Nurse on the Run

With just under 11 weeks until Boston, I’m officially in my second week of marathon training!  I’m at that point where it doesn’t quite feel like marathon training yet, but with a 15 miler scheduled for this weekend, I’m sure that feeling won’t last too long.    I’ve had two great runs so far this week!  Monday was a rest day…I had great plans to brave the gym for some lifting, but I decided to start small and use my free weights in the comfort of my own home.  I’ll get there!  I reviewed different strengths moves to try at the gym so I won’t look like a complete fool.

My run on Tuesday was the first tempo run of marathon training!  I’m always intimidated by tempo runs, although I don’t know why…I think it’s totally mental, as I think they should be hard and painful and not fun. It’s mostly funny because I think my tempo pace is somewhere around 7:00-7:10 (that’s a guess…based off of the McMillan calculator for a 3:20 marathon), which I’ve been hitting at the end of many of my runs anyway.  It’s still kind of daunting!  Let’s see how it panned out…the plan was 8 miles with four at tempo pace:

Tuesday, February 2
Warm up:  2.15 miles in 17:05, avg pace of 7:57
Tempo Miles:  6:58, 6:49, 6:40, 6:39, avg pace of 6:45
Cool down:  2.11 miles in 16:39, avg pace of 7:53

I don’t know about you…but I’d call that a success!  The last tempo mile got a bit painful with about half a mile to go, but otherwise I felt controlled and comfortable.  Definitely working, but no puke factor or anything.  In other news, I should probably slow down my warm up and cool down…but that’s for another day.

Over night, we got about an inch of snow (which lead to schools being delayed for two hours…REALLY?  Come on now.), so that foiled my plan to do my 11 mile run on the local trail.  Crunching through possible slippery snow was not my idea of fun, so I mapped out a run through the local neighborhood, which had clear streets.  I do many of my runs in the neighborhood since it’s a bit hillier (good practice!), but this was the longest I’ve gone so far.  Luckily I didn’t get lost, and I had an awesome run!

Wednesday, February 3
11.05 miles in 1:24:36, avg pace of 7:39

My legs were tiredddd after yesterday, and I wasn’t sure how they would feel today, especially with the hills.  Once I got out there, it felt great!  Post-snow runs are the best because snowing means that it’s pretty warm out, especially with cloud cover!  Plus it’s fun with the snow lands in your open mouth. 

run the mile you’re in

I’d like to take some time to address how to get through various runs.  Many people ask me how I keep myself occupied while running…Music?  Thoughts?  Cartwheels?  The honest truth?  I have no idea.  I don’t listen to music (safety factor…and I never have!), my cartwheels would certainly cause injury both to me and the people around me, and I think my mind is like a black hole when I run.  I know I think about things, sometimes sing songs (in my head, never out loud!), but when I get back, I couldn’t tell you what I thought about…quite impressive for those long run!

The mind warp is all fine and dandy when I’m having a good run, but what about those ones where you just want them to end?  When four more miles seems like an eternity?  (And you’ve only ran ONE so far!)  Although I’ve gone by this for years, Lam said it point blank when I made a comment that I could run 7:30 pace for six miles…but what about the next twenty??  “Run one mile at a time,” he said.  (Maybe not the exact words, but that was the gist of it.)  During my tempo run, the thought of running four 6:45 miles didn’t sound so peachy, but running ONE 6:45 mile?  I can do that.  And when that one is done, I can do another…but let’s not think about that now.

We’ve all been there on the long run…you’ve run six miles and fourteen more seems impossible.  When training for the Wisconsin Marathon, I tricked myself into thinking about one mile at a time by making sure my Garmin was set to give me my current mile distance and pace.  When I looked at my watch, it would only say I’ve gone half a mile instead of 8.5 miles!  By thinking about the mile I was currently running, it got my mind off of the next twelve (or ten…or six…or whatever) miles I had left to run…it’s a great way to trick your mind, and it’s gotten me through many long runs, tempo runs, or any run that just seems to go on for.ev.er.

Run the mile you’re in.  Sounds simple.  And it is.  You can’t control what will happen in ten miles, but you can concentrate on how you’re running now.  Just think about it.