Yea, May!

Ahhh, May! Spring has sprung in Denver. The grass is turning green, the chirping birds wake me up each morning, my crabapple tree in my backyard is heavy with dark pink blossoms, the Rockies are doing well on their losing streak, my blog has a fresh, new look…. I’ve been waiting for this month to arrive for about the past, oh, 4 months…..

First week back running post-Boston and my legs are moving again and feeling pretty well (heel aside). I’m doing a little bit of speed work right now; the work I’m doing isn’t to go after any 10K PR’s or anything, what I did this week is a series of short, fast drills to help combat damage I did when my Boston training was a disaster. I got me some grand plans and those plans include never repeating the pathetic condition for which I was in when I entered Boston. Yeah, I had a blast in Boston but I want to run the next race well, and that’s going to take a lot of work.

Here’s the scoop: somewhere after my little February lung and sinus fungus fiasco, I simply lost the desire to go after Boston. Sure, I’d get a few days sprinkled in the whole mix where I felt great and thought my cloud was lifted and I was rearing to go; but overall, the big picture was that I just really didn’t care enough to fight the battle. There’s personal reason behind this but I think in my mind, I didn’t really see the urge to kill myself to get into mediocre condition after being sick, so I simply didn’t try – a true energy slump. I ran Boston well last year, it wasn’t worth the fight this year. End of story.

But I miss “it” – the whole marathon training regiment. And I want it. I finally feel it, I think. Maybe Boston panning out as it did was a blessing, in a sense, because in addition to PRing a great friendship with Katie, I learned that I DO miss the conditioning and insane training and how complete and whole my body feels when it’s pushed to a fatigued state from pure marathon training. I’ve never felt as much an urgency to get home and get moving again as I did after Boston. For the most part, when I’ve completed a marathon, I return home with a feeling of disarray – something I committed many months of my life, is now over and done. “Now what?” Or worse, “Was that the end?” Being 47 and having run the vast majority of my life, you gotta reach a point somewhere where you just can’t do it any longer – and I never really know if that last marathon is it, if that’s all I have left in me. It’s not easy to crank out the miles at my age and for all the 35 years I’ve been running; I don’t recover as quickly as I used to and aches and pains are now the norm, not the exception….and I’m not the best at listening to my body when it screams, “ouch” cuz let’s face it, I never used to so I’m not programmed to do it now.

I’ve spent a lot of at the end of April thinking and I just don’t feel my heart is done yet. I may not PR a marathon any more - I’m not really sure nor do I really even care – what I want, and what I’m ready to do, is fight like heck to find out what’s left in me. My friend, Garbo, is truly a man a wisdom and wit - someone I highly admire and here is what he told me after Boston: "…..Don't go weighing that heart yet,Jill. It's nowhere near being done yet." I was ecstatic to read that comment from him, I was glad someone of his stature believed in me... it meant a lot. He’s been there before, he knows my agony….and the needy person I am, value words like this. I have revenge in Chicago (and Marcia’s in with me, right girlfriend???) and it’s time to get ready. That’s why I’m doing the speed work right now – it’s the first step in my process to transform my current state of blob, to combat the body fat that built for the past several months when I didn’t really care. Now I care, and now I’m doing something about it!

One of the best things about running is that it cuts across the crap that litters life and relationships in other areas.

Yea, I’m ready for May!

Monday and Tuesday: 30-second, high speed sprints at 4% incline, with 1 minute active recovery, and each 30 second explosive getting faster until I reached a pace of 5:52 (yikes!! How we’d love to run a marathon at that pace, eh??!!), for 25 minutes. Then 3 miles easy miles followed by 40 minutes of core training. Good stuff.

Wed: off

Thursday: 3x1 mile repeats, each getting faster (last at 7:25 so we’re not talking anywhere near where I was last fall), followed by more core work. Yah, that’s 3 days of core training, thank you very much!!!

Friday: 6.5 easy miles

Saturday: “Athletic Training” class at the gym. This class was full of speed and agility drills that left me breathless and tired. Perfect! The drills in this class are loaded in the pages of my “Brain Training for Runners” book that I love so much so I was glad I was in a class doing them, as I tend to blow these off on my own. Of course, beings I have no coordination skills whatsoever, I twisted my ankle running in and out of the tires. It’s the same ankle I twist at least 5 times a year (it seems) and it’s just one of my weak-links. It’s throbbing a little right now, but it’s okay.

Sunday: I ran a 5K. Yep, me, who can’t run 5K’s, ran one. Sole purpose was just to get in a little extra speed work in (aka: fat burning – ha). My goal was not to kill myself racing it but do it at about 10K pace so it felt “Hard yet controlled” Um, yeah, turns out it was a tad slower than 10K pace …. and it was hard. Period. There was nothing easy about it and nothing controlled. This the-worst-ever-in-my-life 5K confirmed: I’m out of racing shape!!! But that’s okay. That’s perfect actually….I have nowhere to go but up!!!! This is my starting point, and I’m ready to roll!!!!!

An update on my right heel: After running store woman scared the crap out of me with the whole, “I’m betting it’s a stress fracture….”, I bought new shoes with more cushion in them (I doubt I’ll ever wear a light-weight racer again!!) and am having less pain. Not totally pain-free, but not even close to the level of pain at which it was. I raced that lovely worst-ever 5K and did not feel my heel whatsoever!! Woohooo!!!

Me and my boys: twin #2 (Brendan) and twin #1 (Ryan) all 5K'd done!

Abbey came for the free hotdogs!

The race was "Rockies Home Run 5K" which benefited the battered women's shelter. You got to run inside the stadium on the warning track- cool, huh??

I have to brag about my friend Leslie, she raced an incredible Ironman, her stats below (note how her marathon time was faster than my Boston time....), Congrats, Leslie:
SWIM (2.4 miles) Bike(112 miles) Run(26.2 miles) Overall
1:05:47 6:40 4:13 12:09:03

And congrats to my dear friend, Shari, who PR'd and BQ's in torential rains in Cincinnati's Flying Pig!!! Shari's gone through so much personal torment lately, this victory couldn't be any sweeter!!

Remember that cool necklace that dear Tara gave me for my birthday? Her friend made that necklace and has started her business, selling some really cool running-related jewlery for us junkies. Please check her site out - I know you won't be disappointed!

http://www.thesilvermaple.com/

Week 17 2010:

Week’s Running totals
April Running Totals: 128.5

Running Total for 2010: 750.45

Weight training: 3
Athletic Training class: 1