to notice it come down in early May and by the first week of June it was completely back to normal. All of the track workouts and 5Ks had served their purpose of reminding my autonomic nervous system that it didn't need to beat so quickly.

By early June, I was able to run further, faster, and in warmer weather with a lower heart rate than I had in April. It's unfortunate that my Boston Marathon time was a casualty of this lingering symptom, but at least I eventually overcame it. And interestingly, I think my heart rate is even lower than it typically is for summer runs in the heat.

5K Reflections
Here is what I took away from my four 5Ks:

• Run The Greenway, May 7: My fastest 5K of all four (20:43) due to the cool weather, flat course, and lack of tangents (3.12 on the Garmin). I raced this at only 90% effort per my doctor's guidance and I felt really strong, despite hypothermia afterwards. It was nice to walk away with the win!
• Feed Fairfax, May 14: The first warm/humid race of the season in a time of 21:06. I was happy with my execution and my mental strength during the final mile.
• Lawyers Have Heart, June 11: I was disappointed with my performance here. I felt crappy the entire time, the humidity felt extra suffocating, and I don't think my head was really in it. 21:09.
• Firecracker 5K, July 4: The most satisfying race of the four, even more satisfying than winning the Greenway race. Running a time of 20:57 on a difficult course in the heat and setting a course PR in a race I do every year felt amazing. According to my Garmin, my pace was faster than the 20:43 Greenway due to lack of tangent running (3.16 miles). 

Overall, I think it was a strong 5K season for me and I had a lot of fun with this distance. I think by the 4th one I really got the hang of having a good mental strategy. I probably won't run another one until the Turkey Trot in November. 

Hills & Mileage
I've been running weekly hill workouts for the past 4 weeks, and those will continue for another 2 weeks. This will be my longest string of hill workouts ever and I think it will really pay off. I like running hills in the summer because I don't care about my pace. The track can be brutal in the summer: un-shaded, slower times, endless laps. But hills are more forgiving. They work on both speed and strength and are a nice compliment to my weekly strength training sessions. 

The hill workout is my only significant workout each week. My long runs have been around 11-12 miles at an easy pace, and one of my other easy runs is a fast finish (ex: last 5 minutes at 10K effort). 

In the summer I typically run about 50 miles per week, but this summer my coach has kept me in the low to mid 40s. I was worried I would lose fitness because of it, but now I realize it has enabled me to run really strong workouts because I'm not as exhausted from high miles in the humidity. 

Heat and Humidity
This summer I've learned that I was probably dehydrated almost every previous summer! I am drinking twice that water that I normally do in the summer with added electrolytes as well. I drink one UCAN Hydrate or Liquid IV every day and it's made a big difference in my daily energy levels. 

I also think we've had a relatively mild summer, with "relatively" being the key word. It's July 20 and there have only been a few mornings when the dew point has been higher than 70 at 7:00am. If the dew point is above 70, that's when I use my treadmill. One of the high dew point days was a hill workout day, so I did my warm up on the treadmill and used the hill next to my house. I did the minimum number of reps per the plan but I ended up feeling decent afterwards. 

Looking Ahead
My goal races are the Hartford Half marathon in October and the Indianapolis Monumental Marathon in November. . . followed by the Houston marathon in January. There are only 10 weeks between Indianapolis and Houston which is atypical for me, but I want to give it a shot, so I can spend the spring focused on the half marathon distance. 

I having been working directly with coach Greg McMillan since May which has been amazing. He's a strategic thinker and we had a long conversation about the "big picture" before he gave me any specific guidance. We have a general roadmap that we are following, and he fills in the specifics as we go along based on my feedback. I'm on the cover of his latest book, Run Faster Marathons, which contains really useful advice for marathoners of all levels. 

For the next few weeks, I am trying to be very consistent with my running with a slight bump as I prepare for marathon training. That way, when I take time off running to go to Africa, it will be easy for me to jump right back in when I get home. Based on where we are going and treadmill availability, I think I will be able to run about 20 miles a week for the two weeks I am there. I don't think it will impact me too much. . . I took 3.5 weeks off completely for Covid and hardly lost any fitness at all. I'll take the opportunity to do more strength training because body weight exercises can be done anywhere!

My immediate goal is to stay healthy for this Africa trip, which will involve a self-imposed quarantine before we leave. When I return, I plan to blog about it and share many zebra photos!

My Week in Shoes

As I've mentioned previously, I am running the Rehoboth Beach marathon on December 8th. This means that I am not officially marathon training yet, rather I'm preparing to train for this marathon.  This means that I am building the strength and endurance to be able to handle 70+ mile weeks, with 3-4 quality workouts each week. That type of load is not sustainable for more than 6-8 weeks, so I

spend the weeks prior to that preparing my body for what's ahead.

I wore all of these shoes this week.

In this blog, I will recap my past week of training with a fun twist: I'll talk about the shoe I wore each day. Nike has discontinued the Lunarglide, my go-to long run and marathon shoe for the past 5 years, so I have had to make some adjustments. Additionally, I suspect that I no longer need stability shoes.

The Nikes are "light stability" and some of the shoes I wear for speed work are neutral, and I do just fine. I've looked at photos of myself running in neutral shoes and I see no pronation, so I am going to see if I truly need stability or not. There's nothing wrong with a stability shoe, but if I don't need the extra support, it makes the universe of wearable shoes much wider.

My main requirements for a shoe are:

• Narrow fit without having to buy a narrow width (Mizuno and Nike are great for this)
• Heel-to-toe ratio of at least 10mm due to my history with Achilles Tendonitis
• Not heavy or bulky

I typically buy the previous year's shoe model because they are almost always on sale somewhere and it saves me a lot of money over time. The only time I buy the current model is if it's a newly released model, like the Nike Odyssey React or the Boston 7 with the beautiful design. I cannot wear any shoe made by Hoka, Altra or Saucony because all of their shoes have an 8mm drop or lower.

Monday: 10 miles (including speed) in the adidas Adizero Boston 7

The prescribed workout was 70-85 minutes with 50 minutes at steady state pace in the middle. My coach told me to shoot for 7:10-7:15 for the steady state portion, which is supposed to be faster than marathon pace, but slower than half marathon pace. Thankfully, this was the only cool morning we had all week, and it fell on the day I needed it most. I was questioning if I could hit the target pace in warm temps, but I was confident about my abilities in the cooler (63 degree) weather, even though it was humid and muggy. The 50 minutes at steady state averaged 7:11 for 7 miles with splits of: 7:22, 7:12, 7:10, 7:08, 7:07, 7:12, 7:03.  In total, the run was 10 miles long, average 7:40 pace.

I wore the adidas adizero Boston 7. The only reason I purchased this shoe is because it's so beautifully Boston. It's blue and yellow with a unicorn on the heel, and even the insides have the names of all the towns you run through. I bought three pairs of these shoes because I loved how "Boston" they were, and I figured when I was done running in them I would use them as walking shoes. Aside from the looks of the shoe, it performs well. It's designed to be a lightweight trainer for faster workouts than can stand up to longer distances. It worked well for me on Monday, but during the final cool-down mile, I noticed that my feet were starting to ache. Therefore, I probably would pick a different shoe with more cushion for a half marathon or full marathon race.

Note: the adidas has a stability version of the Boston, called the Tempo. I think I prefer the Tempo because it has a little more spring. I've worn them in two half marathons and my feet have felt great. I was disappointed, however, when they came out with the Tempo 9, which is noticeably heavier and bulkier than the Tempo 8. I haven't run in the 9 yet, but when trying it on, I didn't love it. Thankfully, I have two brand-new pairs of the 8 that I stocked up on. Here is another picture of the Boston 7 from the back:

Tuesday: 9 miles easy-ish in the Nike Odyssey React

During marathon training, my coach gives me a medium-long run on Tuesdays. Later in the cycle, he wants me to run this at a quicker pace (around 7:30-7:45). So he's starting to ramp up the distance already. I was prescribed 75 minutes easy, and I ran them easy-ish at an average pace of 8:20 for 9 miles total. I felt good and I figured I should start preparing for these Tuesday runs to get faster. Even though it was back up to 70 degrees and muggy, I felt energized.

9 miles in the Nike Odyssey React

The Nike Odyssey React is the supposed replacement for the Nike Lunarglide. I think they are entirely different shoes. The Odyssey React is much lighter and according to my kitchen scale, is the lightest shoe I own. Even lighter than the shoes I race 5Ks in (adidas Adizero Adios). I absolutely LOVE the ride of the Nike Odyssey React and how they feel. They are bouncy and soft and fun. I actually look forward to putting them on my feet. However, I'm not sure they are the workhorse of the long run. Even though my feet had enough cushion for 9 miles, I'm not sure how they'd feel at the end of a 20-miler. The Nike Lunarglide had more "stuff" between my foot and the ground. 

But. . . I am considering using them as my marathon race shoe since they are light and cushioned. My plan is to continue to use them on the Tuesday medium-long run, and then on some longer marathon-pace runs. If all goes well, then they will be my marathon race shoe. If not, then it's the Nike Lunarglide for Rehoboth and back to the drawing board for future marathons.

Wednesday: 6.8 miles in the Mizuno Wave Inspire 13

This was an easy day: 60 minutes at an average pace of 8:48. I kept it easy, given the two harder runs on Monday and Tuesday.

I've been wearing the Mizuno Wave Inspire for about 7 years. I've always liked the firm feel, but they have always hurt my feet after about 7 miles, so I have never worn them for long runs. Lately, they have been hurting my forefoot even more. My feet start to hurt about 45 minutes into the run pretty badly, and then continue to ache for the rest of the day. Not good. This has been going on for about three weeks, so I think I need to stop wearing the Inspire. Maybe I have a defective pair, but given the fact that they have never felt great on my feet past 7 miles and I don't think I need stability, I'm ready to part ways with them. They also keep changing the shoe each year. I think version 11 was my favorite because it was flexible and light, but the other versions haven't really impressed me.

I plan to replace the Inspire with the adidas Solar Glide. This is a neutral shoe with lots of cushion that I think could be a good candidate for both easy runs and long runs. It's a little heavier and wider than I would ideally like, but I'm going to give it a chance.

Thursday: 7 miles (including hills) in the Mizuno Wave Elixir

Hill workouts work wonders. I don't particularly enjoy them, but they have multiple benefits. First, they make your legs stronger and more able to handle a heavy training load. I don't do any strength training on my legs, so hills are particularly important. Running them hard for a short duration is also a great VO2 max workout. This workout was 10 x 1-minute hills with the jog back down recovery. My hill was about 30 feet over a distance of 0.15 mile. I performed this exact same workout last week and it didn't go that well. I was only prescribed 8 reps last week, and I was dead by the last one, having to go significantly slower. This week, my paces on average were 20 seconds per mile faster (6:30 vs. 6:50) and I was able to do 10 of them without feeling completely wiped out. On both occasions, the weather was hot and humid, although this week was 72 degrees and last week was 74. Both of which are unseasonably warm for an early September morning.

The Mizuno Wave Elixir is a lightweight stability shoe that was discontinued about 4 years ago. I was so in love with this shoe that I bought 8 pairs when I heard the news. I'm on my very last pair now. I still like them quite a bit, but I prefer the adidas Adizero Tempo 8.

Friday: 7.8 miles in the Nike Lunarglide 8
My coach bumped up my Friday run from 60 minutes to 70 minutes, and my legs were super tired from the hills the day before. I kept it super easy at 8:53 average. And of course, it was a steamy, muggy 72 degrees.

As I said above, the Mizuno Inspire begins to hurt my feet after 7 miles so I wore the Nike Lunarglide for this run. Now that the Lunarglide has been discontinued, I would ideally reserve this shoe for long runs only, and not "waste" the mileage on a shorter easy run. But it was my only option because the adidas Solar Glide shoes had not yet arrived, and I didn't want to wear a speed work shoe.

14.3 miles in the Nike Lunarglide

Saturday: 14.3 miles in the Nike Lunarglide 8
This week's long run was 2 hours. As usual, I started out really easy and gradually progressed to a moderate effort by the end. I ran the first hour at an average pace of 8:39, and the second hour at an average pace of 8:09. My overall average pace was 8:22. This run felt okay. Tolerable. Manageable, but not great. I wasn't hurting or counting down the minutes for the run to be over, but I also didn't feel peppy or energized. But, as my coach said, that's to be expected in this kind of weather. And, when I looked in my training log, I noticed that I had run over 58 miles in the previous 7 days, which is a big jump. Hopefully this is the last long run I will do in the 70's this season. At least it was overcast, and 8:22 was my long run pace in cool temperatures less than a year ago, so I've made progress.

I normally don't wear the same pair of shoes on back-to-back days, but as I said above, I didn't have much choice other than the Lunarglide for Friday. The shoe, which is nearing the end of its life, held up great. A light shoe that has plenty of cushion for the long haul and is super easy to run in. No extra bulk, and it fits like a glove. I will miss this shoe. The Nike Lunarglide replacement, the Odyssey React, also seems to be a great shoe, but I would put it in a different category. I don't think it has enough "stuff" to be my long run shoe.

Sunday: 4.4 miles in the Mizuno Wave Inspire 13
Easy recovery run at an average 8:56 pace. It was a chilling 67 degrees!

I wore the Inspire again, even though I dreaded it hurting my feet. After three miles, the ball of my right foot was aching and I later discovered a major callous forming there, which is good. My new adidas Solar Glide shoes should hopefully arrive early next week so that I won't need to wear the painful Mizunos again.

Final Shoe Thoughts
I'm excited to be transitioning to a neutral shoe, and I hope the adidas Solar Glide is everything I expect it to be. I'll review it once I've had it for a few weeks. I should have stopped wearing the Mizuno Wave Inspire a few years ago, but because I've been injury-free, I was hesitant to make a change. I'm sad to see the Lunarglide go, but happy to add the Odyssey React. I didn't wear the adidas Adios or the adidas Tempo this week, but those are nicely fitting lightweight shoes for speedwork and racing.

Final Training Thoughts
My total mileage this week was 59.5, which is quite the jump from the previous two weeks. I had been hovering in the low 50's. Everything has felt good, and I've been energized overall. I've been sleeping well and hydrating well, so that has definitely helped. I'm only three weeks out from the Army Ten Miler, and it's crazy that I really don't know what kind of shape I'm in-- on the off chance the race will actually be cool! I think sub-1:10:00 is not that aggressive of a goal, considering I have already run 1:09:45 in a half marathon. But it would be a nice official PR and milestone. If all the stars aligned, I think I would run somewhere around 1:09:00.

Training graph, August and September

Vegas, Awards, and Hills

Since running the Houston Half Marathon, life has been a bit of a whirlwind. A few hours after running the race, I flew to Las Vegas for a work event. Upon returning, my training really ramped up with intense hill workouts, and I attended two awards celebrations for 2017 running.

Las Vegas
The last time I visited Vegas, I found it impossible to run outside because of the constant stopping for traffic and the fact that you have to go up and down staircases to stay along the strip. This time, my coach told me about a track that was about 1.5 miles off of the strip. It was the UNLV track and he said that it was open to the public.

UNLV Track in Las Vegas

Thankfully, I didn't have any hard workouts that week because I had just run the Houston Half. But nevertheless, I needed to maintain my mileage base because Boston Marathon training was fast approaching. I was able to go for a run every day before the conference started, and it was nice to get the fresh air. The weather was perfect: mid 40s and sunny every morning! I didn't have to worry too much about my safety, as one of my co-workers is an ultra-marathon runner, and he was happy to accompany me on my runs every day. On one of the days, we even explored the UNLV campus, which was a nice change of scenery.

The conference itself also offered an "Urban Fun Run" to benefit STEM for Her. This was an (approximate) 5K along the strip, complete with multiple staircases and overpasses! It was quite thrilling to run in at environment with all the lights. But as I said earlier, it's not ideal for continuous running so once that was over, my co-worker and I headed out for the track.

I had no trouble adjusting back to east coast time when I returned. I slept over 9 hours on Friday evening and felt fresh for my long run on Saturday. And then I napped for almost an additional 2 hours. I logged 54.6 miles that week, which I was happy with given I was recovering from Houston and on work travel. I also came home $200 richer from the Roulette table! Lucky 14 hit twice!

Awards
In the Washington DC area, there are two sets of rankings I pay attention to: the RunWashington rankings and the =PR= Trophy Series rankings.

RunWashington (formerly called Washington Running Report) is a quarterly magazine and website. They don't do subscriptions by mail anymore, but they used to. I remember back in 2006-2009 getting that magazine in the mail and reading through the rankings. All of the runners were so much faster than me and I never thought I'd make the list.

To qualify for the rankings, you need to run at least six local races (they have a list of the USATF certified ones), with at least 3 being in the first half of the year and 3 in the second half. I ran a total of 13 races and was ranked as the 11th female. In my age group, I was ranked 7th.

To celebrate, RunWashington hosted a party in DC on a Thursday night a few weeks ago. Greg and I went with our friends Hannah and Alex. Hannah was ranked as the 6th overall female! The party was held at a bar in DC and it was fun to see people dressed in normal clothes. As fun as the party was, the highlight may have been the ice cream place Hannah found for us afterwards. The place had some crazy unique flavors like goat cheese and sweet potato, and it was delicious.

Hannah, me and Lisa

The other set of rankings I pay attention to is the =PR= trophy series. This is a series of 20+ races primarily in Northern VA. They are all very well organized, easy to get to, fairly competitive, and offer generous awards. For these rankings, runners earn points for winning age group awards and overall awards. If you place in the top 10 overall at a race, you get a certain amount of points. And you can double dip if you also win an age group award at that same race. The more races you run and the faster you run them, the more points you get. Some of these races included For The Love of It 10K, the Mother's Day 4-Miler, the Twilight Festival 4-Miler, and the Leesburg 5K.

I didn't run as many races in this series as I had the previous year, so I was surprised that I won first place in my age group. My award was a long-sleeved zip tee with the =PR= logo on it. These awards were presented at a party at the =PR= headquarters last Saturday night. Greg and I once again went with Hannah and Alex, and also our friend Lisa. This party was centered around an awards ceremony with people's names being called, whereas the RunWashington party was more of a social gathering.

Hills
Before I start logging 65+ mile weeks for Boston training, my coach decided it would be best to prepare my legs with lots and lots of hills. All of these hill workouts build leg strength so I can handle the upcoming high volume, and are also great preparation for the race itself. I'm not a huge fan of hill work, but I do think it's beneficial for the reasons above.

Monday's Hill workout

After I got back from Vegas, the next two weeks of training included 2 hill workouts each week. So a total of 4 workouts. Here they are, in order:

• 10 x 1-minute hill repeats at 5K effort, with the jog back down recovery
• 5 x 3-minute hill repeats at 10K effort, with the jog back down recovery
• 8 x 90-seconds hill repeats at 5K effort, with the jog back down recovery
• 3 x 10 minutes of continuous hills: 75 seconds uphill at 10K effort, and running back down the hill at a slightly faster pace nonstop

The last of these workouts was by far the hardest. 10 minutes of hills at 10K effort without stopping for a recovery is tough. Once I got to the top of the hill, I would want to recover, but instead, I had to turn around and immediately run down at an even faster pace. For each 10-minute segment, I ended up running up the hill 4 times. 

For 3 of these workouts I used a hill that was about 0.25 mile, with an elevation gain of about 50 feet. For the workout that required a 3-minute hill, I used a different hill which was actually steeper at certain points.

The mileage has slowly begun to creep up with 61 miles this week, including a long run of 17 miles. I really hope the weather cooperates in February and I am able to continue training without interruption!

5 Recovery Tools That Work for Me

Before I begin this post, I need to knock very hard on a piece of wood. I haven't had any major injuries in over four years, so this is me officially knocking on wood that I am not jinxing myself by writing about this topic.

I often get asked about how I prevent injuries and how I've managed to avoid them for so long. My last major injury, with "major" being defined as having to miss over a week of training, was in July of 2013. I had a stress reaction in my shin and it sidelined me for about six weeks. Prior to that, my injury history was as follows:

• December 2011: Strained/pulled calf muscle
• January 2011: Three tibial stress fractures 
• August 2009: Peroneal Tendonitis
• May 2008: Patellar Tendonitis
• January 2008: Pinched Peroneal nerve

Of course my immune system is a different story, as I have suffered from mono-like viruses twice in the past five years. I also was knocked out by a virus for over 4 weeks in the summer of 2008. But the musculoskeletal system has held up pretty well.

I am not a physical therapist, doctor, or running coach. But over the past four years, I've found the following recovery tools to be helpful in preventing injuries.

1. My Bed

I believe that sleep is the #1 factor in recovering from training runs. Without enough of it (or without high quality sleep) your body doesn't have the opportunity to recover from hard workouts, so you end up feeling fatigued when you do your next workout. And the cumulative effects of this can cause injury. Not coincidentally, I stopped getting injured at the precise time that I had my mental breakthrough in sports psychology. 

Prior to the summer of 2013, I suffered from insomnia. It was difficult for me to sleep straight through the night and my sleep was not restful. I would wake up in the middle of the night and my mind would race with all kinds of random thoughts. So despite my best efforts of falling asleep early and allowing 8+ hours of sleep time, I rarely got a truly restful night of sleep. That all changed once I learned to have a more relaxed mindset. None of the remaining items on this list compare to the importance of sleep, as I believe sleep is the foundation of staying healthy.

2. Massage Therapy

When I'm training for a marathon, I typically get a professional massage once every 2-3 weeks, for 75 minutes at a time. I'll go once a month if my training load is lighter. Yes, this is expensive, but it's cheaper than having to go to physical therapy for an injury and it's also enjoyable. My massage therapist is excellent at helping the muscles relax without inducing pain. So not only do my muscles enjoy it, but it's a great way to wind down from a busy week of running, going to work, and doing lots of other things.

3. Salonpas Patches

Whenever something starts to ache or feels particularly tight, I apply a Salonpas patch. I absolutely LOVE these things. They're basically small rectangular patches that stick to you and stimulate blood flow to the area. I've been using them for about ten years and I truly believe they help in recovery. Greg was skeptical at first and thought that they were just designed to make the area feel good, but I think I've converted him into being a believer as well. I particularly like sleeping with them as I find them to be relaxing. I sometimes wear them to work, even though other people can smell the chemicals in the patches. I have a weak sense of smell so I never smell them on me. 

Over the past six weeks I've been experiencing some tenderness and stiffness in my Achilles tendons. On the nights when I sleep with the patches on, the tendons feel great in the morning. Just saying! They're also great post marathon, and I think I was wearing up to four at a time after Boston last year.

4. Protein Smoothies

After my hard workouts, I typically drink a Naked smoothie boosted with protein. I love these drinks because they don't take any time to make-- I just grab one out of the refrigerator post run. One smoothie has 420 calories and 30 grams of protein so it's an easy way to replenish the calories and give my muscles the protein they need to recover. I've noticed, however, that they are becoming more and more scarce at the grocery store so I wonder if they will soon be discontinued. They have already stopped making the "green" flavor, which is a shame. Another quick post-run snack is cottage cheese, which is protein-packed and also takes no work to prepare. In the mornings, I am all about convenience. 

5. The Foam Roller

No recovery post would be complete without mentioning the foam roller. I primarily use this on my quads, hips and IT bands. I use it regularly so usually it's not painful. However, if I am recovering from a particularly hard race or workout, then I've been known to scream while foam rolling. If I wake up and my muscles feel tight, I will foam roll before running. Usually I foam roll for about 3-4 minutes at a time, which I think is shorter than what most people do. But I don't seem to need any more than that.

In additional to using all of these recovery tools, I also do preventative hip strengthening exercises and calf strengthening exercises. In the past, I have struggled with an achy hip when the mileage increases above 55 miles per week. But doing the hip exercises three times a week has left me pain-free for years now. My left hip is the trouble maker, and it can flare up if I make too many left turns. This is why I run on the track "backwards" or clockwise. 

Training Update

I'll finish off with a quick training update. After the race last Sunday, I made up for the missed long run by running 14 miles easy on Tuesday of this week. My legs felt surprisingly good for having raced a 5K on Sunday, and I was able to pick up the pace a bit during the last three miles. 

Saturday, August 26th

On Wednesday, I ran easy for 60 minutes. On Thursday, I did a hill workout that I had never done before: 3 x 10 minutes of continuous hills at 10K effort. I ran up a hill that was about 40 feet in elevation gain over the course of 75 seconds at 10K effort, and then ran back down the hill at a slightly faster pace to keep the heart rate up. I did this for 10 minutes at a time, with 3-minute recovery jogs in between. Each segment was long enough for almost four full ascents. 

Friday was another easy 60 minutes and Saturday was my first "longer" run of the cycle at 16 miles. Greg and I drove to the W&OD trail and ran together. We were treated with low-humidity and temperatures in the low 60's, so the run felt amazing. The W&OD trail (paved trail) is a hillier route than my normal neighborhood running options, so it was a confidence booster to run strong on it.

Total mileage for the week: 61.4

The Indianapolis Monumental Marathon is in 10 weeks, and I feel like I have a solid foundation for a strong training cycle.

Finally, as I mentioned in a previous post, I was interviewed for Coach Jenny's podcast while I was on the Great Alaskan Running Cruise. You can listen here.

Marathon Training: Back at it

Things have (somewhat) returned to normal after having returned from the Alaskan running cruise. I spent most of the week dealing with lingering symptoms from the virus I picked up while traveling. I was well enough to run, but I was still coughing quite a bit, and on Thursday morning I woke up with

half of my face swollen. Greg fell victim to the virus on the flight home with a sore throat, and he was knocked out for a few days with the same fatigue and chills that I experienced early on.

It seemed that I had brought the Alaska weather home with me for the first few days back. But then the DC humidity came back with a vengeance midweek. On the one hand, I do want to stay acclimated to the weather because my upcoming races are likely to be hot and humid. On the other hand, its just so much nicer to be running in lower humidity.

Monday: 5.8 miles @ 8:37 average
I was relieved to see that I only had a 50-minute run on the schedule. I woke up with the area under my tongue very red and swollen and the back of my mouth was burning. Energy wise, I felt fine, so I did the run, but I was glad it was relatively short. Afterward, I went to the doctor to make sure my swollen tongue thing wasn't an infection. The doctor said that this wasn't abnormal with the virus I had caught. She told me that this was a 10-day bug (I was on day six), and the cough would likely last for 2-3 weeks. Lovely!

Tuesday: 8 x 75-second hill repeats
I told myself I would attempt this workout and if I felt bad during it, I would cut it off. Thankfully the humidity was still low and the temperature was 66. Definitely manageable. My coach told me to run these at 5K effort, and typically I end up running them closer to 5K pace. On Tuesday, I was very disciplined about running by effort and not pace. In fact, on the first one, I ran what felt like half marathon effort. And then 10K effort on the second one. And then for the final six I was at my 5K effort. I made it through and I actually felt decent, given I was still fighting off the illness. The hill was about 35 feet of elevation gain over 75 seconds, and I used the jog back down as recovery. With warm up and cool down, I logged a total of 6.6 miles.

Wednesday: 7.1 miles @ 8:29 average
Wednesday was the first day I felt good. My throat/mouth no longer hurt and I felt like I had returned to 100% energy. This happened just in time for the heat and humidity to come back. 8:29 is a little bit too zippy for an easy run in warm weather, but I was happy to be feeling energized, so I went with it.

Thursday: 10-mile progression run @ 7:54 average
This run was not pretty. I woke up with the right side of my face swollen and painful. It was as if
someone had removed my wisdom teeth while I slept. I did my run anyway, but I was torn between

pushing hard and not wanting to make myself sick given the state of my mouth/face. I later researched it and it seemed like it was a swollen parotid gland. This was likely caused by having used so many antihistamines and also dehydration- since I had been having severe night sweats all week (another fun symptom).

Anyway, the workout called for 30 minutes easy, 30 minutes medium, 30 minutes hard. I've done this workout about 3-4 times in the past and I've always executed it well. But on Thursday I think I underestimated the humidity so I was not able to complete it. I ran the first 30 minutes at 8:34, and the second 30 minutes at 7:41. This felt like "medium" effort when I started, but as the half hour went on, it started to feel more like hard effort. I began the hard portion and I wasn't able to speed up as much as I typically have in the past. My pace was 7:19 and I cut it off after 19 minutes (when I reached 10 miles) instead of the full 30. Back in January, I had run 11.6 miles at an average pace of 7:42 during this workout. But I guess I can't compare summer weather to winter weather. Humidity is tricky. It doesn't feel that bad when you start out, but it hits you like a ton of bricks later on.

Friday: 7.1 miles @ 8:28 average
Just like Wednesday's easy run, this was perhaps a tad too fast. But the pace felt easy and I was really enjoying it. I think once the miles really start to pack on I will need to be better about slowing these easy runs down. The swelling on the right side of my face had gone down, although it was still tender, so I decided not to go to the doctor again.

Saturday: 14 miles @ 8:32 average
This was a pretty typical long run. Greg and I ran together for the first hour (8:42 pace) but then he decided that he wanted to slow it down a bit, and I wanted to do more of a progression, so we parted

ways. He is about 4 days behind me with the illness, so I totally understand him wanting to keep it really easy. I ran the second hour at a pace of 8:22 and everything felt pretty good. I felt myself getting pretty tired around miles 9-11, but then I pepped up for the last three. Amazing how you can go through "rough patches" in a long run and if you wait it out you can suddenly just feel better. That's important to remember during races too. You can feel awful, and let that get into your head. Or you can feel awful and tell yourself that things will likely turn around if you stick with it.

Sunday: 3.5 miles @ 8:41 average
I polished off the week with a recovery run this morning. The humidity was lower than normal, so this run felt really nice.

Total mileage: 54.1
Based on my upcoming training schedule, I think I will probably stay in the mid 50's throughout the rest of August, and then really start to ramp things up in September. The marathon is on November 4th, so I have 13 more weeks of training ahead of me.

Let the Marathon Training Begin!

Happy holidays to all of my blog readers! While this season "downtime" for many runners, I'm just ramping up. I'm planning to run the Myrtle Beach marathon on March 4th, so training is now in full

swing.  I chose the Myrtle Beach marathon because:

• The weather should be cool in South Carolina that time of year, especially with a 6:30am start time.
• The course is fast/flat.
• It's early enough in the season for me to also run a late spring marathon, in case I don't BQ.
• It's also early enough in the season for me to recover in time for the Cherry Blossom 10-miler.
• It's on the east coast, so I don't have to worry about changing time zones
• I'm pretty sure I will be able to meet The Tiny Terror, who has been following my blog for about three years now.

The only downside of running this marathon is having to run the bulk of my hard miles during the most logistically challenging time of the year: January-February. I don't mind cold weather, but when there is ice on the ground, I refuse to run, which means opting for a treadmill or running after work when the ice has melted and I can see better. Neither of these are attractive options, but I've been able to train through this nastiness in years past, so hopefully I can do it again. The only thing I can imagine I would have to sacrifice would be speed work if the ground is icy-- because speed work on a treadmill has historically resulted in injuries. 

Current streak vs. longest streak

I've been running 7 days a week since December 1. If all goes well, I will keep this streak alive for the remainder of the month, and then I have a scheduled rest day in early January. I won't be streaking as long as I did during my Boston Marathon training, but I imagine after my one scheduled rest day, I won't have many more until the race. 

Week of December 5: 52.8 Miles

Once I finished my series of three 5Ks, my coach started to pile on the mileage. My key workouts this week were a steady state run and a fast-finish 90 minute run. My long run was 2 hours, which equated to 13.9 miles.

Week of December 12: 55.2 Miles

Another solid week on the books! On Tuesday, I ran a 90-minute progression run with the first 30 minutes at easy effort (8:54 pace) the middle 30 minutes at medium effort (7:48 pace), and the last 30 minutes hard (7:03 pace). I've done this workout several times in the past, but I've never done it as fast as this. My total distance was 11.45 miles at an average pace of 7:51. That's definitely a tough workout to complete before heading into the office!

On Thursday, I ran 7 hill sprints, lasting 75 seconds each, with the jog back down as recovery. Greg joined me for this one. It was only 22 degrees with sustained winds of 20-25mph! Thankfully, the hill we used was situated in the best possible direction: a tailwind on the way up, and a headwind on the

December 16 long run

way back down. Honestly, the most challenging part of this run was the cool down back to our house. The entire 15 minutes were plagued with a nasty headwind, and it was like getting slapped in the face constantly until we reached home.

I almost had to move Saturday's long run to Sunday because of an ice storm we had on Saturday morning. The roads were coated with ice until about 1:00pm, when the sun came out and melted everything. I took a nap at around that time, and when I woke up, I started the run at 2:30pm. This is really late for me, but my body responded well, and I managed 14.15 miles at a pace of 8:33. The great thing was that this 8:33 was truly my easy effort. I always run long runs based on feel and/or heart rate. I keep them truly easy so that I am able to execute my hard workouts during the week. I've never run an "easy" long run this fast so this workout is evidence that I'm starting to get into marathon shape.

Week of December 19: 60.4 Miles

My coach warned me that I would start to feel tired all-around with the increased mileage and he was right. This week was tough, and here's why:

Monday: 70 minutes easy (8 miles @ 8:46 pace)

Tuesday: Road intervals in 5-minute blocks. 1 minute hard (6:16 pace), 4 minutes easy. 2 minutes hard (6:21 pace), 3 minutes easy. 3 minutes hard (6:23 pace), 2 minutes easy. 4 minutes hard (6:45 pace), 1 minute easy. 5 minutes hard (6:37 pace), 3 minutes easy. 4 minutes hard (6:38 pace), 1 minute easy. 3 minutes hard (6:21 pace), 2 minutes easy. 2 minutes hard (6:20 pace), 3 minutes easy. 1 minute hard (5:55 pace), 4 minutes easy. The toughest thing about this workout is that after running 4 minutes hard, you only get one minute to recover! So I ran the 4-minute segments a little more conservatively, which is why they are slower than the 5-minute segments. Including warm up and cool down, I ran a total of 9.6 miles. 

Wednesday: 50 minutes easy (5.7 miles @ 8:51 pace)

December 22 track workout

Thursday: 8 x 1000m cruise intervals with 200m recovery jogs. My coach told me that the goal was to get progressively faster with this workout, and to make sure I didn't go all out on these-- they were supposed to "cruise intervals" which is slightly faster than tempo pace. My plan was to run the first couple in 4:20 (6:58 pace), and get down to 4:10 by the end. I ran these intervals by feel because my Garmin pace gets all messed up on the track. I was incredibly surprised to see what my times were, based on how they felt! What felt like a 7:00 pace was actually a 6:45 pace. I love it when that happens. My splits were 4:14, 4:11, 4:08, 4:07, 4:04, 4:07, 4:06, 4:04. This comes out to an average pace of 6:38 for all of them! That's faster than my 5K PR pace, and I actually ran 8K, with minimal recovery time. This truly felt like a breakthrough workout. Including warmup and cool down, I ran 9.7 miles total.

Friday: 70 minutes easy (8 miles @ 8:42 pace)

Saturday: 16 miles @ 8:33 pace. Once again, I was not able to run first thing in the morning as I like to do. It was pouring down rain for most of the morning, and at only 38 degrees, it was a recipe for hypothermia. I started the run at 10:00am, just as the rain was tapering off, and the weather ended up being pretty decent, with the exception of some windy spots. I have to admit that this run really took it out of me, and I think it was the cumulative effect. Last weekend's 14 miler was a breeze and I didn't feel tired or sore afterwards at all. But yesterday, the last three miles were a struggle. I managed to hold it together, and even speed up, but I felt extremely tired. Afterwards, I napped for about 45 minutes, even though I had slept for nearly 9 hours the night before. And then, even after having a 45-minute nap at 3:00 in the afternoon, I fell asleep at 8:15 last night, and slept another solid 9 hours. I woke up feeling really tired, and so I'm hoping this is just my body adjusting to the mileage. 

Sunday: 30 minutes recovery (3.4 miles @ 8:56 pace) Just a recovery jog to polish off a very hard week.

I really love the variety of my training plan: hill repeats, cruise intervals, road intervals, progression runs, steady state, and more! Interestingly, there has been no tempo running. And that's because research has shown that running slightly faster (cruise intervals) or slightly slower (steady state) than tempo pace is better for your lactate threshold than running at your tempo pace. I'm hoping that my training continues to go well and that the weather doesn't throw too many curve balls.

11 Weeks to Milwaukee Lakefront

There are exactly 11 weeks until I run the Milwaukee Lakefront marathon. I typically don't do weekly reports of my training, but because this was an eventful week and 11 is my favorite/lucky number, I'll recap it.

Monday: 8 Miles
My husband has plantar fasciitis, so he's been cross training at the gym and I've become reacquainted with my iPod.  Monday was a plain ol' 8 miler. Nothing fancy to speak of. Plus 41 seconds of the plank (x3).

Iwo Jima Hill Workout

Tuesday: 7 Miles, including hills
Call me crazy, but I spent 90 minutes in the car before work on Tuesday to drive down to the Iwo Jima memorial to run hills with Capital Area Runners (CAR). 30 minutes to get there, an hour to get back, but it was definitely, definitely worth it. We ran up a hill that was about 1/4 mile long at about 5K pace then took it easy, did a stride back down part of the hill, and then easy down the rest of it. We did this six times. It was record-breaking heat on Tuesday. At the time of the workout (6:15am)it was about 78 degrees, sunny and humid.

Here is a link to the elevation profile. It actually looks a lot worse than it was.  It looks like my group was around a 7:15 pace for most of the laps. When I got home I did the plank for 42 seconds (x3) plus one on each side. Yes, it made me even later to work but I am committed to the core work.

Wednesday: 3 "miles" pool running + 1100yd swim
On Wednesday, I went pool running for 30 minutes (which I equate to 3 miles) and then swam for 1100 yards. I got new goggles over the weekend, and I spent the first 4 laps adjusting them so that no water would leak in. Apparently, my face shape/size is difficult for goggles to fit. My previous pair hurt so much that it would be a limiting factor in the workout sometimes. My new ones are more comfortable, but I have to pull them very, very tight so they don't leak. Every time I swim I feel invigorated and refreshed. I really enjoy it and I think that it's a fantastic workout. 43 seconds with the planks!

Thursday: 9 miles, including tempo
I did a tempo workout as prescribed by my coach. 1 x 3 miles at tempo pace, 1 x 2 miles at tempo pace, 1 x 1 mile at tempo pace. I did recovery jogs for 0.3 mile (about 3:00) and had a warmup and cooldown to get me to 9 total miles. We finally had some cooler temperatures (65) with lower humidity, so the results were fantastic:
3 miles: 7:33, 7:28, 7:22
2 miles: 7:23, 7:20
1 mile: 7:00
This equates to a 7:21 average for the six tempo miles, and a 7:47 average if you include the recovery jogs. Compare this to my 10K bonk of a few weeks ago at a pace of 7:58 and it speaks volumes about how the heat/sun can affect me.

I also had some new gear for this run. The first were my Saucony P.E. shorts. Yes, I am a huge fan of the skirt and rarely buy shorts anymore. But I wanted something really lightweight for my summer speed sessions and these had come recommended by Dorothy at MilePosts. I bought two pairs of them during an online sale and wore them for the first time on Thursday. They were so comfortable and lightweight. And I also thought they were flattering, too.

Garmin Soft Strap HR Monitor

The other item was the Garmin Soft Strap heart rate monitor. My HR monitor has been acting weird for quite awhile. I probably just needed to change the battery, but I thought the soft strap would be more comfortable. While that may be true, I had horrible chafing during this run, despite the gobs of body glide I used under the monitor. The chafing was so bad that I kept having to tuck my sports bra under the monitor so it wouldn't rub. And then when that wasn't working, I just kept putting my hand there, which is no way to run a tempo. I had it on the tightest setting and it wasn't falling down, but I realized that I needed to make it even tighter. With my previous HR monitor, I used a hair tie to bunch up the extra material and make it really fit me. So with this one I bunched up a lot of extra fabric, tied it with a hair tie, and was fine for the next run. Overall, this heart rate monitor is more comfortable, I just needed to fix the chafing. It was one of the worst chafing incidents I've ever had and wearing a bra to work that day was painful.

Thursday was also my husband and my 11-month wedding anniversary! I was pleasantly surprised that he celebrated this occasion by sending me roses to my office. Such a sweetie!

Friday: Rest day! (except core)
Friday was a well-deserved rest day and I even took the day off from work. I actually didn't "rest" too much because I cleaned the house and also did some planks. I took a core rest day on Thursday, so Friday I was back at it with 44 seconds for the plank x 3. Plus side planks and other exercises on the Bosu.

Saturday: 16 Miles
I kept going back and forth on if I wanted to join CAR for the long run or just do it on my own with my new iPod playlist. I eventually opted for going alone because we were having guests later that day and I had food to make and even more cleaning to do. Doing it on my own allowed me to start an hour earlier and when I was done, I didn't have to drive 30 minutes back home. It was also one of those days that was relatively cool in the morning, but the sun rose fast so a 7:00 start would have been a lot harder than my 6:15 start.

This was a progression run with the first 6 miles being very easy (9:05-9:10 pace), the middle third being easy (8:45-8:50 pace) and the last third at marathon pace (8:15). Mile 15 was uphill and not at all shaded, so I worked  really hard on that one, and then backed off slightly for the last mile. The overall average was 8:46 with an average heart rate in the middle of zone 2, so I was pleased. The heart rate monitor didn't chafe me because I tightened it using the hair tie. However, I did need to place it two inches lower on my chest so that it wouldn't rub against Thursday's red mark.

Oreo Cake

I spent the rest of the day on my feet cleaning and baking. And of course, planks for 45 seconds. My legs were just aching by 4:00 and I was glad when our friends came over and I could finally relax. I am not much of a baker, but there is one cake that I love to make which tastes as good as it looks. I crushed up actual Oreo cookies and baked them right into the cake. To accompany this cake, I made soft serve ice cream with a soft serve machine we got as a wedding present. It was delicious. I also made an artichoke dip, and helped Greg out with his Sangria recipe.

Sunday: Pool running and Swimming
I plan to go pool running and swimming in a few hours once all the swim lessons are done and there are more lanes available. I really prefer it when the pool isn't overly crowded. I'll probably do about 30 minutes of pool running and 1000-1400 yards of swimming, depending on how I feel. Greg is going to come with me and it will be nice to have him workout with me again. I've already done the planks-- 46 seconds x 3, plus side planks and other Bosu ball core work.

Totals: 
Running: 40 miles
Pool Running: 6 miles
Swimming: 2300 yards (1.3 miles)
Core: Six days. Advanced plank from 41 to 46 seconds by Sunday.

Next week is a cutback week with 36 miles planned and no speedwork (except for the hills). I'll take two full rest days. It comes at a perfect time because next week's forecast looks miserable, with lows around 75 every day.