Miles Week 13: 24.88 (Sunday's long run: 8.88 miles)
Miles Week 14: 19.5 (Sunday's long run: 18 miles)
Miles To Date: 210.38
Eight hours ago my group (the "Cathy O'Brien's," named after a marathoner who made the Olympic Trials at 16 years of age and remains the US's only 2-time female Olympic marathoner) wrapped up our 18-mile run in near-perfect time for our 12-minute mile pace: 3 hours, 35 minutes (we finished one minute too fast).
Incidentally, we passed the halfway mark, mile 13, at 2 hrs, 30 minutes, which is in the neighborhood of winning Olympic marathon times for women... that's running 26.2 miles at a pace of around a 6-minute mile.
I tried this time to be aware of the state of my body throughout the run: An easier-than-usual start - really feeling comfortable by mile 6 (this is normal for me, I've learned) - starting to tire by mile 12 - feeling muscle fatigue and painfully tight knees by mile 15 - pushing through serious achilles pain and desperately looking for mile markers by mile 16.5 - and limping over to the food table after crossing the final marker at mile 18.
As we say down in Texas: LORDY!
The "hot-and-throbbing" part, of course, is my legs. Good God. I finally took the plunge, so to speak, and employed the therapy I've been hearing about, but was just too damn chicken to take: a post-run ICE BATH. I like a cold plunge after a sauna, but a straight-up ice-bath is a different animal altogether. I kept my shirt on, and I screamed getting into it, but after that, believe it or not, it actually didn't feel cold enough (45 degrees F, 4-8 minutes). Three bags of ice next time, instead of one.
Then I moaned and complained getting up the stairs to my room, then - save for a lunch break on the back porch - I pretty much spent the rest of the afternoon horizontal.
And not even productive horizontal! Not even sleep-productive! Too hot to sleep; too tired to think or move - there was minor email, there was no telecommuted work, there was no online Scrabble. I realized some weeks ago after the 12-mile run that I actually even have difficulty thinking after these long runs... when I mentioned this to my friend (after forgetting, mid-sentence, what the hell I was trying to tell her), she said, "Well of course! All the blood is in your legs!" This may or may not be true, but in any case I do have difficulty holding a conversation, lately, on Sunday afternoons.
How do the pros DO it? My weekly mileage is wildly divergent, hovering around a median average of about 15 -20 miles a week. Serious marathoners, of many ages, professional or not, usually run about 50-70 miles per week. How do their muscles and tendons and joints TAKE IT? Now my legs feel tight, and tired, but not throbbing. There was a time when 6 miles was practically unthinkable, and now it's my warm-up. Will a time come when my muscles and psychology have developed to the point that a 7- or 10-mile maintenance run in the middle of the week is a normal thing?
My friend Chris, in my running group, thinks that when you start asking those questions the answers lie mostly in our individual DNA: Some people, no doubt, are born to run. They are gifted with a naturally beautiful form which takes, relatively speaking, very little toll on their bodies. No doubt of course this is absolutely true - and yet, even in a practice to which I am not born, I have lots of room to grow.
And I just wonder: What's the limit? There is one. What in the hell is it?
It's impossible for me to run 18 miles (at a relatively fast pace, for a non-runner), to experience the excitement and companionship and sheer joy of this, without thinking forward to plan the next challenge. The New York City Marathon, in the town I have grown to love, to adore? The Boston Marathon, the world's oldest marathon and no doubt a crown experience for any marathon runner? The qualifying pace for Boston, for women 35-39, is an 8.5 minute mile. I'm training shorter runs right now between 9-11 minutes, and long runs at 12. It would take long and concentrated training to make that pace ... but still, it might very well be within my reach.
Is it? Is it possible?
5.18.2008
5.04.2008
WEEKS 11 & 12: 'Round the Bend
Miles Week 11: 7 (Sunday's long run: 7 miles)
Miles Week 12: 24.5 (Sunday's long run: 16 miles)
Miles To Date: 166
So two weeks ago, with the 14 mile run, we crossed that big halfway mark: .9 mi past half-marathon distance (the marathon being 26.2).
Last week the recovery run was half of that: 7 miles. SHORT AND EASY, in this context - and it's amazing to me that it really feels that way! 7 miles two months ago was nearly unthinkable!
Similarly: Today we added two miles to our longest distance and ran 16. To accommodate these increasingly really long runs, our coach, starting today, has added a minute to our pace (so my group now runs 12-minute miles instead of 11-minute miles) and adjusted our walk-run ratio from 5:1 (5 min running, 1 min walking) to 4:1.
We finished this run with our timing on the dot: 3 hours, 12 minutes, of running.
How do I feel after 3 hours and 12 minutes of running?
Pretty much like somebody beat me with a stick. And not just my legs. My arms hurt! How about that?
But the cool thing is that this is exactly how I felt after the 10 mile run... and 12 miles... and 14.
Let me reiterate: I feel the same after 16 miles as I did after 10 – not worse. And that means this is damn well-designed training program.
And of course 10 miles today feels, if long, totally manageable. Likewise, my solo maintenance runs this week were between 4 and 5 miles, at a 9.5-minute pace instead of 11 minutes, and I didn't take any walk breaks.
IMPOSSIBLE for me when I started 2.5 months ago.
Really, it's not amazing or shocking; it makes perfect sense. As we tell our students in the afterschool circus arts program for which I occasionally teach: "The more you practice, the better you get." Still, the corporeal experience of this is awe-inspiring. We so often think of ourselves in static terms: This is who I am. So many pounds. So much muscle to so much fat. These strengths, these weaknesses. These likes, these dislikes.
Period.
I won't be getting taller anytime soon (at least, not without platforms). But I totally found a new muscle on the side of my calf this morning! I'm actually changing my body, on a cellular level, just by doing what I'm capable of doing. I'm changing who I am.
I love extending this logic to the rest of my life. Do I want to run a marathon? Okay. It will require time, energy and education - but of course I can do that (and may I add, MANY who are not in the generally good state of health I enjoy are doing it as well - more slowly, but they're doing it!).
So what else do I want? Who do I want to be? Whatever those things are will require focus, time, energy, and education - but if I'm willing to make the commitment, of course I can have them. I'm 36! And one of our East Bay runners today celebrated her 70th birthday with a 16 miler. It's never too late to have fun learning more about who you really are.
Tremendously powerful lesson. Tremendously powerful, to learn that through this - to learn it in my muscles. Tremendously powerful, to witness it in the hundred or so others who also run, at 8 am, every Sunday morning at the Berkeley Marina.
Miles Week 12: 24.5 (Sunday's long run: 16 miles)
Miles To Date: 166
So two weeks ago, with the 14 mile run, we crossed that big halfway mark: .9 mi past half-marathon distance (the marathon being 26.2).
Last week the recovery run was half of that: 7 miles. SHORT AND EASY, in this context - and it's amazing to me that it really feels that way! 7 miles two months ago was nearly unthinkable!
Similarly: Today we added two miles to our longest distance and ran 16. To accommodate these increasingly really long runs, our coach, starting today, has added a minute to our pace (so my group now runs 12-minute miles instead of 11-minute miles) and adjusted our walk-run ratio from 5:1 (5 min running, 1 min walking) to 4:1.
We finished this run with our timing on the dot: 3 hours, 12 minutes, of running.
How do I feel after 3 hours and 12 minutes of running?
Pretty much like somebody beat me with a stick. And not just my legs. My arms hurt! How about that?
But the cool thing is that this is exactly how I felt after the 10 mile run... and 12 miles... and 14.
Let me reiterate: I feel the same after 16 miles as I did after 10 – not worse. And that means this is damn well-designed training program.
And of course 10 miles today feels, if long, totally manageable. Likewise, my solo maintenance runs this week were between 4 and 5 miles, at a 9.5-minute pace instead of 11 minutes, and I didn't take any walk breaks.
IMPOSSIBLE for me when I started 2.5 months ago.
Really, it's not amazing or shocking; it makes perfect sense. As we tell our students in the afterschool circus arts program for which I occasionally teach: "The more you practice, the better you get." Still, the corporeal experience of this is awe-inspiring. We so often think of ourselves in static terms: This is who I am. So many pounds. So much muscle to so much fat. These strengths, these weaknesses. These likes, these dislikes.
Period.
I won't be getting taller anytime soon (at least, not without platforms). But I totally found a new muscle on the side of my calf this morning! I'm actually changing my body, on a cellular level, just by doing what I'm capable of doing. I'm changing who I am.
I love extending this logic to the rest of my life. Do I want to run a marathon? Okay. It will require time, energy and education - but of course I can do that (and may I add, MANY who are not in the generally good state of health I enjoy are doing it as well - more slowly, but they're doing it!).
So what else do I want? Who do I want to be? Whatever those things are will require focus, time, energy, and education - but if I'm willing to make the commitment, of course I can have them. I'm 36! And one of our East Bay runners today celebrated her 70th birthday with a 16 miler. It's never too late to have fun learning more about who you really are.
Tremendously powerful lesson. Tremendously powerful, to learn that through this - to learn it in my muscles. Tremendously powerful, to witness it in the hundred or so others who also run, at 8 am, every Sunday morning at the Berkeley Marina.
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