Crappiest half ever

I must have jinxed myself with all that talk about being able to go faster. I just "ran" the most slow and uncomfortable 13.1 miles of my life.

It was probably stupid of me to do it at all. I'm still not over my cold ... I've got what appears to be a low-grade sinus infection and my energy isn't great. And I did just post a couple days ago about what Austin at the gym said: that while I'm recuperating, it's best not to exercise for long periods of time. Instead, he suggested, I should break up my long runs into sections and do them over the course of a day.

Did I do that, even thought I posted about it and said I would? No. I stubbornly set out at noon today, planning to run an hour and 45 minutes at the minimum; a half-marathon at the maximum. (SAJ had to run 1:45 according to her training plan, so I thought I'd at least do that with her.)

At first, I didn't know if I could run at all. My sinuses and top teeth throbbed with every footstrike. I told myself it would get better after a while, or that I'd at least get used to it, and kept going. I guess I just got used to it.

No surprise, any thoughts I had about "just" doing the 1:45 with SAJ were soon completely out the window. As long as I was out, I thought, I should just go for a half and get the distance behind me. It's been weighing on me ever since I wasn't able to run the distance because of this stupid cold last weekend. Plus, it's a gorgeous day: warm and sunny, with just enough of a breeze. I felt like I'd regret it if I didn't give it a shot.

I did OK for the first few miles and kept a good pace -- although not as good as what I've become used to. But around 4 miles in, I just started feeling exhausted. I chewed some shot blocks, thinking that would help my energy, then tried to hang on until they kicked in. I never really noticed a difference. SAJ was having similar troubles -- most likely because she ran the fastest half ever just 6 days ago and has been working her ass off ever since. Well that, and she was out late drinking lots of cocktails last night. That couldn't have helped. (Complete disclosure: I was also out until 11:00 last night and drank close to an entire bottle of wine, albeit over the course of nearly 5 hours. I did not drink nearly enough water and started the day feeling rather parched.)

After we hit the 5-mile mark, we started making lots of stops: for the bathroom, to take a drink, to get more water, to wait for a green light, just to catch our breath. With every stop, it was harder to get started again. Somehow I did it, but I could feel myself slowing down. No matter how slowly I went, my heart rate was through the roof. I didn't ever really see it below 165 unless we were on of our increasingly frequent stops.

SAJ peeled off when she'd completed her time requirement, which was just about 9.5 miles in for me. It was so tempting to stop with her ... but another three and a half miles didn't seem like that much. I plotted a route that involved a nice downhill at the beginning, flat for the remainder. Even so, it was a huge push once I got to the flat section. Just one long slog, one foot in front of the other. I checked my distance every time I got stopped at a light or came to the end of a song on my iPod. I started feeling nauseous every time I stopped moving. I knew I should just quit -- I kept telling myself that I wasn't doing myself any good (in fact, it was probably the opposite) by continuing. But for some reason I just couldn't let that 13.1 go.

I will say that the last mile was the most torturous. I just flat-out felt like crap. I called my sweet husband to pick me up so I wouldn't have to walk the mile home -- uphill! -- when I finally saw the magic distance show up on my watch. I waited at our rendezvous point for about 5 minutes before he arrived and felt so terrible that I didn't know what to do with myself. My glutes, hamstrings and calves felt completely seized up. I was lightheaded and queasy. And I really felt like I'd made a dumb mistake, pushing myself that hard.

Now I'm back home on the couch, empty carton of chocolate milk beside me, waiting to feel a bit less gross before I eat a sandwich. My legs and sinuses are killing me. In fact, I feel sick all over again. I really hope I don't pay a big price later today or tomorrow for insisting on finishing that big run.

Not including stops, it took me two hours and twenty minutes to cover the distance. My average pace was 5.6 mph (again, I turned off the timer every time I came to a stop), which works out to just over 10:35 miles. Not bad at all ... until you consider how many times I had to stop, and that my time and pace don't take that into consideration. If I took the time at face value, today would be a PR for me. But that feels like cheating.

Well, what's done is done and I did it. Now I can just wait to see whether it was a mistake -- and if so, how much of one it was. Stay tuned ...

One last note re: pace

I've been thinking about the way that I seemingly suddenly was able to run much faster.

(Going from a 12-minute to a 9-minute mile pace represents a 25% improvement -- in my mind, pretty huge. My longer runs have been averaging out at 10:00 miles or a bit less, still a 15% reduction in my previous pace. And before you go admiring my numerical ability, I had to call my husband for help with the math to figure this out. Why didn't I pay more attention in school?)

Anyway, I've been thinking about it. And it does give seem credence to the idea -- which I've previously pooh-poohed -- that periods of relative rest in training may be just as important as periods of intense effort. I pushed myself harder than ever before last fall and completed a marathon, albeit slowly. Then I took a step back for six weeks. I kept exercising, but it was more about maintenance than anything else.

Lo and behold, when I put myself back on a training program, my pace was immediately faster than it had ever been before. Interesting.

Supposedly, the same holds true for weight training. You start with lighter weights and more reps, build the intensity, build it again, build it once more .... and then start over again at the beginning. But you're building on a more solid foundation.

I never really wanted to think that "taking it easy" could be good for me. I just wanted to push, push, push all the time. If I wasn't totally going for it, I thought I was being lazy. Now, I'm thinking, maybe not. Maybe there's something good about just maintaining every once in a while. Maybe I don't have to feel like a slacker if I'm not knocking myself out several times a week. Maybe there's a time for that, and a time to step it back a little. As the song goes, to everything there is a season ...

I know this is old news. I've read it before and I've heard it before. But now, finally, I am taking it in. I get it. That's just the kind of stubborn person I am. All the experts in the world can tell me the right or optimal way to do something -- but I have to feel it myself to believe it. That can make for slow progress or funny mistakes along the way. I know it could also put me in a place where I might hurt myself -- thank goodness I haven't done that yet. Will this realization make me more likely to accept conventional wisdom on something that doesn't feel quite right to me? Probably not.

But it might help.

A ray of sunshine

Here's something I didn't post about when it happened -- and given that I'm grasping for happy straws related to my running, now seems like a good time to share it:

Three weeks ago, I ran 5 miles in 45 minutes.*

(Let me just do the math for you: that means I was running 9-minute miles. I wasn't trying for that pace -- I just set out for a 5-mile run and told myself I was going to do it as fast as I could. I didn't check my time until I was done. Imagine how happy I was when I saw 45:04 on the timer!)

Now most runners might scoff at 9-minute miles. They might laugh at the idea that it was an achievement at all. In fact, SAJ** was telling me about an article she read that said people shouldn't even call themselves runners, as opposed to joggers, until they can run a marathon in less than four hours. I hope I got that right -- but even if I didn't, the threshold for the "runner" designation involved some kind of ridiculously unattainable time that I'm never going to get anywhere near.

But you know what? I don't care. I am hugely proud of my 5 miles in 45 minutes. Because, just a few short months ago, I was squarely in the land of 12-minute miles. I didn't think it was possible to budge my pace, and I didn't really want to try. It seemed too hard, so instead I worked on making peace with what came naturally to me.

That's the beauty of this: my pace seems to have quickened by itself. It's true that I've been doing intervals, tempo runs and pace runs. But my pace picked up even before I started those. Something happened in December, when I wasn't officially training for anything anymore and just trying to keep up my general fitness. I didn't run a lot -- once or twice a week -- but I noticed almost immediately that I was faster than usual. Is that because my distances were so much shorter -- that I was running 5 or 6 miles at a go instead of 16 or 18? Is it because I was only running a couple times a week (and doing other forms of cardio on the other days) instead of three or four? I don't know. It almost feels like alchemy to me.

It's similar to how I felt when my oldest daughter was in kindergarten. Suddenly, toward the end of the year, she knew how to read. It was like a light had been turned on for her and she could do it. There was no middle ground, no "she can almost do it, she's getting close." One day she couldn't do it and one day she could. I didn't understand the machinations that led to her new ability, so I just gloried in it.

Same with my happy new ability to be faster. I don't understand what led to it but I am delighted. And I want more. Now that I've had a taste of success and gotten some tools that I know how to use -- tempo runs and intervals -- I think I can be more proactive in my efforts.

I was very curious to see how much I could improve my half marathon time -- but, as we know, I couldn't pull one off this week thanks to my stinky cold. I'm hoping to be able to do one in the next few weeks and will hope to land somewhere in the realm of 2:10 ... 2:15 at the most. We'll see.

And next up, I'm going to work on my time over shorter distances. I'm doing a 10k on April 11 and a 12k the first weekend of May. As soon as I shake off this cold, it's back to tempo runs and intervals so I can see how quickly I can get through those runs. I'm excited to see if there's a difference in my pace between the first event and the second. With those behind me, I'll go back to half-marathon training ... and then, before you know it, I'll start training for the Victoria marathon in October. (Not sure I'll actually do it, but I'll go ahead and train.) Could I finish a marathon in less than 5 hours? I have to confess, I would love to find out.

*Here's my caveat on that achievement: I turned the timer off on my watch whenever I had to stop to wait for a light at an intersection. Does that still count? I hope so. But I also think I may have had an unfair advantage, being able to catch my breath while waiting for those green lights. I'm excited to try a run in a place where I won't have to stop -- around Green Lake or along the Burke Gilman Trail -- to see if I can do it again.

**SAJ, by the by, ran a half marathon in 1:56 on Sunday. I'll do the math again: that's less than 9-minute miles; probably about 8:52? An amazing achievement on a hilly course -- and faster than her time on the flat Victoria half course last fall. What a stud she is! Here I am, bragging about running five 9-minute miles -- then she goes and does 13 at a per-mile pace that's about 10 seconds faster. I've been hoping that I could run a half in 2:10, and she goes and shaves 15 minutes off my ultimate dream come true. Oh SAJ, such an inspiration. I'm never going to catch up with her. But at least she keeps me trying.

Sick and stressed

I guess a got a little cocky about my health. After all, my doctor told me last year that I'm the healthiest over-40 woman she sees. And, knock wood, it's been a solid five years since anything has really knocked me flat. It was probably about time for my immune system to get a good old workout with an ugly illness.

That's what I keep telling myself -- that this horrible, seemingly endless cold I've got is actually going to benefit me in the long run. My immune system will come back all the stronger for it. I tell my kids the same thing when they're sick and miserable.

That line of thinking is helping ... but not as much as I'd like it to. I started getting sick on Wednesday of last week. Today is Tuesday and I still feel like crap. The last time I was able to run -- and just a 3-miler at that -- was Wednesday. I was supposed to do a 30-minute tempo run on Friday, and a half-marathon on Sunday ... couldn't even consider either one. I wanted to try a run today, but my sinuses hurt so much that the impact of my footstrikes makes my teeth feel like they're getting squeezed in a vise. (I tried a few steps to confirm the truth of that statement.)

I have managed to keep up with my weight training program. And I haven't given up cardio entirely: I walked for an hour on the treadmill on Thursday at a super-high incline to get my heart rate up into 60-70% of max. On Saturday, thinking I was on the mend and wanting to springboard into Sunday's half-marathon, I did 45 minutes on the elliptical trainer at the gym. Then Sunday morning rolled around and I could barely move. I ended up with two full rest days for the week. Not bad considering how sick I was, but it still stresses me out. I don't like thinking that I'm losing ground with my running. When I start up again, is it going to feel extra hard? Will I not be able to comfortably go 12 miles anymore (the longest distance I've run recently)? That's what worries me.

It's funny, I've written about this before -- last fall, when I read an article about running while sick. The advice at the time seemed totally sound: rest when you need to; if you can, it's OK to run but keep your heart rate low ... but now that it's happening to me and I'm itching to stay active, I want to disregard it entirely.

I had a nice talk with Austin, my favorite trainer at the gym, today. He heard me coughing and asked if I was sick. I said I was and told him I hadn't been able to run for nearly a week, and how stressed I was feeling about it. He asked if I was doing the elliptical trainer and I said yes -- and that I was hoping to get back to running later in the week.

Here are the three major pieces of info I got from him:

1. I am not losing ground with my running. As long as I'm doing the elliptical -- or some kind of low-impact cardio -- I can maintain my conditioning. (Hopefully that's true; I'm looking forward to finding out.)

2. Regardless of what kind of cardio I'm doing right now -- and until I'm fully recovered -- I shouldn't work out for more than 30 minutes at a stretch. More than that, Austin said, and I would start depressing my immune system -- even if I keep my heart rate relatively low. He suggested, if I feel physically able to do a long run, that I break it into two parts over the course of the day. I took his advice immediately: instead of doing an hour on the cardio machines as I'd planned, I did 30 minutes on the elliptical trainer; I'll go back for 30 minutes on the stairclimber later this afternoon.

3. Until I'm completely over my cold, I need to hold off on any high-intensity cardio. That means no tempo runs, intervals or sprints. The reasoning for that is twofold: high intensity interferes with my immune system; and, because my chest is congested, I could make myself even sicker by pushing my lungs hard right now.

So ... I'm kind of stuck. I don't like taking it easy but I know I have to. I keep reminding myself that if I do a good job resting now, I'll get better -- and back to running -- faster. It's hard to be patient but I'll keep waiting. Maybe I should be grateful that my sinuses are killing me ... if they weren't, I'd probably try a run earlier than I should.

Now I'm going to go find that article and shore up my commitment to taking it easy 'til I'm better ... wish me luck.

Has it really been over a month?

So much for getting back in the saddle, blog-wise. With so many weeks between my last post and this one, it's hard to know where to start. Getting caught up on weekly roundups seems like a bad and boring idea, so maybe I'll just do a brief recap of what's been going on in my navel-gazing world of fitness since February 9:

• Continued on the 16-week weight training program with SuperAthlete J. We're now at the end of week 10, which means 3 sets of 10 reps of everything. We've both been able to increase our weights quite a bit and SAJ keeps reminding me that we're supposedly in the thick of building lean muscle. I'm not sure if I believe it or not. Do I feel stronger? Maybe. Or maybe I'm able to lift these heavier weights simply because I'm doing fewer sets and reps. Could I have done 3 sets of 10 reps in these amounts at the beginning of the program? I wonder.

• Continued with the intermediate training program for a half marathon, as specified by Hal Higdon (http://www.halhigdon.com/). More highlights on that to come in another post. The training has been going well, although I've decided not to do the Mercer Island half this weekend. Why? Two reasons: I can't really justify the expense and, if I'm going to run another half, I want to do it on a flatter course so I can really improve my time. Obnoxious but true.

• Next immediate goal: working on improving my pace for the Bloomsday 12k (http://www.bloomsdayrun.org/) in Spokane on May 2nd.

• Most immediate worrywart concern: weight gain. More on this in another post, too.

Let's see if I can keep the momentum going and post again before April Fool's Day!