Excitement for 2018

I am equal parts TOTALLY EXCITED and TOTALLY TERRIFIED!

And I love to have that reaction when I finalize my race calendar.

I went back and forth on whether or not I want to do another marathon before Boston 2019, but truth be told, no way can I wait that long to toe the line at 26.2 again. Nope, can't do it.

Marathon #15 will be California International Marathon in Sacramento on December 2 and I couldn't be happier about choosing that race. I really feel like I can run another Boston Qualifier and an even better one than the one I turned out in Baton Rouge this year. I have a goal brewing in the back of my mind and I'm excited to get to work on it. I have to be patient...but the wheels are turning already!

My endurance running race calendar is complete (I think?):

October 28 - Houston Half Marathon
December 2 - California International Marathon
January 20 - Aramco Houston Half Marathon
April 15 - Boston Marathon (please please please let BQ-minus-5:07 be enough to get in)

I am traveling for every single one. Does traveling 3 hours away to Houston count as traveling? It's only one night away from home, so I'll consider that pseudo-travel. Hotels are booked for the first three races...all of them right by the start lines. I feel totally comfortable with how everything is panning out.

Seriously, I am SO EXCITED about racing CIM. It's a net downhill course (but not as much as Boston), the weather is typically pretty good, it attracts a lot of really fast runners, and it's a top Boston Qualifier. While I do love the appeal of small marathons, sometimes you need to throw yourself in amongst thousands upon thousands of runners. I have friends that live in the Sacramento area and I'm hoping for the chance to see them as well.

I also realized that this will be the 5th capital city I will have run in. I've run races in D.C., Baton Rouge, Austin, and Nashville so far. I think that's pretty cool.

If things go as I hope they will in Sacramento, then I have an even bigger goal for Boston. I feel like I need to take advantage of where my fitness is at right now, build upon it, and really see what I can do over the course of the year. My tempo runs and speedwork have been spectacular lately. I've been running my fastest tempos ever and I am getting more comfortable on the track. I feel like my "run slow to run faster" approach worked beautifully for me this last year, so I'll continue to train like that. I just bought two of Matt Fitzgerald's books so I can continue my quest to learn as much about effective marathon training as possible. The 80/20 training method is similar to how I approached training, but with what seems like even more easy running and even bigger volume. Matt Fitzgerald explains that we are no doubt running less than 80% of our volume at a truly easy pace and that if we shift that percentage to where it should be, we'll improve our speed significantly. This is a great thing, because like I said....I HAVE BIG GOALS! 

The other book discusses the mental training necessary to be a successful marathon runner. It's never a bad thing to get mentally tougher, and vital to what I want to do.

One of my friends sent me a link to a TED talk by Eduardo Briceno titled "How to get better at things you care about." IT WAS AWESOME. He explains the difference between the Learning Zone and the Performance Zone. The most successful people (no matter what it is that they're trying to get better at) spend a lot of time in the learning zone, "doing activities designed for improvement, concentrating on what we haven't mastered yet, which means we have to expect to make mistakes, knowing that we will learn from them." We break down our abilities into components, subskills, etc, going just beyond our comfort zone until we master it. Practicing in the learning zone leads to substantial improvement, but we can't get complacent or our performance will plateau. We build our skills in the learning zone, and then apply them in the performance zone. But in order to spend more time in the learning zone, we have to do a number of things....believe we can improve, have a purpose we care about, have an idea about how to improve (deliberate practice), and not be afraid to make mistakes. Our society cultivates an attitude that we must be in the performance zone constantly (think of how schools approach teaching with letter grades and a narrow focus on what the right answer should be....versus exploring a wider thought process and giving feedback for revision and improvement). If we are afraid to get outside our comfort zone and try new things, even if we fail, we struggled, plateau, or fall behind.

It really was fascinating to listen to. I really do want to spend a lot of this year learning as much as I can about how to improve, focus on those little subskills until I can master them, pushing myself just outside my comfort zone until it becomes comfortable, and then gauging my success in the performance zone at the races I've chosen. 


Until then, however, it's all about my husband. He has his first marathon coming up in less than 5 months and he's working hard already at getting fit enough to run fast enough for a BQ. His checkpoint half marathon is on April 22, and while it might be hideously warm since it's here in Central Texas, it will still be a great gauge of his fitness before embarking upon the final three months of marathon training. We have three other friends planning on running his pace at that race (including one of the official pacers) so he will be in good company. I think the two books I bought will also serve the husband well. He has seen me train hard and knows what it takes, but I'd like him to soak up all the knowledge he can. I have no doubt about his speed. I want to make sure his mind is as strong as his body is going to be. I'm also getting super jealous of how fast he can run.

In the next 6 weeks I have three races...Texas Independence Relay on March 24-25, Cap10K on April 8, and the Wine and Roses 5K on April 22. Then I can relax a bit before real training begins in July. But these races (provided the weather isn't horribly atrocious) should give me an idea on my fitness before the awful summer months. Seriously excited about what is in store!

Tempo is King

Tempo runs HURT.

But they are so awesome and when I'm done with one, I always feel on top of the world.

A tempo run, or "threshold run," is a faster-paced workout that feels "comfortably hard." They increase our lactate threshold and metabolic fitness, and because of this, we get faster and more efficient at these faster paces. And for further understanding, and to totally steal from the Runner's World definition, I'll go into the science a little.

During tempo runs, lactate and hydrogen ions - by-products of metabolism - are released into the muscles. The ions make the muscles acidic, eventually leading to fatigue. The better trained you become, the higher you push your "threshold," meaning your muscles become better at using these by-products. The results is less-acidic muscles (that is, muscles that haven't reached their new threshold), so they keep on contracting, letting you run farther and faster. 

In order to realize this training effect, you have to put in enough time at the right effort.

On Tuesday mornings during the fall and winter, we do tempo runs of about 60 minutes. Our fearless leader, Christine, determines what paces we run based on a recent 5K race result, or something close to that. We have a short, mid, and long tempo pace assigned by her. Based on what she has assigned for me, I assume these are 5K+15 sec/mi for short tempo, 5K+30 sec/mi for mid tempo, and 5K+45 sec/mi for long tempo. One week we may do 2 miles warm up, 4 miles at short-tempo, and 1 mile cooldown, and then the next week run 1 mile warm up, 5 miles at mid-tempo, and 1 mile cooldown. Or even a progressive tempo, starting at long tempo pace and speeding up to short tempo for the last bit. Truth be told, we don't see a lot of runs only running long tempo pace.

Heartrate tends to be about 85-90% of our maximum. Perceived effort of 8 out of 10. Conversation not really possible beyond a few words here and there.

In other words....OUCH.

I truly believe these runs are exactly why I gained the confidence to try to qualify for Boston. When we first started running these back in late 2016, I thought Christine was nuts for thinking I could run those kinds of paces for so long in a mid-week workout. Then I ran a faster 5K in February and she dropped 15 seconds/mile off of my tempo paces, pushing me to run them all even faster. Currently I'm another 15 seconds/mile faster than that (because of my Turkey Trot pace in November...dang it!). But she's been right every single time. I absolutely can run these paces, for miles at a time, and still feel alive afterwards.

I still remember one particular run back in October when I ran my fastest 5 miles ever during one of these tempo runs. I averaged 8:19 pace and I remember thinking that I could absolutely run faster than that if it was a race. Four weeks later I ran the 5 mile Turkey Trot in 7:45 pace. If you had told me over the summer that I'd be doing that, I never would have believed you. But Christine totally believed in us, and she pushed us, and she was right every single time! Some Tuesday mornings were harder than others for sure, but they were all successful tempo runs.

The long run might be the bread and butter of marathon training, but if your goal is to go beyond just gaining endurance and actually want to "race" the marathon, I absolutely believe the tempo run is right up there in importance.

This past Tuesday was really the first workout I've done since the Louisiana Marathon when I could truly see the speed I had built up during peak marathon training. We ran a 1 mile warmup, 5 miles at mid-tempo, then 1 mile cooldown. My mid tempo target pace is 8:15, although that's based off my 5 mile race pace and not a 5K (I need to race a 5K soon). However, after two hard marathons, I think 8:15 was certainly an acceptable goal. Truth be told, I didn't think I could actually hit that pace but I was going to give it a good shot. The humidity was pretty brutal that morning and I know some of the other runners were struggling in it, and although I didn't really get too bothered by it, I am now wondering if I could've run even better had it been drier out. Anyway....I ended up averaging exactly 8:15/mile during that 5 miles of tempo pace. With warm up and cooldown, I ran 8:51 average for 7 miles that morning. That was my fastest Tuesday morning workout and my second fastest 5 miles I've ever run. With as tough as this recovery has been and as patient as I've had to be, I am so thrilled that I could see a glimpse of the fitness I had at peak training and that I can get that back again.

I'm telling you, tempo runs WORK. If you're not doing them, why not?