Solo long runs are tough, but doable

I have yet to find running buddies, but I still need to get long runs in. It is definitely more difficult getting out the door to run several hours by myself. On Saturday, armed with a Nathan Hydration Vest, my phone and my iPod loaded with an audiobook, I set off for my third long run since moving here. 


One thing I really enjoy about Fort Collins is that it is set up very simply. It is a grid with several main roads going north/south and east/west. It is very difficult to get lost. You will eventually come upon one of the main thoroughfares and know where you are. There is also a great system of multi-use trails weaving through the city. After a brief look at a map of these trails, I had a good idea of my route.


I started out on Power Trail, a trail that runs along the railroad tracks. There are some cool murals painted on some utility boxes, but other than that, this isn't the most beautiful path I have run since moving here.

From there I ran on the Spring Creek Trail.  I have run on this trail, in some portion or another, on each of my long runs.  It runs about 7 miles east/west. My first long run I ran on the middle portion of that path and last week I ran on the western portion.  Saturday, I ran east from the Power Trail, for just under a mile, to meet up with the Poudre River Trail.


The Poudre River Trail runs along the main river in Fort Collins through the northeast part of town. It is a gorgeous path. I ran on this trail in January when I first visited the town and again in May during my house-hunting trip.

I needed to turn toward home, so when the trail hit Lemay, a major north/south road leading back to my house, I got off the beautiful trail and headed back south on the road. This last chunk of the run wasn't as pretty or pleasant as the first chunk.  It is a nice road with a good sidewalk, but the trail system really spoils me.  Why do I run on sidewalk when there are such great paths that are nowhere near traffic?


There are definitely some pretty parts of the road.  It goes next to a couple lakes, including the one below.  Honestly, I haven't really found an "ugly" part of Fort Collins!

It was a long, HOT sixteen miles. I still haven't fully acclimated to the elevation. I take more walk breaks than I ever have. I am not sure if I would push through those urges to walk if I were running with someone else.  Probably. My pace is SO much slower than it had been. I have two months to get rid of those walk breaks and speed up that pace.


I am happy that I got my long run in as scheduled. It wasn't pretty, but I did it. It can only get better.  


I hope your long runs went well this weekend.   Happy Running!

Taper for Hood to Coast? NOT!

I know that some of my teammates might be taking it easy this weekend in preparation for some tough runs later this week. No easy run for me--I had a twenty mile run on my schedule.

I am training for my sixth marathon. One thing that doesn’t change is that twenty miles is still a very long way. It may sound crazy, but it is those super long runs that fill me with dread and terror I like the best. I get pretty impressed with myself.  In fact, last night at a family get-together, I heard myself say, “more pasta? why yes…because I am running twenty miles tomorrow” and “oh, no salad for me, I am running twenty miles so I don’t need the extra roughage.”  TMI?  Probably, but runners get it.* By the end of the night, everyone knew I had twenty miles on the schedule.  It is not like it is the first time, but damn it…it is impressive and I wanted my loved ones to know. Does anyone else feel like telling everyone when you run a significant amount of miles?

I was concerned this week when our schedule was turning out that I couldn’t run with the group for the long run. I have done plenty of long runs by myself. In fact, I have trained for two marathons pretty much on my own.  But I have been spoiled this year and rarely run by myself. I put a plea out to my facebook friends for someone to run at least part of my run with me.  The thought of running 3+ hours on my own was a bit overwhelming.  One of my friends, Angela, made a comment that if I didn’t live so far away, she would join me for 10 miles.  Ummm…I am totally willing to drive a half hour to run with a friend.  Ironically, Angela and I have never run together.  She and I are colleagues through Body Back. She told me she was nervous that she would slow me down.  When I heard about her 3:51 marathon and 1:41 half marathon I thought I would slow her down.  It didn’t take long before we were running, talking and going at a perfect pace for both of us!**

Before I knew it, we had chatted away the entire ten mile loop.  Isn’t that the best thing about good running friends?  A long run doesn’t seem so long anymore.  And had she been ready for it, I think we could have run the second loop without having much of a lull in conversation.  It was a great start to my long run.

After saying goodbye, I headed off to run the same loop again. We were at Newport’s Back Bay, which I always love. I didn’t notice the scenery much the first time since we were chatting so I turned my music on and really enjoyed the route.  It wasn't as fun as the first half, but I was feeling great!

Around mile 14, my IT band started bugging me.  I stopped at miles 15 and 18 to stretch.  It helped, but the pain was a good reminder that I need to roll my IT band every day. 

The last few miles were getting painful.  Between IT/knee discomfort and the regular hip-to-toe pain that comes with a really long run, I was ready to be done.  I wanted to see if I could kick up my pace again. I sped up for the last mile.  It felt like sprinting, but I was able to run mile 20 at a 8:32 pace!!  That is 10 seconds or so faster than my marathon goal pace. I am not sure if I could keep that up for a long time, but at least I knew I had it in me.

I finished. I was done. My legs hurt all over, but I was pretty happy with myself. Once again, I had that familiar desire to stop a random stranger and tell them I just ran twenty miles.  I didn’t, but I wanted to.  Oh…and I ran it about 30 seconds faster than marathon pace. I’m a happy girl.



So now that my first twenty miler is in the can for this training cycle, I will be back to my regularly scheduled obsessing about Hood to Coast.  Did I mention that it is in five days??

Happy Running...


*And even without the extra “roughage” I still had to stop at a bathroom!  Ugh…more TMI.
**We ran just over 9 minute miles, which is a bit faster than I had planned, but it did wonders for my confidence.

1000

Last weekend I hit 1000* miles for 2010.  That is pretty amazing considering the fact that I hit the 1000 mile mark the last week of the year in 2009.  I am almost full four months ahead of last year!

I still haven’t busted the fifty mile week yet, but I have been close (forty-seven).  However, I ran 171 miles in the month of August, a new personal best!  I think September might shape up to be a monster mileage month as well.  I ran twenty-six miles this weekend** and have a couple more twenty milers scheduled.  We’ll see how it goes.

I am enjoying a higher mileage training plan. With my high-mileage plan, I can run with my friends and not worry about pace.  I can run one day at twelve-minute-miles with the girls and another at a tempo pace under race pace.  It really works for me and gives me a higher level of flexibility.  I know my way involves a good bit of “junk” miles, but these “junk” miles are good for my mental state as much as anything and I don’t want to give them up.  As Long Beach Marathon approaches, I am adding more quality miles to my weekly total.
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In the interest of getting some of those quality miles, I did my first track workout in a very long time.  Since Marci and I both hadn’t done speedwork yet this training cycle, we started “easy.”   But there is nothing easy about 800m intervals on the track.  We were aiming for something around 3:45 for 800m using Yasso as the guideline.  I also had my friend Nadine’s FIRST pace for these intervals,*** which is 3:33.  We did four 800m repeats at 3:24, 3:28, 3:38 and 3:26.  Not bad!  We walked/jogged our recovery for 400m, but I think I want to reduce that to 200m this week.  I think it was just a bit too long (although, at the time, I didn’t think so). Our goal is to work up to eight or ten repeats in the next several weeks.

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On Saturday, I ran 20 miles at Newport’s Back Bay.*** It was a gorgeous morning and the weather was perfect.  The Back Bay is a great place to run.  I ran with my friends and we took it pretty easy.  In fact, our pace was so relaxed that at one point I was worried that running close to two minutes faster during the marathon would be impossible.  I decided to run my last two miles at race pace or faster.  It was good timing, since Joan was ready to switch to run/walk.  Kelly and I took off and I gradually kicked it into another gear.  I felt great.  By mile 19, I was feeling in a zone.  I really turned it on, because I still had a lot left.  I ran my last mile in 7:58 and it was a HUGE confidence booster.  I was thrilled that I could finish a twenty mile run with 10k speed.

I did stop right around nineteen miles, however, for a minute or two.  There were some people gathered looking at something.  There was some sort of animal on the trail about twenty feet from the bike path.  I was expecting a coyote, but was surprised to see at bobcat!  Apparently, she is a known resident of the bay and is named Babe.  I thought she was pretty cool!



I knock on wood that my running continues like this.  I feel good.  I feel strong.  I’m having fun.  What more can I ask for?  I hope the next 1000 miles are just as enjoyable.

Happy Running…

*I hit 1000 miles on September 5
**20 miles on Saturday and 6.2 miles this morning.
***My friend, Nadine, did the FIRST program earlier this year when she qualified for Boston, which has three high quality runs per week.  It doesn’t allow for deviation in the plan, though.
****This is the stomping grounds for fellow blogger, Glenn.

Another great long run

On Saturday, I wanted to knock out an eighteen mile run.  I also wanted to run with my friends.  Kelly wanted to stay close to home because she had to be done early for family obligations (which also meant that she didn’t have time to run eighteen miles).  We decided to run our favorite route on the Santiago Creek trail to Irvine Park and add Peters Canyon to make it long.  When mapping it out, I decided to invite all my runner friends of various abilities, since there were various places for people to drop out.

Nine people showed up to the run at an early 5:30 meetup time!  I was so excited.  We had people running six, eight, fourteen and eighteen miles.  I was the only one running eighteen, so I made sure to have my music with me for those last lonely miles.  We also had various paces.  The group naturally fell into pace groups of two or three people.

I ran the first part with Shannon and Stacey.  It was their first time running the creek and there are confusing turns in order to get to the trail heading out to Irvine Park.  I didn’t want them getting lost.  They run at a relaxed pace, a bit slower than I like to run my long runs, but it was a very pleasant way to warm up.

About four miles into it, as we were running around Irvine Park, I decided that I needed to make sure that I knew where Kelly, Marci and Kristen were.  They were running fourteen and since Shannon and Stacey were only doing six or so miles, I wanted to keep the others in my sights.  Shannon and Stacey urged me to go ahead.  They knew how to get to the parking lot where Stacey and I had dropped off her car.  They would be fine for the last few miles.  So I ran ahead with Rod*, who had run back to check on Lori and Heidi behind us.

I caught up with Kelly, Marci and Kristen and ran with them down to and around Peters Canyon.  Our pace increased from just under 12:00 for the first four miles to under 10:00 (except for the mile with two big hills in Peters Canyon) for the next several miles.  We opted not to do the BIG hills in Peters but hills, in general, are unavoidable there.

One of the best things about running with Marci is that we can push each other well.  Our paces are very similar and I am excited to run the Long Beach Marathon with her.  She was running up the last big hill in Peters Canyon and I ran right alongside her.  I could tell we both wanted to run to the top.  It was great pushing myself like that, even if it was for a short hill. Kelly and Kristen followed behind us.  We stopped at the top to drink some water, catch our breath and enjoy the scenery.

Kelly and Kristen cresting the hill

Marci enjoying the view

At this point, it was right about mile thirteen.  Their cars were at the Albertsons parking lot about a half mile (uphill) away.  We got to the cars and the three of them headed home.  I still had over four miles to go.  I decided to run into Irvine Park to refill some water.  Even though the temperature was perfect, I had consumed most of the water I had carried with me.

We had all hoped to see wildlife during the run.  In the past, we have seen deer, coyotes and even a couple skunks.  The only wildlife spotted was during the solo section of my run.
I probably saw a dozen peacock.  I had never seen so many together.  They were like a flock…and I didn’t think they were flock birds.  This was about half of them hanging around this parking lot in the park.  Crazy.

The last five miles of my run went by quickly.  My pace was all over the place due to the hills and terrain, but I was able to run mile sixteen at a 9:00 pace.  I felt really good and didn’t feel much fatigue until about mile seventeen.  By that time, I was on the trail back to the car and I knew I was almost done.

I ended up running 18.69 miles at a pace of 10:30 per mile.  Having the run broken into three distinct sections** really helped to make it seem less like a long run.  In fact, this was my favorite run in a while (replacing last week’s long run).

I took yesterday off, but easily could have run.  I think I might add a Sunday recovery run into my plan.  I ran six miles today and felt good.  I am happy with how I am recovering from these long runs.  I don’t remember enjoying them quite this much the last go-around.  I am excited for the rest of the training cycle.

Happy Running….

*Rod only ran between six and eight miles that day.  Normally, he would have run the entire run with me.
**1st—Shannon and Stacey 2nd—Marci, Kelly and Kristen, 3rd—solo.

Top of the World

I love the part of marathon training when you start to do those really long runs.  Those long runs that very few people ever do.  I always feel a sense of accomplishment when I run over fifteen miles.  It is something that I never ever thought I could do.  A half marathon was something I could envision, something I could imagine myself doing.  But I never thought of myself as a marathoner—until I actually was one.  Sometimes I still can’t believe that I can run that far on a regular basis.

Last week, Rod told Kelly and I that we were in charge of the long run on Saturday*.  I loved finding new long runs in San Diego, but I am still somewhat unfamiliar with Orange County.  But I took on the challenge.  I wanted something coastal in case it was hot.  I did some searching online and found some possibilities.  I decided to run in the Aliso and Wood Canyons Wilderness Park to the “top of the world.”  It was an out-an-back with options for shorter loops—perfect for a group with different mileage goals.

It was the right choice.  The weather was perfect.  It was actually a bit chilly when we started around 5:45.  The marine layer was in and looked like it would stick around for a while.  I met up with Rod, Lori, Kelly and Heidi.  Heidi and Lori ran at a slower pace and ran eleven miles while Rod, Kelly and I did over seventeen.

The trail starts out as a blacktop road (or you can run alongside the road on a trail).  We noticed that it headed downhill a bit and even commented on it.  The significance of the early decent did not hit us until several hours later.

Where the main trail branches off, about 1.5 miles from the parking lot, there was a porta potty.  We stopped for a bit and then headed off into the canyon.  Here, the trail was dirt.  It was a nice, wide and as we would later discover, heavily traveled trail.  It is well marked with trail signs and mile markers.  It started to gradually climb.  We passed an old sheep corral, some caves and crossed a couple of streams.  It was a lovely trail that I really enjoyed.

A few miles in, the trail turned up to the left.  And when I say up, I mean UP.  This is called Cholla Trail and is very popular with mountain bikers (as we would later discover).  Cholla Trail was a very steep single track.  We walked a good bit of the steepest parts.  Rod is like a mountain goat and ran most of the trail.  Kelly’s and my shorter legs couldn’t scramble up the slope quite as well.  I tried to run as much as I could, but I also knew that we had a long way to go; we had only run about five miles.
At the top of Cholla, we hit the West Ridge Trail.  It went along the ridge line in rolling hills.  It was still overcast in the low 60’s—is it really July??  While the weather was perfect for running, I was a little disappointed that I never got a glimpse of the ocean, although I knew it was there.  It’s ok.  The ocean will always be there, but great runs won’t be.  I’ll take that great run over the view of the ocean any day.

When we hit the park at the “top of the world,” we had only run a little over seven miles (although mapmyrun.com told me it would be closer to eight).  We ran into the hills of Laguna Beach for a bit to get additional miles.  I knew that I wanted to get the extra mileage in the middle instead of trying to pull it out in the end.

The weather was still overcast and even a little foggy.  We stopped at the high point of the trail and took some pictures.


We started our descent.  For some reason my brain was convinced that it was downhill all the way.  Oh, how we forget those sporadic downhills on an uphill climb.  Well, I certainly noticed them on the way back.  That rolling ridgeline had quite a few steep hills.

Then we hit that steep Cholla trail.  We knew we only had a little over five miles left and our spirits were high.  I was actually feeling great.  By this time, the trail was full of people.  On the way up, we only saw a couple of people.  On the way down, we saw dozens.  The trail was obviously very popular with mountain bikers.  I knew that from my online research, but am not sure I expected so many bikers.  Luckily, they were all coming up while we were running down.  If it were the other way, there might have been some danger on the single track trail.  We would see the bikers with plenty of time and move to one side or the other, giving them room.  I know from experience how tough it is on a mountain bike if you have to stop on a steep uphill, so I wanted to give them space.

That downhill section was the highlight of my day.  I felt like I was flying.  I let gravity carry me and picked a line and went for it.  I even said, “Weeeeeeeee.”  Rod took it a little more conservatively to save his knees, but Kelly and I went for it with abandon.   It was so much fun!!

The next few miles were a blur.  There were a ton of people on the trail.  This reassured me that if we were ever to run this trail and get split up, it would be a safe trail.  There were more mountain bikers, a few hikers and several running groups.  I think there was a high school team as well.   As we approached the end of the dirt trail, Kelly started falling behind.  She urged us to go ahead so she could take a few walk breaks without feeling guilty.  Rod and I obliged and ran ahead a bit.  Sometimes Rod would run ahead of me.  We were all running our own pace during this part of the run (probably around mile 15).  It was at this point that the sun started coming out.
We backtracked a bit to check on Kelly.  She was doing well and told us to run ahead.  She told us that she would continue to run, but for us to run to the car and come back and get her at the parking lot (we had parked a bit further down the road at a strip mall).  This was the last mile and a half or so and that easy downhill that we didn’t give much thought to early that morning seemed endless.  It was a slight uphill on a blacktop road and the sun was out fully. 

I was ready to be done and pushed the pace a bit.  The last two miles or so were the fastest of the day.  I ran mile 17 at 9:11.  The last .72 was run at a 8:41 pace!  I was very tired at the end, but felt GREAT.  It was probably the best run I have had in months.  Heidi and Lori were waiting for us at the end (they had run eleven miles).  Heidi commented that she had never seen me that out of breath and sweaty.  It was exactly how I wanted to feel.  We ran 17.72 miles in just over three hours**.  That is around 10:20 per mile for a hilly trail!!  Go us!

It was a tough run, but one of my favorites.  It was a beautiful trail, which is a nice change from pavement.  Almost all of my long runs during my previous marathon training has been on roads, sidewalks and bike paths.  Changing it up and running the long ones on the trails is going to help me avoid long run burnout.  I am looking forward to the next one!!

Elevation profile for Saturday’s run.

* It has been such a crazy week that it has taken me almost an entire week to write about Saturday’s run!  Bad blogger!!
**We figured that Kelly ran right about seventeen miles.  That is AWESOME!!

A carcass, a long run and a small world…

I had a long run planned for Saturday.  It was the first really long run in a while.  Ironically, even though I have been putting in a lot of miles lately, I haven’t run anything longer than thirteen miles in months.  In fact, since my last half marathon on June 5, the longest run I have done is ten miles.  So sixteen miles was a big jump for me. I was actually a little nervous.

I had a very fitful night’s sleep.  I was alone in the house as my husband was out of town and my kids were spending the night with their cousin, so I could run early.  I can’t remember the last time, if ever, I was alone in the house at night.  Around 1:30 a.m. the cat started meowing loudly.  I woke up to check on her.  This meow sounded like her hunting triumph and I expected to see her with her prey.  She was just looking at me….no prey in her claws.  I checked her bowl and it was empty, so I assumed that she was just hungry.  Feeling guilty for letting it run out, I opened up a special can for her and went back to bed.

A few hours later, I woke up without my alarm (which I had set incorrectly) about 20 minutes later than I would have liked.  As I walked into the living room, I saw what I should have seen earlier—a dead RAT.   Arrrrgggghhhhh.  Damn cat!  What is worse is that she brought that thing through the dog/cat door IN.MY.ROOM.  Ack.  The worst thing is that when I didn’t see it in the middle of the night, I rewarded her with some canned food!!!   She thinks she brought me a prize.  One thing you have to know about me is I. HATE. DEAD. CRITTERS.  I can deal with poop, puke etc.  I can unclog a stopped up toilet and clean up after a sick kid.  I cannot deal with the carcass of a dead rodent.  It gives me chills just writing this.  So here I am, alone in the house with my husband five hours away.  I HAD to deal with this before leaving for my run.  If I left it a) the cat would eat it (shudder) or b) it would start to smell.  I grabbed the pooper scooper from the back yard and psyched myself up enough to roll the thing onto the poop shovel and heave it over the back wall into the common area where a vulture or something would take care of it (or the HOA gardeners…LOL).  That threw my pre-run routine out the window.  I didn’t get to eat my English muffin with peanut butter.  I think that affected me later.

We finally made it down to the Huntington Beach pier around 6:20 (Kelly had issues in the morning, as well).  I was really tired and not feeling great, but I was looking forward to the run along the ocean.  As we started out, I felt great.  It was an absolutely gorgeous morning.  We ran south along the beach toward Newport.  We were running around a 9:30 pace for quite a ways.  After a while (around six or seven miles, I think) I noticed that Kelly was having a harder time talking.  I knew that keeping up that pace would wear her out sooner than she wanted.   I was getting a bit tired, so I decided to slow a bit.  We let the guys go on ahead while we slowed down.

We turned around at eight miles, which meant going into the neighborhoods of Newport/Balboa after the boardwalk had ended.  Kelly wanted to make sure we went that far instead of trying to make up the rest at the end after the pier.  She knew that once we got back to the pier, she would be done.  It turns out, running out to eight miles out is the only way I would have run sixteen as well.  I would have stopped well short of that point had I reached the pier before sixteen miles.
   
I had run out of Gu and grabbed random fuel from a box in my pantry where I keep samples etc. for the run that morning.  I ate an Accel Gel around 5 miles, which did not taste particularly good.  It is way too sweet and I had to gag it down.  Around ten miles, I needed something else.  I had a pack of Clif Shot Bloks that I had received in a race bag.  It was pina colada flavored.  According to Kelly, it was the color of urine.  Mmmm….appetizing.  And it tasted like sunscreen!  I choked down two or three bloks and couldn’t eat any more.  YUCK!


Around mile 14, I was starting to drag and really just wanted to be done.  Kelly was feeling the same way.  She kept falling behind a little bit more.  I would slow down or stop and wait.  Finally, when we got on the path along PCH, she told me to go ahead.  She was fine, but she wanted to take it easy and she wanted me to finish strong.  I admit, I was wanting to push my pace a little to see if my legs could pick it up while feeling so tired.  The bike path was teeming with beach goers by this point, so it wasn’t like I was leaving her alone.  I decided to go ahead and run the last two miles at or near my marathon goal pace.  I was able to run under 9:00 miles and finished with the last part being closer to 8:30.  I am glad that I can push it even when I am under-fueled and over-tired.

Kelly came in a little bit later and we all went to Jamba Juice for post-run smoothies.  I added a protein boost to help me recover.  The rest of the group stayed at the beach for a bit, but I needed to get back to my kids.  My brother only has one child, so I know that three is a big change in their house and I didn’t want to take advantage.

Later that afternoon, I realized that, while I finished the run strong, it may have been my limit for that day.  I was worthless for the rest of the day.  I couldn’t get anything done.  I was exhausted.  My kids watched movies and vegged with me (I didn’t earn the Mother of the Year award that day). I laid down and took a nap.  I did manage to cook some dinner for all of us and then went to bed early.  I tell my clients that if you feel wasted and tired several hours after a workout, you did too much.  Hmmm…. maybe I did too much?  Luckily, I felt back to normal Sunday and had a great recovery run on Monday.  No harm done.

************************************************************************

So the day before my long run, I had one of the most incredible small world stories happen to me*.  I went to the beach with the kids along with Kelly and her kids.  We all piled in one car and drove to Corona del Mar, a great little beach with a nice easy surf for the kids. 

Because of a ridiculous amount of traffic caused by opening day of the fair, we didn’t get down there until well past noon.  The beach was already pretty crowded.  We found an empty spot, right in front of a man and his kids.  After spreading the blanket and getting some food from the cooler, I did a double take after glancing at the man.  He looked exactly like one of my blog buddies, LB from Muddy Runner!

I’ve seen plenty of pictures of him and know him through his blog.  I was 90% sure it was him.  Once he put on his Mud Run t-shirt, I was convinced.  I said to him, “excuse me, do you have a blog called Muddy Runner?”  He looked at me incredulously.  I said, “I’m Lisa from Discovering the Meaning of Stonehenge.**  He said something like, “what are the odds??!!”  Seriously.  There were thousands of people down at the beach that day.  What ARE the odds?

It was cool to see him and talk to him and put a voice with the blog.  I saw his little girls that he writes about, although they were playing in the ocean the entire time I was there.   We had waved to each other at Surf City, but have not crossed paths again, even though we live and run relatively close to one another (especially when I consider how far away some of my blog friends are).

Check out the pictures to get a picture of how crowded the beach was.  To put my blanket down right next to LB's is unbelievable.  I love fun coincidences!

 It was a fun and crowded day at the beach.

Happy Running....

*however, nothing will ever top my best small world story.  Read it here.
**I am really thinking about changing the name of this blog.  It is quite a mouthful.