Month: November 2023

Hey friends!

Coming at you today with a recap of week 14 of CIM training as well as a recap of the Battleship 12k.

Week of November 6 – November 12

Monday: Rest
Tuesday: 6.25 miles easy (56° w/ dew point of 50°)
Wednesday: 6 miles easy (62° w/ dew point of 59°)
Thursday: 11 miles w/ quality (treadmill)
Friday: 5 miles easy (60° w/ dew point of 54°)
Saturday: 5 miles easy (60℉ w/ dew point of 54°)
Sunday: 17 miles w/ Battleship 12k! (53℉ w/ dew point of 43°)

Wednesday’s workout was a two mile warm up, 8-12 X 1k (depending on how I felt) and a two mile cool down. The goal pace for the kilometer repeats was 6:04. I ended up doing 8 X 1k at 5:59 average and then one mile also at 5:59.

Race Recap – Battleship 12k

The Battleship 12k is a patriotic event [typically on] Veterans Day weekend honoring those who serve our country. I’ve run this race several times in the past (2016, 2017 & 2021 (with baby on board!)). It’s a great race that supports a great cause! The race starts on the Eastern Shore of Mobile Bay, runs across the Bay on the Causeway and finishes at the USS Alabama Battleship Memorial Park. 

We couldn’t have asked for better weather! It was a crisp 50℉ when I started my warm up and it only rose to 60℉ by the end of the race. The humidity and wind were low, making for very favorable running conditions. I got to the race at 7 a.m. for an 8 a.m. start time. Technically bib pick up was from 6 to 7 a.m., but I didn’t have any issues getting my bib. After three warm up miles and a couple of strides, it was time to get rolling!

The race starts at an elevation of 110 feet and drops to 25 feet within the first mile. After that, it is relatively flat with the exception of two small bridges (approximately 15 feet of climbing each) and one slightly larger bridge (approximately 40 feet of climbing). The larger bridge happens to be in the last mile of the race, so it feels a bit more noticeable at that point than it otherwise would.

I planned to start at 6:20 pace and hopefully drop it down to 6:00 pace (or slightly under) by the end. The pacing plan was very similar to my strategy at Turkey 10 the weekend before. Seeing as how I was not able to execute said strategy at Turkey 10, I was really hoping for a more favorable result this time around. The Battleship 12k was basically the last major training stimulus before CIM. As I head into the taper, mentally, I needed a win.

I ran the first mile very relaxed. My split was 6:11, but the grade-adjusted pace was 6:23, meaning that the effort was perfect! I was able to chat with a couple people here and there. At that point in the race there were a lot of people to run with, which was so nice. I got to see my family at the first mile marker. Richard was holding Ward and they gave me a high-five as I passed. My mom and dad were there as well! Having my loved ones at a race makes it so much more special these days!

I was probably in about 5th or so for the females after the first mile and maybe 50th or so overall. You can kind of tell from the picture below that there was a steady string of people ahead of me (I’m in the blue singlet and blue shorts).

After that I made it my mission to steadily reel in the other runners. I stayed side by side with the man in the orange shorts for about 4 miles of the race. Our second mile split was 6:08, our third mile was 6:00 and our fourth mile was 5:57. We never really spoke, but I felt like we were working together with a common goal of catching as many people as possible. I later found out that he ran the course before the race, so the actual race was his second go-around! I did the opposite and ran the course again afterwards. His way was definitely harder and more impressive!

I worked my way up to second female after we crossed the fourth mile marker. I was steadily reeling in the first place girl and I was loving every second. I saw my mom and dad several more times along the route and my dad was encouraging me to “growl” (i.e., dig deep) and catch her. At one point I told him it was a little too early to growl, but that it was in the plan. Ha. The course is actually very spectator friendly as your loved ones can just drive along the Causeway, stopping wherever they want to cheer you on. It reminds me of a Ragnar Relay where you leapfrog your runner along the route.

I passed the first female during the fifth mile. She was running with a couple other guys as well and at the point that we passed them, I also lost my other “friend” that I had been running with. I didn’t necessarily speed up, but I quickly put a pretty big gap on the rest of the pack. My split for mile 5 was 5:57. From then on, I ran solo. I am totally used to this, so it didn’t bother me, but it sure was nice to have people to work with during the first half of the race.

I passed another runner or two along the way, eventually making my way into ninth overall. My split for mile 6 was 6:02 and my split for mile 7 was 6:06 (grade-adjusted pace was 5:59). I am happy with the way that I ran on the bridge. I have run SO MANY hills in my training for CIM! I focused on keeping my effort steady and thought back about all the hills that I have run, reminding myself that I was more than prepared for this one.

Shortly after you come off of the bridge, you make a left turn into Battleship Park and there are volunteers at the last water stop handing out American flags. This is one of my favorite things about the race. It’s so cool to carry the American flag across the finish line!

I finished with a time of 45:09 and a slight negative split!

After the race I finished up my long run for the day by running the course backwards, back across the bay towards home. I wasn’t anticipating having company for this part of the run, but as it turned out, I was not the only one with this plan. It would’ve been a long solo cool down, so I was very thankful to have a buddy!

All in all, this race was EXACTLY what I needed. If you live close by (or not!), you need to add this race to your list!

Hi! Coming at you today with a recap of week 13 of CIM training as well as a recap of Turkey 10, a ten mile race in Creola, Alabama. Oddly enough, I ran a Thanksgiving themed race on Veteran’s Day weekend and am running a Veteran’s Day themed race the weekend before Thanksgiving. Very odd indeed.

Week of November 6 – November 12

Monday: 6.5 miles easy (63° w/ dew point of 58°)
Tuesday: 8 miles easy (59° w/ dew point of 59°)
Wednesday: 9.3 miles w/ quality (80° w/ dew point of 64°) + 30 minutes of strength + 30 minutes of Pilates
Thursday: 6.5 miles easy (75° w/ dew point of 65°)
Friday: 4 miles easy (69° w/ dew point of 66°)
Saturday: 15.75 miles w/ Turkey 10! (64℉ w/ dew point of 62°)
Sunday: Rest

Wednesday’s workout was a pretty simple one with a three mile warm up, 10 X 1:00 “on” with 1:00 jogging recovery and a three mile cool down. The goal pace for the minutes on was 5:56 and I averaged 5:32, so a little too hot there, but nothing crazy by any means! The rest of the week was pretty chill as I was gearing up for Saturday’s race.

Race Recap – Turkey 10 Mile

I was using this race as a dress rehearsal of sorts for CIM. The idea was to hone in on the pre-race routine, which included a mini carb load the day before. The goal was to get 400 grams of carbs on Friday. This honestly didn’t feel too hard, but for the marathon I will need to do this for at least three days in a row. I can imagine that by the third day it will feel a bit uncomfortable. I am sharing what I did here, not as nutritional advice by any means, but rather just to document this as part of my pre-race routine.

Breakfast: 2 pieces of toast w/ 4 oz. cottage cheese, banana, 32 oz. water w/ Liquid IV & Nuun
Snack: Smoothie w/ 1 cup of strawberries, banana, 1 cup of spinach + 4 oz. Greek yogurt, 2 pieces of toast
Lunch: 2 mini bagels w/ 4 oz. Greek yogurt, 12 oz. juice
Snack: 12 oz. water w/ Scratch recovery, 20 oz. water w/ Nuun
Dinner: 3 cups of cereal w/ 4 oz. Greek yogurt & PB2, 2 pieces of toast w/ butter

When I woke up on Saturday morning, my stomach was a wreck. So yeah, probably going to try a slightly different strategy for this weekend’s race. I am also rethinking some of my overall nutrition strategies. To make a long story short, I’ve been having major GI issues on the run (you can just ask Rebecca (or not, really please don’t)). I [inadvertently] cut out some of the more nutrient dense foods from my diet in favor of easier to digest alternatives to solve the GI issues. However, it seems to have turned into a cyclical pattern of [unintentional] under fueling, which is in turn making the digestive issues worse. I am also experimenting with iron supplementation, which also may explain some of the digestive issues. My Ferritin is 24, which is low, but not at a critical level. The goal is to get this number up though!

So anyways, back to the race … this is a super low-key race. It is a flat, out and back course with a couple turns to break up the monotony. I always enjoy out and back races because I love feeding off of the energy of other runners after the turnaround. The race starts at 8:00 a.m. in Creola, Alabama. I got to the race about 45 minutes before the start. I did the usual pre-race stuff such as the picking up of the bib, the hitting of the bathroom (a couple times) and the running the warm up miles. I took a gel (Maurten) about 10 minutes before the start.

The conditions were less than ideal, but not *terrible*. It was 64℉ with a dew point of 62℉. It wasn’t raining per say, but it was misting. I debated whether or not to wear a hat, but decided not to. If it had been raining harder, I would have gone with the hat. The race plan was to start a bit conservatively and try to pick it up as I went. I planned to ease into it by running at approximately marathon pace for the first few miles, to then drop it down to closer to half marathon pace for a few miles and to finish up at closer to threshold effort. This was a very solid plan that unfortunately I was just not able to execute.

I started out at close to marathon effort, but when it came time to pick it up … nothing actually happened! The problem is that I felt like I had indeed picked it up. The effort was getting harder. I didn’t look at my watch at all during the race, as this has worked well for me in the past. I am really trying to learn what certain efforts feel like as opposed to interpreting in my brain whether or not the pace the watch tells me *should* feel harder, easier, etc.

My time at the turnaround was 32:00 on the dot and my final time was 64:20. The actual splits were 6:23, 6:16, 6:20, 6:29, 6:24, 6:19, 6:20, 6:25, 6:35, 6:39. While this is not a crash and burn by any means, it also just wasn’t at all what I was attempting to do. After the race I was very dizzy and had a massive headache. I’m assuming the GI issues before the race contributed to those feelings. The weirdest thing of the day was that I was unable to complete my cool down because it felt as if my entire core was completely seized up! It almost felt like I had strained all my ab muscles. I still to this day am not entirely sure what was going on, but it was very bizarre!

There are some lessons to learn from this race and I don’t think I even know exactly what all they are at this point. One for sure is that it is not recommended to start the race with headphones around your neck if you are wearing a necklace. That was a tangled mess that I spent an unnecessary amount of energy fooling with mid-race. I think we’ll just nix the headphones altogether for future races (I enjoy training with them (highly recommend the “guilty pleasure” playlist on Spotify)).

Overall I am just feeling very bummed about the result. Part of the disappointment is related to the fact that if I had been able to execute the plan, I would’ve potentially been able to run both a PR & a state record. Part of me knows that it is completely unrealistic to expect to PR and|or run a state record at every race, but another part of me still kinda feels like a failure when it doesn’t happen. I was also really hoping that this race would give me some solid “proof” of where my fitness was and that the proof would indicate that there was a potential of a marathon PR at CIM. The result I got does not point in that direction. However, I know that you can’t judge an entire training cycle by one race! Especially when the race wasn’t a goal race and was run in the peak weeks of the marathon training block.

I think the biggest takeaway from this race is just going to be the fact that it caused me to take a step back and reevaluate whether or not I was actually doing the right things from a fueling perspective. I felt so crummy after the race that it was a bit of a wake up call! I’ve put a lot of focus on that during this training cycle, but in some ways I think I am still missing the boat. Thankfully there are still a few weeks to adjust and learn!

Onward!

Week of October 23 – October 29

Monday: 6.4 miles easy (82° w/ dew point of 64°) + 30 minutes of strength
Tuesday: 8 miles easy (61° w/ dew point of 51°)
Wednesday: 6 miles easy (60° w/ dew point of 53°)
Thursday: 12.2 miles w/ quality (treadmill)
Friday: 7 miles easy (62° w/ dew point of 60°)
Saturday: 7 miles easy (80° w/ dew point of 64°) + 2.5 mile stroller walk
Sunday: 20 miles w/ quality (70° w/ dew point of 57°)

Thursday’s workout was originally written as a two mile warm up, 15 X 2:00 at critical velocity effort with 1:30 jogging recoveries and a two mile cool down. I was out of town for work and decided that the treadmill was likely my best option, so we adjusted the workout portion to 6 X 4:00 + 3 X 2:00. The total volume of work remained the same, but I didn’t have to adjust the speed up and down nearly as much. This ended up being a good thing too because you had to manually adjust the speed with the up and down arrows (as opposed to some treadmills that have actual preset speeds). I averaged 5:46 for the 6 X 4:00 portion and 5:23 for the 3 X 2:00 portion. I will say, however, that these paces are not entirely accurate (given the nature of treadmill running). I would say add 10-15 seconds or so, not that it really matters. I felt AMAZING during this run! It was one of my best workouts of the training cycle!

Sunday’s workout was a doozy! It was a three mile warm up, 2 X 6 miles at marathon pace with two miles between sets and a three mile cool down. The workouts itself was a big one, but it was made MUCH more difficult by the terrain (partially on dirt roads and rolling hills the entire way!). You know how when a race course is described as rolling that they basically mean it is hilly as heck? Yeah. That’s the way this was too. I climbed 1,100 feet throughout this run! During the workout portion, I averaged 6:46 for the first six miles and 7:00 for the second six miles. I didn’t go back and calculate this until just now, but the grade adjusted paces were 6:40 for the first set and 6:50 for the second set. On paper this one doesn’t really appear to be anything stellar, but it was actually a massive effort and a really good training stimulus! My coach was VERY pleased!

Total – 66.7 miles running + 2.5 miles walking + 30 minutes strength training

Week of October 30 – November 5

Monday: 6.5 miles easy (81° w/ dew point of 71°) + 30 minutes of strength
Tuesday: 8 miles easy (51° w/ dew point of 44°)
Wednesday: 7 miles easy (54° w/ dew point of 22°)
Thursday: 12.3 miles w/ quality (treadmill) + 30 minutes of strength + 30 minutes of Pilates
Friday: 6 miles easy (51° w/ dew point of 41°) + 3 mile stroller walk
Saturday: 6.5 miles easy (59° w/ dew point of 50°) + 3 mile stroller walk
Sunday: 21 miles w/ quality (66° w/ dew point of 52°)

Thursday’s workout was originally written as a two mile warm up, 12 X 1k with 1:00 standing recoveries and a two mile cool down. We woke up to temperatures in the low thirties and I took the easy way out by running on the treadmill. Running in below freezing temperatures seemed like more of a risk than I was willing to take. I feel like the trickiest part of the next month is going to be trying to stay well! I tweaked the workout slightly to 7 X 1 mile with 2:00 jogging recoveries. Again, I did this just so that I didn’t have to adjust the speed up and down quite as much. I averaged 5:56 for the seven mile repeats. And again, I will say that the paces are not entirely accurate, as I ran between 9.8 and 9.9 mph on the treadmill. Either way, I was really happy with this one! If nothing else the workouts on the treadmill give me a lot of confidence. While I definitely don’t want to be overly confident, I don’t think that a little bit of a confidence boost ever really hurts anyone!

Sunday’s workout was a three mile warm up, six miles at a moderate pace, six miles at the upper end of my marathon pace range, four miles at the lower end of the my marathon pace range and a two mile cool down. Whew. I *think* this is my last 20+ mile long run before CIM, as I’m doing races the next two weekends (WOO X TWO!). I didn’t shy away from the hills on my route (total climbing was about 850 feet). I’ve heard that while CIM is a net downhill, it’s basically rolling the entire way and I think a lot of people neglect to train on hills. I’m doing my best to make all of my long run routes decently hilly. This is something I have never really done in the past … even when training for NYC in 2015 and when training for that ultra I did in Colorado in 2017 (as it turns out the “easiest” 50k in Colorado is still FAIRLY challenging when you don’t train on trails or hills)). I averaged 6:49 for the 10 marathon pace miles (6:58 for six the upper end of MP miles and 6:35 for the four lower end of MP miles). I’m hoping to run a bit faster than this on race day, but we shall see. One thing I definitely know for certain is that I will absolutely not be going out with the OTQ pack. I honestly don’t think people are quite comprehending how fast a 2:37 marathon really is. Running under 6 minute pace for an entire marathon is INTENSE!

Total – 67.4 miles running + 6 miles walking + 60 minutes strength training + 30 minutes of Pilates