Monday, October 29, 2018

I am my own coach...for now

Do I use a coach? I have had many people ask me this, and many people suggested I hire a coach when I talked about wanting to qualify for the Boston Marathon.

No, I don't use a coach. I am my own coach. I have all sorts of reasons for making this choice.

I have been coaching runners both professionally and as a volunteer for about 8 years. I became RRCA certified nearly six years ago and briefly had my own business. My volunteer duties with a local running club ended a few years ago but have been sporadically coaching runners on my triathlon team through our group workouts. I dissolved my business officially last year. I am a full time mom to two high needs teenagers and decided to dissolve my business and instead focus on their needs. Keeping the business did not seem necessary and I knew that down the road, I could always restart that career. The volunteer duties are at my discretion and that works well for me. I also spend some time advising friends on their running and goals and I always enjoy those talks.

I was an ok coach for a bit, and I was actually coached by others during my early marathon pursuits. But I remained a poor marathoner as compared to shorter distances. I absorbed all the knowledge from my RRCA course, tried to listen to others (good and bad advice, unfortunately), and continued to study training methods over the years. I went through a difficult couple of years medically that set me back in my marathon pursuits and took a couple years off from the distance.

In 2016 when my health started on an upswing and I felt like I could give the marathon distance another chance, I decided that I didn't just want to get better, but I wanted to become a good enough to go to Boston. Fortunately, for the 2019 race I'd be aging up and get another 10 minutes added to my qualifying standard, so my target timeframe became September 2017 to September 2018, the qualifying window for the 2019 Boston Marathon.

I had a lot of work to do. I had never taken heart rate training seriously, and few in my training circle had ever really suggested it. I vaguely had an idea of my training zones, but honestly wasn't comfortable with the idea of taking it as easy as the heart rate plans suggested. Training a minute or more over my marathon goal pace? That was a tough pill to swallow for my ego, even though I knew that was what I was "supposed" to do. What I always thought felt like easy pace was always too fast, and it took me a long time to realize this. Hence, why I was a crappy marathoner. When you are in big group settings and being pushed by others, it becomes very difficult to tune that out and do what you know is right for YOU. Having never been a runner until I was well into my 30's, I hadn't learned discipline yet and it took me forever to shut out the noise. Honestly, I needed to tune everything out and get into my own head, on my terms.

I didn't want to hire a coach. I wanted to do this on my own. I wanted to work around my own schedule, to be able to still train a couple times per week with my triathlon group, to analyze my own data without prying eyes, and frankly, I wanted to see if I could do it. I realize this sounds incredible stubborn, and I was incredibly stubborn.

Plus? Coaches are expensive and my family did not need another expense. Remember those high needs kids? One of them has needs that are quite expensive and that was way more important to me than anything else. I could coach myself for free, and I liked that.

If I failed, I'd suck it up and hire a coach.

In the meantime, I spent the rest of 2016 getting to know "heart rate training." It was a process and I was ok with it that first year. My body responded well, I had a good half marathon that October that told me I was going in the right direction. Unfortunately, I had not been able to completely control my asthma, and struggled in warm and humid weather considerably. My January 2017 marathon was very warm and humid and I had no choice but to take it easy during that race. I was very fearful of going into an asthma attack. But, I was happy with my race, although it was 40 minutes over what I would need later that year in order to qualify for Boston and 18 minutes over my PR set in 2014.

Meanwhile, I continued to read as much as I could, to pour over article upon article about training as smart as possible and adding in volume and getting my head right so I could believe I was capable of reaching a very crazy goal.

In April I changed up my diet and ended up losing 18 pounds by December, and 23 if you go back to my health issues from 2015. I was as lean as I'd ever been and stronger than I'd ever been. My asthma was being controlled better through some treatment changes on the advise of my doctor, and this was a really big deal.

I never relented in my pursuit and to do it ON MY TERMS. This isn't something that everyone can do. Many people need an accountability partner in order to stick to a plan AND I TOTALLY GET THAT. This was very hard on some days, and many times I wanted to just skip a run and sleep in, or to cheat on my nutrition plan, or not do that speed work. Many, many times I struggled.

But every time I looked in the mirror, and every time I analyzed my run data, I saw the vast improvement and it continued to spur me on to keep going.

I wrote a really tough training plan (for me). But I was disciplined when needing to run really easy, and frankly I started to love these easy runs. To not worry about hitting a certain pace felt so freeing to me. I didn't have to feel embarrassed at the time on my watch. It made sticking to the hard days a little bit easier and those hard days were getting better and stronger and I was getting much faster. I did leave one run per week in the hands of my triathlon club leader (on Tuesdays, we did either intervals or tempo runs) and she gave me the paces I needed to run. I sometimes thought she was crazy for saying I could run that fast, but her faith in me pushed me to do it. I'm not sure I would've had that same discipline without her. Christine remains a huge reason why my I developed my confidence.

I spent a lot of time working on my mental strength. While you do feel the physical effects of the distance as you enter your last hour of the race, most of the struggle truly is in your head. I knew that I needed to silence my doubt so I read as much as I could on the subject and felt much more mentally tough heading into my race season.

Writing my own training plan and being accountable to myself worked so well (thank God!) and I succeeded in my goal to qualify for Boston. My qualifying race gave me a 28 minute PR, and I ran it 46 minutes faster than the year before. I squeaked into Boston.

During this last year, I also ended up coaching my husband. He basically used the same plan that I had used, even though it was actually his first marathon. He wanted to BQ, too. He succeeded but unfortunately didn't make the cutoff to run Boston (9 damn seconds!!). This told me that how I was approaching training was working, that I had come up with a really good formula, and that I would stick to it.

I do believe that if I hadn't become injured (pulled muscle from strength training aggravating by interval running), I would have had a pretty good shot at setting a new PR at my planned December 2 marathon. I was running well through the summer, despite the horrid weather that just wouldn't go away. I tweaked the plan a bit to make it higher volume and a little more intense and I was getting through it, although there were definitely still times I wanted to sleep in instead of run. I'm very disappointed I had to pull the plug on my races and I'm basically starting over as I ease back into running after a four week layoff.

So there you have it. I am my own coach. I experimented with it and took a big chance that between my plan and my triathlon team leader's guidance, I could improve enough. Will I hire a coach in the future? Maybe! But right now, this works for me and I enjoy the challenge. We are all individuals and with different needs as runners, and what works for one person may be bad for another person. Only we can decide that for ourselves.

We make a great team!




Monday, October 22, 2018

Defining a Different Goal

I'm so glad that as far as injuries go, mine is pretty minor. I didn't tear anything (we don't think), I don't need surgery, it's not going to keep me sedentary for long. Unfortunately, pulling your hamstring isn't a quick fix, so it certainly derailed my training considering it happened in my build up before my December 2 marathon. I could have continued to train through it, but it would be with pain on every run and it could have led to a torn hamstring, which is a brutal injury. Rather than being dumb, I chose to be extremely cautious and totally stopped running. In the past four weeks, I have only run four times. The first run a few days after the injury was a test run and with it came pain in every step. It gave me a lot of good data to pass on to my doctor, however, so it wasn't without positives. I tried again weekend before last but within a few minutes I knew it would be a very short run. Then this past weekend I finally feel like I had a breakthrough, with a good 3 mile run with minimal pain, and then a four mile run with no pain this morning (although my hamstring is a little bit achy afterwards). My last real quality run was on September 25 and I've missed 200 miles of training runs.

I have focused on physical therapy, upper body strength, core strength, and have thrown in a little swimming. I never really knew how difficult being sedentary would be for me, but I don't do well without a physical activity routine and the mental health therapy that goes along with the long hours of running. It's a part of me. I don't subscribe to the "running is life" mantra that a lot of endurance athletes tout on social media, but I really do miss it. I'm glad that I have other activities that I can do, although the hours of cardiovascular work can't be duplicated. My endurance gains are definitely going to be gone by the time I get back into it! My four miler this morning wasn't all that easy compared to pre-injury days.

So how does my leg feel? I was surprised that I didn't feel my hamstring during my run today. I'm expecting a little discomfort as it continues to heal. There is tightness in my posterior chain and that will need to be continually worked on. I am acutely aware of any twinge that I feel. Thankfully I have so many exercises that I can do to work on my deficiencies and I am doing them every single day.

So now that I have had to defer my October 28 half marathon and December 2 marathon, I will need to forge a new path to Boston on April 15. Now that I know I'm okay to start regularly running, I will need to rewrite my training plan and basically start from scratch. I'm hoping I will see some glimmer of leftover cardiovascular endurance soon. It's crazy how fast we can lose that fitness, however. I won't be running consecutive days for a little bit longer, and I need to build up my weekly mileage slowly.

In 13 weeks I have the Aramco Houston Half Marathon. That should be plenty of time for me to get into shape to race and I absolutely LOVE that race. I have several friends racing both the half and the full so I expect it to be lots of fun. Twelve weeks later is Marathon #15!!

I'm a believer in things happening like they should no matter how painful the path may become. I made it to Boston by a mere 15 seconds, it will be 15 months between marathons for me, it will be my 15th marathon, and it's on the 15th of April. I'll take a 15 second PR that day! Or maybe it'll be 15 degrees out? (only if it's 15 Celsius) Yes, I know I'm weird.

Tuesday, October 2, 2018

Big Fat Change of Plans

You know what sucks? Bad news on top of bad news.

So....I'm injured. I pulled my hamstring....and did quite a number on it. If you've ever pulled your hamstring you know that the recovery time pretty much sucks and it's a long process. It can plague you for MONTHS if you don't let it properly heal. There's a small possibility there's a small tear in it (not likely) but the treatment is the same regardless. REST. REST. REST.

I've battled with my head repeatedly in the last week on whether I'm going to fight through this, hope to be back to running sooner rather than later, and still be able to salvage my 2018 racing season.

Yeah....NOPE.

I'm going to rip the bandaid off and say that I'm officially out of the Houston Half Marathon and the California International Marathon. In reality, I need to absolutely rest my hamstring if I want it to be back to normal in time to ramp up my training again for the Boston Marathon. Fighting through this is simply not worth it when I look at the big picture. CIM is only 61 days away. I simply do not have the time to rest and then be back in the right shape to run a good marathon. I do not want to toe the line just to finish this race and then potentially be back at square one because I re-injure myself.

On the bright side, I can defer both races to 2019 for a minimal charge. The husband *may* even have said something about "should we run CIM together next year?" I may hold him to that!

It was a super crappy week last week, first with me getting injured and seeing just how serious it was, and then finding out the cut-off for Boston was 4:52, leaving Greg off the official entry list. What a freaking rollercoaster of crap.

The good news is that I booked flights on points, so it's easy to cancel. My hotel can be canceled for no penalty. Even better? We are actually heading to that area two weeks before CIM because a friend is getting married (best news I've gotten in the past week!!). So while I'm canceling one flight, I'm booking another! I can still hopefully squeeze in a little time with the friends I'm not able to see for CIM.

Even better news? I just happened to look at flights for Boston. They were so stupid unbelievably cheap that I booked those, too. I was flight booking crazy this morning.

This is not how I envisioned ending 2018. I was having a pretty great training season, despite being sick of the icky weather. I felt strong and was very much looking forward to running a race like California International Marathon. I wanted to requalify for Boston with the new, tightened 2020 standards. I wanted to test my speed on 10/28 in a half marathon in Houston. I was even going to race a 10 miler this coming weekend. It's hard to let go of three races just like that.

I still have the Aramco Houston Half Marathon on January 20 to look forward to. That was my "A race" half marathon anyway. I should be well on my way to being back to normal by then if I play my cards right now.