Step down to 14 and more quinoa!

Saturday was a step down to 14 miles. I stayed with my group and focused my energy on continuous chatting around four laps of the reservoir plus bridle trail loop. Everyone found it difficult to mentally deal with the fact we had to make circle after circle, and over ground we've covered too many times already. This is where getting better at just staying in the moment is paying off. I made myself care acutely about everything that was said from the black and blue toenail war stories (a conversation to which I luckily have nothing to add) to what the men were likely doing at home (ESPN in anticipation of Sunday football, we all thought). Made it easier that I genuinely enjoy the group of women I've been running with.  Even if they laugh at my Nutrigrain bars as they whip out their Gu.

My joints felt far less pounding on the path of dirt and gravel, and I'm glad my body got this break before next week's 18 miler.  Over the run, I kicked up so much dirt that I ended up with a charcoal grey band of bridle trail above my sock line that took quite a bit of scrubbing to remove. After the shower, I crashed. I actually felt really good running, but I just fell too far behind on quality sleep over the week, and that deficit, coupled with exertion and too few calories, made me crash. Crash into a PJ-ed pile of blah for, um, the entire day.

Would love to say I woke up this morning feeling great, but I just kind of felt eh. My legs felt fine, but a migraine has been creeping up on me all day. Ah, well, at least I got the big run in.

And I took drugs, so even though I am not happy with my head, I made some healthy food to kick off the week. It's red quinoa, scallions, toasted almond slices, corn, salt and pepper, and parmesan shavings on top. And it's good.

Google image searching begins

Guess who's found an incredibly efficient mental break at work tool? And is gonna share.

These pictures get me all excited about the people who will be speeding by me and the scenery that I anticipate will have me thinking damn, good move, Kate, New York City is the place to do this.

In other news: today was cross training on the elliptical. The end. And yes, it was exactly that boring.

Just realized...

... in two months from now, I'll be done (and sore).

Bored to run

Not into it at all this morning. Not the 7am alarm, the leaving of the covers, the finding clean workout clothes, splashing cold water on my face, nor the standing at the island in the middle of Park Avenue waiting for the "locating satellite" bar display to hit the end to indicate I'd been GPS'd through the clouds.

This is the other side of the wow-I-just-ran-___- many-miles! high. The little training runs can be boring, and boring is harder to get through when getting through it isn't passive at all and I'm tired.

I thought training might end up being miserable, and this is nowhere close. Every week there's always one day that just feels like a chore, and today was it.

Tuesday tempo

I finally got a good (if short) tempo run in, but it was to count for Tuesday rather than really on it. I got back to the city yesterday evening at about seven and was out on Park Avenue by 7:45. Since I DO NOT RUN IN THE DARK WHERE I AM NOT IN EYE/EAR SHOT OF MANY NON-SCARY PEOPLE (loved ones, please reread the subtley highlighted portion), I kept to Park, running past the Armory, 324 doormen, and the Ferrari dealership (in case anyone was wondering, the location of choice for 60-70 year old male European tourists and their wives, if only to stand in the dark and peer in the windows) to Grand Central and back.

Nothing hurt or was especially sore from Saturday's outing. Between the sleep, rest day and the cool temp, I was able to run- not jog, really run, and enjoy it. The second best part: an extra hour of sleep this morning.

Stop, drop and run

I approached Saturday's 16 mile groupless run with a lot of trepidation. I focused on controlling what I could control, which ended up being mostly feeding and watering myself. A big whole wheat pasta dinner and only a single stolen sip of diet coke, and then a real breakfast of oatmeal, a good amount of water and a half cup of coffee.

A good amount of water ended up being not such a good amount of water. Five minutes in and three minutes into some "woods," I realized I had over-hydrated or under-waited before taking off. "Um, this is kind of private, right?"

Stop, drop and run.

Five minutes later:

"Now, this is totally private. Private enough."
"It's not private, it's a golf course! Are you crazy?!"
"Damn. I shouldn't have worn such bright shorts. How 'bout here?"
"Dude, are you crazy?"
"Talk to me when you've got to live with your bladder situation for another 14 miles."

Stop, drop and run.

All went smoothly from there. I chugged along, keeping to the slow but regular pace I set in the beginning. I did an excellent job of keeping my mind off the total distance of the day, the mileage left in the run and how much longer a marathon will be. I'm fine in the moment, I feel good in this moment, I'll have lots of moments that feel fine, just keep it up.

"Nutrigrain!" with the urgency of a surgeon calling for a scalpel! resulted in bar in moving hand within thirty seconds. My crew also rode ahead to check out the turns, calling them out to give warning, and allowing me to zone out and just follow rather than paying attention to to the route. I felt the conservation of mental and emotional energy from getting to be a follower. Spirits were buoyed each and every time I heard proud, strong, amazing, or great. Double points for actually sounding impressed. And the trees, golf courses, and estates kept my eyes busy and the air smelling like warmed grass.

By 14 miles, the furthest I had run before Saturday, I was working harder, but my form never suffered and I was able to pick up the pace for faster finish in the last quarter mile. A beautiful day, fun road crew and feeling the payoff of endurance training meant a good mood lasted throughout. I'm actually excited to go for 18 (after a down week, of course).

Crappy run

After a few days of feeling migrainey and generally icky, going to bed in full sweats (that's the grubby clothes and the perspiration) under down, I woke up at 7 to run. If I hadn't already skipped two days, I would have said to hell with it, but I couldn't trash the whole week. I've got to be able to physically (and mentally) get it together to run 16 miles this  weekend. Undermining either getting it togetherness is the last thing I want to do.

And just what I needed- still, hot, humid air and strong sun. Why, oh why am I doing this?! Suck it up. Another four miles down.

Our coach sent around an email last week in answer to questions for several of my group members about missing workouts. It can all be distilled into this: if you miss a day or two or a few, forget it those days and follow the program moving forward; if you miss more than that, pick up where you left off (and that means you're behind, which is apparently 'built-in' to our schedule). I am not good at being behind. Being behind makes me want to give up. I do better being ahead; then I just want to widen my margin of victory. Whatever that says about a few things I might want to work on, it's my inner workings, so, fine. I'm playing my keep-psyched-about-this mind games within those bounds.

As I do the 16 mile run this weekend on Long Island with my bike along caddy staff, the staffer better have some "you are the best runner ever"s and "oh yeah, the first ten miles are much harder than the last six"s and "you look great!"s to throw at me. In marathon training, there is no room for 'just being honest'.