The Many Benefits of Ignorance

Running: Track again tonight. If you recall, your heroine skipped last week's track session because of a pulled calf muscle, putting her seriously behind the eight ball.

And if you recall, the National Half Marathon is this coming Saturday (I think I've mentioned this in every post since January, so I don't know how you could not recall), so I wasn't sure if I should run track tonight or not.

But then I read D.C. Rainmaker. And he said HE was doing a track workout tonight, so of course that meant I had to. (Ray, you should really be more careful with your posts!) Because I have to keep up with a 28-year-old.

On tonight's menu was 4 x 1600 @ Interval pace with 400 recovery. For those keeping track at home, 1600=1 mile. With 1 mile warmup and 1 mile cooldown.

And away we go...

Except I had no idea what my interval pace was because I forgot to check. And as usual, there was no one there from my pace group, so I hung with B. who is in a faster pace group and said she was aiming for 9:10s. I figured I'd aim for 9:40s. I checked when I got home and it turns out...I should have been aiming for 10:15s. Ah, ignorance.

1st 1600: 9:25
2nd 1600: 9:45
3rd 1600: 9:55
4th 1600: 9:58

You might notice, as I did, that these times are going in the wrong direction. I'm pretty sure the goal is to get faster with each repeat. Sigh. This is week 10,000 of the Speed Development Program, and I would like to register an official complaint: I do not feel any faster. The other thing I don't feel are my legs. They had turned into jello by mile 4.

Who doesn't like jello??

I told my coach tonight if I didn't PR on Saturday I was gonna demand a refund. He laughed.

I'm hilarious.

The good news is 1) I went faster than I should have (I think that is good?), and b) I said at the start that I would only do 3 repeats because I could not possibly do 4 and yet? I did 4 anyway. I totally rule.

Swimming, the forgotten sport: In other news: I hired myself a swim coach. We didn't meet Sunday night, because of massive communication fail, so I got all dolled up in my speedo and ambled over to the pool for nothing, but then we DID meet Monday morning at the ass crack of dawn, and it was great!! I'd become so discouraged after all my swim clinic-ing last fall, which added 1 solid minute to my 100s, that I pretty much quit swimming. So she took a look, and guess what? It turns out that when I'm swimming? I'm not actually USING MY ARMS TO MOVE THE WATER. (I'm sure that part of the swim has a name—I just don't know what it is.) So when I swim, my form is terrific (she said), I just have no power.

Who knew? So she had me work on a bunch of stuff until my head was about to explode. You work on one thing and the other 75 parts of swimming fall to pieces. Sigh.

I told her my goal is to join the masters class/team/whatever at my YMCA. She said most masters programs want you to be able to "do 100 on the 2:00" (why must swimmers speak this way?? Why not just say "Swim 100 meters in 2 minutes"?? WHY?)

So I went swimming again this morning, by myself, and I did a gazillion drills and then swam a few 100s and I was at least under 3 minutes. Which totally sucks, but sucks a lot less than the last time I timed myself.

Germany: So...You might remember, that way back in January, our heroine hired a life coach who coached her to set some ambitious goals. And one of them was to live overseas. And Number One Daughter's BF finally got sick of hearing me say this (yes I'm writing in several voices, sue me) so he challenged me to SET A DATE and develop a plan and EXECUTE. And reminded me that I have ONE skill that many Europeans lack, that I might possibly use to earn a living: I speak English. AND, he suggested that this skill might possibly come in very handy in a country in which the main language is NOT English. Well, this led to that, and he sent me a bunch of links about living/working overseas and blah blah yada, the next thing I knew I was applying for a job as a copy editor in Germany.

P.S. I fired my life coach cuz I have NOD's BF for free.

National Half Marathon Race Report

...And then, from seemingly out of nowhere, I summoned up the strength and speed my training had been lacking all winter, to cruise through the finisher's chute in 2:20, a PR!!!

Ha ha, I got you, didn't I.

Well, the National Half Marathon is this coming Saturday, and I'm not feeling it. I'm extremely pretending that it's no big deal, that I'm not going to mind IN THE LEAST if I finish in 3 hours, that it's a training run (for what, I don't know), that my damn PF isn't actually getting worse, blah blah, etc.

Saturday was our last "group" training run. Such a pity that I started out so young and full of dreams!

Over the course of the past few months, our group (the so-called "slow" group, not that my peeps know the meaning of the word) dwindled to a total of four: our coach, two young chicks, and me. The two other chicks ran their half, the Virginia Beach Shamrock, two weeks ago. Since January, I have been gradually falling behind, slowly but surely (get it???) each week.

Saturday we were scheduled for six miles, but the two chicks who had ALREADY run their half marathons opted for 10, and I had to agree that it surely couldn't hurt me. So off we went, and as usual, I started in the middle, K and E behind me running together, and Coach in the not-too-far-ahead distance.

And as usual, around mile 3, the chicks passed me, we ran even for a while, and then, they became as tiny little dots in the distance. And then? I stopped caring about my 10-miler half-way through it. I started walking. Stretching. Talking smack to myself. You know. The USUAL. Ten miles in 2:16. I must have been going backwards for part of that.

Sunday was better. Sunday was Easter! And to make up for Saturday's misery, I dragged Number One Daughter on our annual Easter Hike on the Billy Goat Trail,


a rocky, strenuous, and somewhat treacherous hike (especially if you are carrying a NEWBORN baby on your back, like the guy in front of me was....arghhhh!)

Another guy was in shiny, tasseled loafers. No really. You would not believe what people wear to hike this trail. High heels.

We had fun.

But I still had to feed the TRI-beast. So NOD dropped me off at work, and I did my second-ever mini-brick: I rode 10 miles in 50 minutes (note to self: Self? You feel the wind a LOT more when riding. Hence, you get COLDER than when you are running. See note above about appropriate dress), froze my ASS off, and then did a 10:30 min/mile.

I will never get over what it feels like to get off a bike and then run. NEVER. Just picture yourself running with your feet in concrete. It's so funny, I think I actually laughed out loud. While trying to run. Two things that don't generally occur together in nature.

Biking is so much more fun than running. I'm sorry to say it, my running peeps, but it is. Even given the fact that after a short ride, certain, err, parts of my anatomy are, um ... not feeling so good. Good thing I've already got that daughter of mine!

In summation, for those of you following along at home:
Saturday: 10-mile crappy run;
Sunday: 2-mile hardcore hike, followed by 10-mile bike, followed by 10:30 mile run, followed by grocery shopping, followed by lasagna-making (the way my Italian father made it, with meat, AND hard-boiled eggs) in honor of NOD, even though meat is gross and I'm not doing her any favors by feeding it to her.

And that's a wrap.

Signup-itis

I am now a card-carrying member! Woot. Their New Triathlete Program opens—and closes—on Feb. 1. They can take only 125 people, and at Sunday's orientation meeting, there were probably 300+ crammed into a very small room. The club seems very well run and is apparently the largest tri club in the—well, somewhere. (I wasn't paying attention to that—I was very busy scanning the room to see if I was the oldest one there.) The goal race for the NTP is the New Jersey State Triathlon, July 27, where there's a sprint and an Olympic distance. If I'm feeling frisky, I might just try the Olympic. But July is so far away, I'll think about that later...



Also, no thanks to ACTIVE.COM, I finally got around their b.s. system and managed to sign up for the Wirefly National Half Marathon, March 29, which you just might remember, I had to qualify for.

In other news, I've been eating everything in sight. Today I brought all my food for the day to work, so I could avoid eating crap, and had finished ALL OF IT it by 1 p.m. Luckily, little miss r.p. was standing by to subtly suggest that I MIGHT NOT WANT TO KEEP ALL my food in my office.

Like, try putting it in the kitchen.

There's always tomorrow.

Sigh.

Wisdom of the Crowd

I have too many options. I need advice.

What I know for sure I'm doing:

Wirefly National Half-Marathon: Saturday, March 29 (Note to self: Remember to post RANT about active.com)

Philadelphia Sprint Triathlon, Saturday, June 21, 2008

Potentials:

St. Patrick's Day 8k, March 9, 2008 (don't ask)

George Washington Parkway 5K or 10 miler (I've done the 5k twice, would kind of like to try it again): Sunday April 22

But really the $64,000 question is: Do I have another marathon in me?

If I do try for another marathon, which one? I'd like something smallish, local(ish), and preferably? Something that won't kill me. And I definitely do NOT want a fall marathon, because I am soooo done with training in the D.C. heat. Eighteen weeks of training would put me in the first week of June. (Do I need 18 weeks of training? I fear I do.)

1. Should I attempt another marathon?

2. If so, which one?

3. If so, how to train? I want to train with a group. An organized group.

Contenders:
Potomac River Run Marathon, May 4 (Marathonguide.com reviewers call it "mentally very challenging," so that kind of predisposes me against it);

Frederick, Maryland, Marathon, Sunday, May 24

That's all I can find nearby.

Then, add this to the mix:

The D.C. Triathlon Club has an informational meeting on Jan. 27 for its New Triathlete Program. So I wrote to the organizer asking this and that, and he wrote this back

Since you mentioned the Philly Sprint I'm going to chime in - One thing about our program is that we provide a 20-week training plan that will get you through your first race. We set a goal race with that in mind which is the New Jersey State Triathlon on July 27th. The only problem with you doing Philly is that you'll be missing some of the later components of the program.

I don't want you to think that I'm discouraging you from doing NTP. What I'd like to encourage you to do is to also consider doing the NJ State Tri. You could complete Philly to get your feet wet in triathlon and then improve your time at New Jersey. Also, should you choose to do the Olympic distance at New Jersey, Philly will be an excellent race to get you prepared for your first Olympic :)

That may sound daunting to you [DAUNTING? TO ME? OH NEVER!] but I'll assure you that you can definitely do it. The program really is an awesome opportunity and we'll give you all of the resources you need to complete both races.

So an OLYMPIC TRIATHLON??? Is he serious??? Who does he think he's talking to, Nancy Toby????

So a marathon, thumbs up or down? And does that decision rest on whether or not I get up my courage for this New Jersey Olympic thing?

My head hurts.