Back After a Few Off Weeks

An article by kelly    No Comments

It has been a crazy few weeks. School started and severely impacted my free time, thus slowed me to a stop on the blogging. Adjustments were made, time crunched and now I’m back to writing.

Before I continue this blog, let me take a moment to talk about time commitment to train. This is a struggle for me. As someone who has always cherished my free time, an additional 2 hours a day (one in the am, one in the pm) and all of the time surrounding travel and prep is a lot. However, when I think about what I would be doing otherwise: talking to the dog, drinking beer, reading the Sunday New York Times, or sleeping — the hit to my down time really doesn’t seem so significant. When I see returns on the time investment: reaching a goal in a race (or almost reaching that goal – more on that below), or fitting into my jean jacket from before my post-Katrina weight gain, or the overall feeling of strength – the time spent is completely worthwhile.

Now for that goal reached:

Sunday was the Rock and Roll Mardi Gras Marathon and Half-Marathon. I saw plenty of Kona members participating. At least one of the 70.3 training group ran the marathon and a few of us ran the half. After the Old Man River, I decided I wanted to take 15 minutes off my time (2:30). Last week, I was unsure if I could do it – at more than one minute per mile, it seemed a daunting challenge. Enter Coach Rick, who tells me “2:10”. Somehow I took it as a challenge, and decided, “Ok. 2:10 it is.”

A little background:

Last year’s RnR half-marathon was my first long race, and first race since high school. I trained in a very cursory manner. All I can really say is I did my long runs on Sundays. I can count the number of weekday runs I completed on one hand. On the day of the race, I took off like gangbusters – for the first 3 miles. I ended up walk-jogging the last 3 miles to finish with a time of 2:48. About 6 weeks later, I ran the Pensacola Gulf Coast Half Marathon, and had a miserable finish with a 2:40 or 2:35. I waited until the Old Man River this year to run another half and had a bit more fun, finishing it at 2:30.

This year, I set out for the start line chilled to the core of my being in the 36 degree weather. All kinds of things went wrong, from leaving my Garmin at home (and having to turn around to get it), to being unable to find the “mandatory” gear bag RnR gave us at the Expo (I used an old one and it was no big deal), to getting stuck in the portalet line and missing my corral start.

I finally started the race at 7:22. I took off a little faster than I intended, but I felt so good that I didn’t force myself to slow down until mile 7. 1 to 7 went phenomenal, 7 to 10 went pretty well and 10 to 11.5 went ok, and 11.5 to 13 was tiring. I sprinted toward the finish a little early, but still felt good at the end.

According to my Garmin, I finished in 2:11 (apparently I did some weaving) and according to the chip time, I finished in 2:12. So – I missed the goal by 2 minutes, but managed to run 18 minutes faster than my last race.

After finishing the half, I watched the finishers for the full come in. I experienced the same feeling as when I cheered on the finishers for the NOLA Half IM last year. Most runners looked so strong, many sprinted. Even those who didn’t managed to still look accomplished. Afford me a little sappiness here: every runner Sunday inspired me.

So far this week, I have done nothing. Blame it on sore muscles recovering and a design project for school due. Today I feel strong and fully recovered from Sunday. Today will bring a bike ride and perhaps even an unscheduled swim.

The rest of this week brings the usual mix of running, swimming, a long slow 10 miles and a long bike ride on Sunday, and hopefully a yoga class in there sometime (lunchtime yoga, anyone?).