Double down

I've been on staycation all week because it is February break for the kids I work with and I've been using the opportunity to get in quality workouts. The weather has been fantastic, yesterday it was 58 degrees and sunny. If I have to be stuck in NYC for a week, I can handle this weather. Today is rainy and cooler, but it is not a run day anyway.
Monday morning I went to the pool with Sally before she went to work and we bumped into our Wednesday swim buddy who was swimming long because he had the day off. We joined Paul for the tail end of what was 8,000 yards for him.  Wow. We swam about 3700 yards before Sally had to leave for work and I was starving. I was hungry and tired after that, normally I don't have time for more than 2000 yds in the morning before work. I had it in the back of my head for the rest of the day that I was planning on going back to the gym later that night for a yoga class at 8pm. Sometime around 5 or 6pm that began to seem impossible, but with some encouragement from running friends on twitter I hopped on the train and went to class. As usual I was glad that I did. I can't take that class normally, it gets out at 9:15 and takes me about 40 mins to get home at that hour. That is too late for me when I need to be up at 6:00 the next morning. I slept like a log that night and was sooooore the next few days from some new yoga moves and attempted binds.
Tuesday was busy all day without enough time to sneak in a workout, so I used it as a recovery day from the day before. Wednesday morning I swam again early and got in another 3,000 or so yards. I had ideas of running later that evening, but I spent the whole afternoon playing with a friend's new baby and didn't get home until late.
Since I didn't get to run on Tuesday or Wednesday, I took advantage of the magical weather and ran twice on Thursday. The sun was bright on Thursday morning and my run through Washington Heights and Harlem was perfect. I was in shorts and a long sleeve tee, but I pushed the sleeves up as soon as I turned off of Riverside drive and wished for short sleeves the rest of the run. I couldn't believe how nice it was, it was like an April day. I got in exactly 5 miles in the morning, but at a fairly easy pace (8:58 avg pace) with some big hills mixed in here and there. It was fun to see how many people were out and about on their way to work but also enjoying the sunshine. I hit the road again in the evening with my regular Inwood Hill crew for a solid 6.2 miles of tough hills with the 187th St stairs up to Fort Washington to top it off. The stairs have really gotten easier over the last few weeks, but they still leave us sucking air at the top. 120 stairs, damn. I was famished when I got home, which made me realize I should have eaten way more during the day to balance out the double runs. I pretty much stuffed my face from the time I got home until I went to bed. In fact, I still feel like I'm eating for it.
I did my usual Friday workout today but with less yardage in the pool because I was SO TIRED. I woke up from a deep sleep this morning and dragged myself to yoga (great class, as usual) and it took half of the 75 min class to wake up! Luckily, everyone else is also sleepy in that Friday morning class. I could barely lift my arms to swim butterfly this morning, but we still swam  a strong 2500 yards including 5x200 IM's. Typically we do a set of 200 IM's but they are 25 stroke/25 free instead of 50 stroke, but today we did that for 3 200's and regular old 200 IM's for 2 of them. WOW, those are hard. I can't believe I used to race that distance like it was nothing. Whew.
Needless to say, I am completely wiped out from this whole week, but in a great sort of way. I love going to bed completely exhausted from physical activity and sleeping like a rock. I did wake up with soreness in my quads and calves this morning, a soreness that I wouldn't normally have felt from doing either of those runs by themselves. It is only 5:30 and I'm already wondering when I can go to bed for the night... I have a big run in the morning, Shamrock Half is only a few weeks away!

On not being a wimp.

I mentioned in my New Year's post that one of my goals for the year is to step it up and not be a wimp when it comes to my training. I felt like everyone around me was challenging themselves constantly with their running while I was always tentative and afraid to push it, opting for rest over an extra workout, etc. I know it had a lot to do with my ankle injury and fear of reinjury, but after a certain point I had to stop letting that hold me back. It became habit to take and easy or off day when I wasn't sure what to do, so I vowed to fix that and I think I have. Now, every time I start to think about how to spend a little free time one evening or a day off, I think to myself "don't be a wimp, do some yoga tonight." Even this morning during my run I started to think thatI should just continue at my current pace even though I had a nice, flat mile ahead and I glanced at my Garmin and told myself "pick it up, don't be a wimp." It is working. 
I've changed my training schedule to include several tough days of running or swimming and instead of taking a day off each week, I've been working on more of a 10 day training "week". I think that the variety of training in my week (running, yoga and swimming) allows me to do that because I am really working different muscles on any given day. I'm not feeling tired or overworked at all, in fact I've been running with more energy and pep in my step than I have in months. Even my running group has noticed. Luckily they're all game for joining me on long runs when I have too much energy. Thanks guys. It has been incredibly helpful to have my favorite people along on my long runs the past few Saturdays. I'm averaging 10 miles on Saturday mornings thanks to my nearly 2 mile run just to meet the group- it's perfect half marathon training.
I've also been averaging between 6,000-8,000 yards in the pool each week (that's ~3.5-4.5 miles) and at least 1-2 yoga classes. I was on a roll with hitting the gym for strength training once a week after work, but I fell off the wagon a bit because it was leaving me really sore for my runs and swims on the following days. I need to sort that out. I was at 12 pull ups at then end of January (3 sets of 4) but have only done a few in the last two weeks, oops. 
I had two really great, strong runs the last two Saturday mornings, one up the nice, flat Putnam trail to Tibbetts Brook Park in the snow and the other through the rolling hills and trails of Riverdale and Van Cortlandt Park. I'm hoping to get in another 10 miler and a 12 or 13 miler before the Shamrock half on March 18th. I've been really trying to follow up the long runs with a shorter run on Sunday, and today I finally just got up early and did it. I ran 5 this morning through the hills of Fort Tryon park and around Inwood and though I feel tired now, I don't feel like a wimp. 


Speaking of Tibbets Brook Park, boy do I wish I were a Westchester resident- check out the new saline water park- you can see it from the Old Putnam Trail. 

Waterlogged.

It's funny how when you mostly socialize with runners, mentioning a long swim gets a "woah" in the same way that running 20 miles gets a "woahh" from a non-runner. Since I'm in both of those circles, swimming and running, I'm jaded when it comes to the distances of either. When I try to explain that swimming 5000 yds is "like running 13 miles" I still get baffled looks from my running friends. It might be the time equivalent, but it encourages a lot of questions. How do you keep count of your laps? (in the pool) - I just do. I count in sets when doing specific workouts like 10x150yds (that's 10x6 lengths). You learn at a young age as a swimmer to keep track of things like that. When we do our warmup of 1650,I count every length and try my best to keep track. It helps to have my stopwatch running and hit the lap button every 500yds because I know it takes around 8mins to swim that. If it sounds like torture to count that much, it's not. It's second nature after all these years. Also, just because I'm counting doesn't mean that I'm not also thinking about other things. "What Do you think about?" is a very popular question and the answer is simple: everything or nothing. It's no different from what I think about on a run, which means I mostly think about what I'm going to eat when I finish. :) You'd probably be surprised how much you can learn about people between sets. I have a bunch of pool friends that I've gotten to know simply from swimming in front of or behind them and chatting after each 200 or 1650 or whatever the distance may be.
All in all my swim training has been really fun and I'm racking up the yards this month. In the first week of May I swam almost 13,000 yards, just over 10,000 yards last week and I'm hoping to hit around 16,000 for this week by Sunday. Yes, that is a lot of yards, but I'll be ready for the Chesapeake Bay swim come June 12th!

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14 miles with 15 days to go

It seems like just a few weeks ago I was just getting into the groove of marathon training and now here I am 2 weeks away. After a few weeks of a training slump caused by traveling, a cold and general fatigues I finally snapped into training mode and felt revived. I think it had something to do with starting Physical therapy for my knee and low back and finally giving those the attention they need. Luckily PT is kicking my butt and really strengthening my stabilizing muscles in my hips/glutes that are oh-so-important to running. I can definitely feel a difference in my everyday life as well as my running, I'm stronger and not relying on my quads to pull me through. This is definitely a learning experience in the ways that my body compensates for weakness and lack of stability during running. *mental note: never let this happen again.*

So Saturday was my triumphant return to the Inwood Hill group for our weekly Saturday runs. I can't remember my last Sat IHR group run so I decided that it was time to fix that. With a goal of 13-15miles for my final long run I knew I'd need to tack on a few extra miles before and after the run so I started a little early and made a few extra loops through the quiet early morning Inwood streets. It was fun to explore areas that are always way too busy to run at regular times of the day. I met the group around 9 and the 3 of us (small but triumphant return) headed up towards the Broadway bridge that leads to 225th St. Since the 1 train isn't running to the Bronx on the weekends (due to a 2 year project that just began) we had to alter the usual Riverdale route to include a turnaround. The nice thing about the Riverdale route is that it contains some great trail running and we doubled our trails by turning around and running back that way.

The most exciting part of the run was my inaugural run across the newly renovated Henry Hudson bridge pedestrian pathway back to Manhattan! We had a chilly headwind on the bridge, but otherwise the weather was amazing the entire day.

Leaving the group after a solid 7 miles put me at a total of 10miles, yikes 3 or 4 more miles on my own. It is always tough to go from having company to not having anyone by your side. Miles 11 and 12 came and went at a nice pace while watching the football players tackle each other in the dirt at Dyckman Fields (at the northernmost tip of Manhattan). I was feeling good until I hit the Staff St hill when I began to feel hungry and sort of shaky. I couldn't be hungry, I had been fueling like crazy with GU chomps (new watermelon flavor) and a Honey Stinger PB&whey bar all along the way. Damn it. I ate a few more bites of each and pushed through even though I REALLY didn't feel like it. The mental battle was going strong inside my head and lucky for me the "this is good training for mile 20 in a few weeks, just push" voice won. I hit the end of mile 13 and knew that the only thing standing between me and home was a neverending hill from the river up to Fort Washington Ave. For some reason when I hit the hill I perked up a bit and kept a steady pace for the climb. I passed another runner with ease as she struggled up the hill (she was WAY overdressed) and even snatched a kiss from my hubby who was on his way to get a haircut. I had told myself I'd stop at a specific corner close to home but when I got there I glanced at my watch and saw 13.8 miles, no way was I stopping that close to 14. The bad and good thing about my immediate neighborhood is the serious hills, so in order to hit 14 I zipped by the folks heading out for coffee to the bottom of the hill and then turned and zipped by their surprised faces again to a solid 14.03 miles. Total time 2:16 including a handful of water stops. Avg pace 9:42 which is fine by me considering the difficulty of the course.

I'm completely satisfied with my training at this point and I know I've done all I can do but I'm sure the taper will bring its usual insecurities and anguish in the next few days. I run relatively few miles during marathon training, even my peak weeks are only in the high 30's, maybe mid 40's. I'm not even sure if I hit 50 this training cycle because of my knee. So one thing I can be completely sure of is that I'm not in danger of overtraining.

Someone remind me to come back and read this in a few days when I'm going nuts and doubting everything I've done for the last 4 months: I AM READY.

*img from bestbridge.net